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Abstract

This white paper is a survey of Big Geospatial Data with these main themes:

  •   Geospatial data is increasing in volume and variety;
  •   New Big Data computing techniques are being applied to geospatial data;
  •   Geospatial Big Data techniques benefit many applications; and
  •   Open standards are needed for interoperability, efficiency, innovation and cost effectiveness.

 

The main purpose of this White Paper is to identify activities to be undertaken in OGC Programs that advance the Big Data capabilities as applied to geospatial information.

This white paper was developed based on two Location Powers events:

  •   Location Powers: Big Data, Orlando, September 20th, 2016; and
  •   Location Powers: Big Linked Data, Delft, March 22nd, 2017.

For information on Location Powers: http://www.locationpowers.net/pastevents/

 

Keywords

ogcdoc, OGC documents, Big Data, geospatial, location, open, standards, interoperability, cloud computing

Submitters of this document

All questions regarding this white paper should be directed to the editor or the submitters:

Name Affiliation

George Percivall, editor

OGC

Carl Reed

Carl Reed and Associates

Ingo Simonis

OGC

Josh Lieberman

Tumbling Walls

Steven Ramage

Group on Earth Observations

 

 

1.    The Big Data Trend and Geospatial Information

Every second day the human race generates as much data as was generated from the dawn of humanity through the year 2003[1].   Big Data is both a challenge and an opportunity.  Big Data is “extensive datasets — primarily in the characteristics of volume, variety, velocity, and/or variability — that require a scalable technology for efficient storage, manipulation, management, and analysis.”[2]

Geospatial data has been Big Data for decades. New tools and technologies are now available to deal with Big Geo Data analytics and visualization. Geospatial information is advancing in all the dimensions of Big Data.

  •   Volume: The European Space Agency’s Copernicus Missions archive is an ~8 PB archive and growing[3]. DigitalGlobe currently archives 70 PB of satellite imagery[4]. ECMWF currently has 180PB of weather data with plans to be archiving 1 PB/day.
  •   Variety: NASA distributed more than 3,500 distinct data products in 2015.[5] Geospatial attributes are being connected to data with an increasing diversity of structures and vocabularies.
  •   Velocity: For urban monitoring in Tokyo, the locations of one million people collected every minute adds up to 1.4 billion records per day[6]
  •   Veracity: Advances in Big Data processing based on machine learning and deep learning provide great predictive power. Understanding the algorithms and quantifying result uncertainties remains the subject of intense research.

This white paper addresses Big Geo Data in the following sections.

Section 2.          Value of Big Geo Data
Applications of geospatial using Big Data techniques are described to show the value of these new capabilities.

Section 3.           Use Cases for Big Geo Data
Use cases are presented to demonstrate commonality across applications domains. This commonality allows best practices be defined through common standards and workflows. This helps manage the complexity in applying big data technology based on investments in

Section 4.          OGC Big Geo Data Opportunities
Several high priority focus areas for advancing big geo data implementations based on open standards are presented as opportunities for OGC activities.

Section 5.           OGC Activities on Big Geo Data
Existing and potential new activities are listed for consideration to be undertaken in OGC Programs and in coordination with external alliances.

2.    The Value of Big Geo Data Applications

2.1    Earth Observations

Observations of the Earth support global efforts to understand our shared physical environment. The environmental monitoring and modeling community generates Big Data to better understand Earth systems. High volumes (petabytes), at increasing velocity (distributed worldwide using high performance computing facilities) and variety (of data formats and resolutions) need to be handled and smoothly integrated to deal meet modern challenges such as global food security, effects and mitigation of climate change, or global logistics and infrastructures.

In a keynote presentation to the Location Powers: Big Geo Data workshop, Jibo Sanyal (ORNL) illustrated the value of Earth Observations as Big Earth data for estimating population (Figure 1). High-resolution population distribution data are critical for successfully addressing important issues ranging from socio-environmental research to public health to homeland security. Sanyal’s keynote addressed how such data are of paramount importance for responding to policy topics, such as the UN 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals.