Title: Enhanced Very-High Resolution (EVHR) Products for NASA’s Earth Science Investigators
Presenting Author: Christopher Neigh
Organization: NASA GSFC
Co-Author(s): Carroll, M.; Montesano, P.; Slayback, D.; Wooten, M.; Lyapustin A.; Shean D.; Alexandrov O.; Macander M. and Tucker C.J.

Abstract:
The volume of available remotely sensed data has grown exceeding Petabytes per year and the cost for data, storage systems and compute power have both dropped exponentially. This has opened the door for “Big Data” analytics with high-end computing (HEC) such as the Google Earth Engine, NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), and NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS). At the same time, commercial very high-resolution (VHR) satellites have grown into a constellation with global repeat coverage that can support existing NASA Earth observing missions with stereo and super-spectral capabilities. Through agreements with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center is acquiring Petabytes of global sub-meter to 4 meter resolution imagery from WorldView-1,2,3 Quickbird-2, GeoEye-1 and IKONOS-2 satellites. These data are a valuable no-direct cost resource for the enhancement of Earth observation research that supports US government interests. We are currently developing an application-programming interface (API) for generating very high-resolution (VHR) products to support NASA’s Earth observing missions. These enhanced products include two primary foci: 1) on demand VHR 1/2° ortho mosaics - process VHR to surface reflectance, orthorectify and co-register multi-temporal 2 m multi-spectral imagery compiled as user defined regional mosaics. This will provide an easy access dataset to investigate biodiversity, tree canopy closure, surface water fraction, and cropped area for smallholder agriculture; and 2) on demand VHR digital elevation models (DEMs) - process stereo VHR to extract VHR DEMs with the NASA Ames stereo pipeline. This will benefit Earth surface studies on the cryosphere (glacier mass balance, flow rates and snow depth), hydrology (lake/water body levels, landslides, subsidence) and biosphere (forest structure, canopy height/cover) among others. We will provide recent use case examples of EVHR products and give an API status update.