Google Earth Engine Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform contains petabyte-scale data for scientific analysis and visualization. After the Landsat image series were made freely available in 2008, Google consolidated this very large and useful data set and linked it to its cloud computing resources to make available to the scientific community one of the largest datasets for studying the earth’s resources. GEE now includes satellite datasets from a number of other platforms, as well as many vector-based datasets.

The easily accessible and user-friendly front-end provides a convenient environment for interactive data and algorithm development. Users are also able to add and curate their own data and collections, while using Google’s cloud resources to undertake all the processing. The end result is that this now allows scientists, independent researchers, hobbyists and nations to mine this massive warehouse of data for change detection, map trends and quantify resources on the Earth's surface like never before. One does not need large processing powers of the latest computers or the latest software, meaning that resource poor researchers in the poorest nations of the world have the same ability to undertake analysis as those in the most advanced nations.

Applications of GEE include, but are not limited to: mapping forest cover, detecting deforestation, classifying land cover, estimating forest biomass and carbon, mapping urban area expansion, population mapping, changes in agricultural production and forecasting, and rangeland dynamics.

This collection calls for example applications of GEE all over the world and in all disciplines. We particularly encourage articles from developing nations on how the availability of GEE data and processing has enabled new research that was difficult or impossible before. We also encourage papers on issues about using GEE, processing shortcomings, programming, and difficulties in handling data in the cloud atmosphere. Anything to do with GEE is suitable for this collection.

Prof. Dr. Lalit Kumar
Prof. Dr. Onisimo Mutanga
Collection Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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