Abstract
Abstract. Nowadays, the amount of open geospatial data delivered e.g. by private and public entities, such as environmental agencies, enables outstanding possibilities to any user interested in investigating real-world phenomena. However, the availability of such information presents several challenges in terms of its practical use. These are mainly connected to the heterogeneity of data sources, formats and processing tools which have to be mastered by the user to obtain the desired results. As a relevant example, air quality monitoring requires the integration of multiple data with different spatial and temporal granularities that are often distributed by more than one provider using not uniform formats and access methods. Besides traditional air pollution ground sensors observations, novel data sources have emerged. Among them, the Sentinel-5P mission of the European Copernicus Programme is one of the most recent Earth Observation platforms providing estimates of air pollutants with daily global coverage. These estimates are promising to foster air quality analysis and monitoring by complementing ground sensors observations. Therefore, the development of data handling and analysis strategies – allowing users for a smooth integration of satellite and ground sensor observations – is key to support future air quality studies. To that end, the present work investigates the use of the Open Data Cube as a single data endpoint to incorporate ground sensors and satellite observations into local air pollution analyses. A preliminary implementation is presented using the Lombardy region (Northern Italy) as a case study.
Highlights
Geospatial data has become a fundamental source of information for governments, companies and organizations
This paper examines the example of air quality observations by outlining current usage drawback and identify Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) solutions to assist users in air quality observations handling tasks
These files are structured in EO3 format and help the software understand how to manage and group each of the files into a single-layered product that contains information on the available data measurements, platform sensor and names, geospatial extent and projection, acquisition time and other metadata specified in the ODC documentation (Open Data Cube, 2021b)
Summary
Geospatial data has become a fundamental source of information for governments, companies and organizations. Many SDGs stress the need to reduce the negative impact of air pollution (e.g. 3, 11 and 13 that addressed directly well-being, sustainable communities and life on earth) (United Nations, 2020) In this context, geospatial information support scientists to explore both effects and causes of air pollution as well as empower the identification of viable solutions. Air quality ground sensors in the region are managed by the Lombardy Region Environmental Protection Agency (ARPA Lombardia) while considered satellite estimates are the ones provided by the Sentinel-5P satellite of the European Copernicus Programme (de Vries et al, 2016). Additional information on the features of the aforementioned ODC applications can be found on the official ODC website (Open Data Cube, 2021a)
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