Paving the Way to Increased Interoperability of Earth Observations Data Cubes

Abstract

Earth observations data cubes (EODCs) are a paradigm transforming the way users interact with large spatio-temporal Earth observation (EO) data. It enhances connections between data, applications and users facilitating management, access and use of analysis ready data (ARD). The ambition is allowing users to harness big EO data at a minimum cost and effort. This significant interest is illustrated by various implementations that exist. The novelty of the approach results in different innovative solutions and the lack of commonly agreed definition of EODC. Consequently, their interoperability has been recognized as a major challenge for the global change and Earth system science domains. The objective of this paper is preventing EODC from becoming silos of information; to present how interoperability can be enabled using widely-adopted geospatial standards; and to contribute to the debate of enhanced interoperability of EODC. We demonstrate how standards can be used, profiled and enriched to pave the way to increased interoperability of EODC and can help delivering and leveraging the power of EO data building, efficient discovery, access and processing services.