Google Earth Engine and Cloud Computing Platforms: Methods and Applications in Big Geo Data Science
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2020) | Viewed by 192464
Special Issue Editors
Interests: remote sensing big data analysis; optical and SAR satellite remote sensing; photogrammetry and stereo-SAR; 3D terrain and object modeling; GNSS positioning and monitoring; GNSS seismology; GNSS meteorology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. Geoinformatics Division, Department of Urban Planning & Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 114 28 Stockholm, Sweden
Interests: change detection; SAR; photogrammetry; deep learning; land cover mapping; GEO big data; time series analysis; urban remote sensing; forest fire; mobile mapping
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
According to the well-known sentence “80% of data is geographic”, much of the data in the world can be geo-referenced. Geospatial data describe objects and things with locations given in a spatial reference frame, which now generally means the global spatial reference frame (often called WGS84), which is connected to the Global Navigation Satellite Systems. Geospatial data can be collected and analyzed using a variety of geomatic sensors and methodologies (GNSS and terrestrial surveying, photogrammetry and remote sensing, laser scanning, mobile mapping, geo-located sensors, geo-tagged web contents, and volunteered geographic information—VGI). Among them, those related to remote sensing play a pivotal role, since petabyte-scale archives of remote sensing data have become freely available from the EU Copernicus Program and multiple U.S. Government agencies (NASA, USGS, and NOAA).
This is the why the efficient geospatial big data handling, particularly remote sensing data, is of key importance. In this respect, it is necessary to change the way these data are visualized, processed, and analyzed, in order to make them truly available to the wide community of non-remote sensing experts, who indeed need remote sensing big data to investigate, monitor, and model a large and continuously growing variety of Earth systems, social, and economic processes.
Currently, cloud infrastructures can provide the required flexibility to manage (for both storage and computation) such huge amounts of data and to efficiently process them, thus making possible analyses that were previously thought unfeasible, due to data volume and computational restrictions. In this respect, Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a cloud-based platform that makes it easy to access both multi-temporal remote sensing big data and high-performance computing resources for processing these datasets. Also, GEE users can upload their own non-public data in reserved areas and process them together the public ones, performing synergic data fusion and integration. GEE is also designed to help researchers easily disseminate their results to other researchers, policy makers, and even the general public, to support a variety of management decisions or simply to share scientific results.
Research papers focusing on both methodology and applications by using GEE across different geographic scales are welcome, as well as contributions related to other public-domain platforms with goals similar to GEE (i.e., ESA DIAS and ESA TEPs—Thematic Exploitation Platforms).
Potential topics for this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:
- Remote Sensing Big Data analysis and integration with other geospatial data (i.e., GNSS, social media data);
- Multi-Sensor and multi-resolution data analysis;
- Machine and deep learning for remote sensing;
- Land-use and land-cover change monitoring and modeling;
- Urban and population dynamics characterization;
- Water resources monitoring and modeling;
- Forests and vegetation dynamics monitoring and modeling;
- Ecosystem response to the climate change.
Prof. Mattia Crespi
Dr. Andrea Nascetti
Dr. Roberta Ravanelli
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Geospatial and remote sensing big data
- Big data analysis and dissemination
- Big data comparison, integration, and fusion
- Cloud computing platforms
- Google Earth Engine
- Earth system, social, and economic processes
- Monitoring and modeling
- Methodology
- Applications.
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.