Global geospatial data from Earth observation: status and issues

Data covering the whole of the surface of the Earth in a homogeneous and reliable manner has been accumulating over many years. This type of data became available from meteorological satellites from the 1960s and from Earth-observing satellites at a small scale from the early 1970s but has gradually...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of digital earth 2017-04, Vol.10 (4), p.328-341
Main Authors: Dowman, Ian, Reuter, Hannes I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Availability
Covering
Datasets
Earth
Earth observation
Earth surface
Global
Reliability
Scaling up
Small scale
Space surveillance
Spatial data
standardisation
validation
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Summary:Data covering the whole of the surface of the Earth in a homogeneous and reliable manner has been accumulating over many years. This type of data became available from meteorological satellites from the 1960s and from Earth-observing satellites at a small scale from the early 1970s but has gradually accumulated at larger scales up to the present day when we now have data covering many environmental themes at large scales. These data have been used to generate information which is presented in the form of global data sets. This paper will give a brief introduction to the development of Earth observation and to the organisations and sensors which collect data and produce global geospatial data sets. Means of accessing global data sets will set out the types of data available that will be covered. Digital elevation models are discussed in a separate section because of their importance in georeferencing image data as well as their application to analysis of thematic data. The paper will also examine issues of availability, accuracy, validation and reliability and will look at future challenges.
ISSN:1753-8947
1753-8955
DOI:10.1080/17538947.2016.1227379