GEO and Earth Engine back projects to improve our planet
By Joel Conkling, Product Manager, Google Earth Engine
The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and Google Earth Engine (GEE) recently announced that 32 projects from 22 countries were awarded production licenses and technical support valued at over USD$4 million to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges using open geospatial data.
“Impact begins with insights,” says Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, Earth Engine and Outreach. “Organizations globally are using Earth Engine to achieve an unprecedented understanding of our changing environment and turn data into action. We’re honored that Earth Engine can support the people behind these 32 winning projects as they tackle pressing global issues, from forest degradation and flood monitoring to natural resource management and global climate change.”
Supporting solutions-oriented science
In 2019, GEO and Earth Engine invited applications for projects monitoring the health of the planet using real-time Earth observation data and cloud computation. Over 50 projects were submitted from around the world, including climate monitoring, water and coastal observations, and sustainable development.
For the next two years, the winning applicants will receive technical support, mentoring, and ongoing capacity development for using open data to advance societal benefits. The program is built on partnerships among the GEO Secretariat, GEO Programme Board, Google, and EO Data Science. Through the Earth Engine production licenses provided by Google, researchers will be supported as they work towards their project goals, using decision-relevant geographical data and cloud-computing infrastructure.
Diverse projects from across the globe
The 32 winning projects from 22 countries will address environmental and social challenges such as mapping poverty data and vulnerable settlements, deforestation and land degradation, flood warnings, marine coasts, ice shelf monitoring, environment and climate stress, and food and agriculture. The selection process focused on projects that had direct impacts related to global policy agendas including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as ocean conservation and biodiversity preservation.
INVEMAR, one of the winning projects based in Colombia, will create a series of ocean and coastal zone management toolboxes in Earth Engine to facilitate the use of cutting-edge methodologies and technologies for coastal and ocean conservation research.
“We are very pleased to have been selected for the GEO-Google Earth Engine program,” says Julián José Pizarro Pertúz, Systems Engineer and Head of Laboratory of Information Services for LABSIS. “We seek to streamline remote sensing-based processes for coastal zone management, and our contribution to solve global problems impacting sustainability of the ocean and coastal zones such as those posed by climate change or disaster risk management.”
Another winning project, the Analysis Ready Data for Water Security team based in Fiji, will join forces with the Pacific Community, the Global Evergreen Alliance, and the Australian National University. They’ll work with local partners to create usable water security-related datasets, and build capacity for using these geospatial data and tools in Earth Engine.
“Here at GEM-SPC, we’re excited to be a part of the GEO-GEE Programme for the next two years,” says Carrol Chan, GIS/RS Project Assistant for the Geoscience, Energy and Maritime (GEM) division of the Pacific Community. “Our Water Resources Team works tirelessly on the ground with local partner organizations for water security and WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene] outcomes for communities across the Pacific region.”
The project led by the African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education — English (ARCSSTEE) in Nigeria aims to reduce the impacts of floods in West Africa by providing tools, models, databases, and systems that support disaster monitoring and management. “We are excited to have this opportunity and hope to make an impact by engaging the GEE technologies and compute services to generate products through the various available APIs,” says Ganiyu Ishola Agbaje, Executive Director and CEO of ARCSSTEE.
The Global Seagrass Watch project will be led by the German Aerospace Center in Berlin, and aims to map coastal ecosystems to inform global carbon budgeting and sustainable development strategies. “The GEO-GEE programme’s technical support and global communication channels will empower our ability to strengthen national-scale efforts towards effective and nature-based climate change mitigation and adaptation, solid and data-driven global carbon budgeting, and more efficient sustainable development schemes and strategies,” says Dr. Dimos Traganos, Project Manager for Global Seagrass Watch.
Local projects with global impact
“I am thoroughly impressed with the number, quality and the diversity of proposals we received,” says Gilberto Camara, GEO’s Secretariat Director. “The diversity in terms of the topics, regions, and approaches is a testament to the fact the Earth observations are instrumental for a wide range of applications and solutions. We look forward to their evolution and the open solutions they produce.”
To learn more about the 32 winning projects, read the GEO-GEE Programme announcement.
