Introducing Publisher and Community Data Catalogs: Expanding Data and Discoverability in Earth Engine
Earth Engine launches Preview of Publisher and Community Data Catalogs to expand the number of Earth Engine datasets
By: Emily Schechter, Earth Engine Product Manager & Simon Ilyushchenko, Earth Engine Data Engineering Lead
We’re thrilled to introduce the Preview of Earth Engine Publisher and Community Data Catalogs, a new feature designed to expand and enrich the Earth Engine data catalog, and further empower Earth Engine users in their quest for geospatial insights.
Unlocking the potential of Earth Engine requires a seamless and efficient way to discover the data you need for your analysis. That’s why we built the Earth Engine Data Catalog, which currently includes more than 90PB and 1000+ curated geospatial datasets, including near-real-time satellite imagery. Now, the new Publisher and Community Data Catalogs will live alongside the Google-managed Earth Engine Data Catalog. This new feature increases access to more datasets managed and curated by both trusted data publishers and our passionate Earth Engine community.
To streamline your workflow, you can now explore these catalogs in the Earth Engine Data Catalog website — where you’ll find descriptions, metadata, and examples, and directly in the Code Editor.
What are Publisher Data Catalogs?
Publisher Data Catalogs are catalogs managed and curated by the organization that produced the dataset. For the Preview, Geoscience Australia with Cloud Partner NGIS has made an initial set of high-value Earth Observation data products from the public sector easily discoverable by our global community of Earth Engine users. As we expand Publisher Data Catalogs when we go to General Availability, interested partners will have the opportunity to apply to bring Publisher Data Catalogs into Earth Engine.
For global public sector organizations that publish authoritative, open data and typically have a mandate to disseminate as widely as possible, Publisher Data Catalogs provide a unique opportunity to deliver data products to Earth Engine’s large and active community of 90K+ users.
“The Publisher Program will enable leading public sector organizations to put their products in the hands of a large, active and innovative community focused on using Earth Observations to address significant global challenges”
-Nathan Eaton, Executive Director, NGIS.
Click here to understand eligibility and register interest with NGIS.
What are Community Data Catalogs?
Community Data Catalogs are catalogs contributed by the Earth Engine community. For our first Community Data Catalog, we are partnering with the Awesome GEE Community Catalog, which is an unfunded project that consists of community-sourced geospatial datasets made available for use to the larger Google Earth Engine community and shared publicly as Earth Engine assets. An initial set of datasets from the Awesome GEE Community Catalog can now be accessed through the Earth Engine Community Data Catalog website and Code Editor search bar. The Awesome GEE Community Catalog itself contains about 320+ TB of data and over 1300+ datasets from different remote sensing domains available through their catalog page.
“A community is defined by what its members create together. The Awesome GEE Community Catalog began with a single user request to find something that was not available in the main catalog,” says
, the creator of Awesome GEE Community Catalog. “There is a difference between access and accessibility. I wanted to bridge the gap and help people showcase datasets that they believe could be useful to others.Over the last 3 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of community users who want to contribute and share datasets with a wide and active audience. Establishing the community has been a learning experience, and I continue to learn as the catalog grows. This preview partnership with Google Earth Engine makes it even easier to access the Awesome GEE Community Catalog. We hope that users will continue to use the community catalog and contribute more datasets so that we can continue to build together.”
To add more datasets to the community catalog visit the Getting started section in the Community Catalog page
Start Exploring!
With an ever-growing collection of datasets contributed by data publishers and the Earth Engine community, users have access to an even broader range of geospatial information. This diversity enables you to tackle a wider array of projects, from climate monitoring to land cover analysis and beyond.
Start exploring the Publisher and Community Data Catalogs now available in Google Earth Engine! Visit the Earth Engine Data Catalog, or open your Code Editor and start searching for data.
We can’t wait to see the incredible insights and discoveries that this feature will enable. May your geospatial endeavors reach new heights leveraging the power of Earth Engine!
