Mapping slums and model population density using earth observation data and open source solutions

Author(s):  
Tais Grippa ◽  
Stefanos Georganos ◽  
Sabine Vanhuysse ◽  
Moritz Lennert ◽  
Nicholus Mboga ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
José Miguel Montañana ◽  
Paolo Marangino ◽  
Antonio Hervás

Geoprocessing is a set of tools that can be used to efficiently address several pressing chal-lenges for the global economy ranging from agricultural productivity, the design of transport networks, to the prediction of climate change and natural disasters. This paper describes an Open Source Framework developed, within three European projects, for Ena-bling High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Cloud geoprocessing services applied to agricultural challenges. The main goals of the European Union projects EUXDAT (EUro-pean e-infrastructure for eXtreme Data Analytics in sustainable developmenT), CYBELE (fostering precision agriculture and livestock farming through secure access to large-scale HPC-enabled virtual industrial experimentation environment empowering scalable big data analytics), and EOPEN (opEn interOperable Platform for unified access and analysis of Earth observatioN data) are to enable the use of large HPC systems, as well as big data management, user-friendly access and visualization of results. In addition, these projects focus on the development of software frameworks, and fuse Earth-observation data, such as Copernicus data, with non-Earth-observation data, such as weather, environmental and social media information. In this paper, we describe the agroclimatic-zones pilot used to validate the framework. Finally, performance metrics collected during the execution (up to 182 times speedup with 256 MPI processes) of the pilot are presented.


Author(s):  
V. C. F. Gomes ◽  
F. M. Carlos ◽  
G. R. Queiroz ◽  
K. R. Ferreira ◽  
R. Santos

Abstract. Recently, several technologies have emerged to address the need to process and analyze large volumes of Earth Observations (EO) data. The concept of Earth Observations Data Cubes (EODC) appears, in this context, as the paradigm of technologies that aim to structure and facilitate the way users handle this type of data. Some projects have adopted this concept in developing their technologies, such as the Open Data Cube (ODC) framework and the Brazil Data Cube (BDC) platform, which provide open-source tools capable of managing, processing, analyzing, and disseminating EO data. This work presents an approach to integrate these technologies through the access and processing of data products from the BDC platform in the ODC framework. For this, we developed a tool to automate the process of searching, converting, and indexing data between these two systems. Besides, four ODC functional modules have been customized to work with BDC data. The tool developed and the changes made to the ODC modules expand the potential for other initiatives to take advantage of the features available in the ODC.


GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-14
Author(s):  
Eicher, A

Our goal is to establish the earth observation data in the business world Unser Ziel ist es, die Erdbeobachtungsdaten in der Geschäftswelt zu etablieren


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
William Straka ◽  
Shobha Kondragunta ◽  
Zigang Wei ◽  
Hai Zhang ◽  
Steven D. Miller ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic has infected almost 73 million people and is responsible for over 1.63 million fatalities worldwide since early December 2019, when it was first reported in Wuhan, China. In the early stages of the pandemic, social distancing measures, such as lockdown restrictions, were applied in a non-uniform way across the world to reduce the spread of the virus. While such restrictions contributed to flattening the curve in places like Italy, Germany, and South Korea, it plunged the economy in the United States to a level of recession not seen since WWII, while also improving air quality due to the reduced mobility. Using daily Earth observation data (Day/Night Band (DNB) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Suomi-NPP and NO2 measurements from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument TROPOMI) along with monthly averaged cell phone derived mobility data, we examined the economic and environmental impacts of lockdowns in Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Washington DC from February to April 2020—encompassing the most profound shutdown measures taken in the U.S. The preliminary analysis revealed that the reduction in mobility involved two major observable impacts: (i) improved air quality (a reduction in NO2 and PM2.5 concentration), but (ii) reduced economic activity (a decrease in energy consumption as measured by the radiance from the DNB data) that impacted on gross domestic product, poverty levels, and the unemployment rate. With the continuing rise of COVID-19 cases and declining economic conditions, such knowledge can be combined with unemployment and demographic data to develop policies and strategies for the safe reopening of the economy while preserving our environment and protecting vulnerable populations susceptible to COVID-19 infection.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1310
Author(s):  
Gabriele Bitelli ◽  
Emanuele Mandanici

The exponential growth in the volume of Earth observation data and the increasing quality and availability of high-resolution imagery are increasingly making more applications possible in urban environments [...]


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Francis Oloo ◽  
Godwin Murithi ◽  
Charlynne Jepkosgei

Urban forests contribute significantly to the ecological integrity of urban areas and the quality of life of urban dwellers through air quality control, energy conservation, improving urban hydrology, and regulation of land surface temperatures (LST). However, urban forests are under threat due to human activities, natural calamities, and bioinvasion continually decimating forest cover. Few studies have used fine-scaled Earth observation data to understand the dynamics of tree cover loss in urban forests and the sustainability of such forests in the face of increasing urban population. The aim of this work was to quantify the spatial and temporal changes in urban forest characteristics and to assess the potential drivers of such changes. We used data on tree cover, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and land cover change to quantify tree cover loss and changes in vegetation health in urban forests within the Nairobi metropolitan area in Kenya. We also used land cover data to visualize the potential link between tree cover loss and changes in land use characteristics. From approximately 6600 hectares (ha) of forest land, 720 ha have been lost between 2000 and 2019, representing about 11% loss in 20 years. In six of the urban forests, the trend of loss was positive, indicating a continuing disturbance of urban forests around Nairobi. Conversely, there was a negative trend in the annual mean NDVI values for each of the forests, indicating a potential deterioration of the vegetation health in the forests. A preliminary, visual inspection of high-resolution imagery in sample areas of tree cover loss showed that the main drivers of loss are the conversion of forest lands to residential areas and farmlands, implementation of big infrastructure projects that pass through the forests, and extraction of timber and other resources to support urban developments. The outcome of this study reveals the value of Earth observation data in monitoring urban forest resources.


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