The European Space Agency is a powerful force for scientific discovery in numerous areas of space... more The European Space Agency is a powerful force for scientific discovery in numerous areas of space. The amount and depth of the knowledge produced throughout the different missions carried out by ESA and their contribution to scientific progress is enormous and involves large collections of documents like feasibility studies, technical reports, scientific publications, and quality management procedures, among many others. Handling such wealth of information, of which large part is unstructured text, is a colossal task that goes beyond human capabilities, hence requiring automation. In this paper, we present a methodological framework based on artificial intelligence and natural language processing to automatically extract information and enable machine understanding of space documents. We illustrate such framework through several case studies implemented across different functional areas of ESA, including Mission Design, Quality Assurance, Long-Term Data Preservation and the Open Space Innovation Platform, and demonstrate the value of our approach by solving complex information extraction and language understanding challenges that had not been addressed in space until now.
Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to vali... more Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to validate the output of climate models. Of special interest are data from the AVHRR sensor in 1km spatial resolution (LAC), which are available from 1981 until 2017 (2022). The data archived at different centers in Europe need consolidation (filling data gaps, removing redundant orbits etc.) and harmonization (generating the same format and meta-files) before transferred to ESA facilities to make a long time series accessible for scientific use. In the frame of ESA’s Long Term Data Preservation program the archived AVHRR data will be stored and maintained for the next +50 years. We will present the different parts of the ESA-UniBern AVHRR-LTDP project and recommendations for the next processing steps needed to generate essential climate variables (e.g. snow extent, lake surface water temperature).
Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to vali... more Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to validate the output of climate models. Of special interest are data from the AVHRR sensor in 1km spatial resolution (LAC), which are available from 1981 until 2017 (2022). The data archived at different centers in Europe need consolidation (filling data gaps, removing redundant orbits etc.) and harmonization (generating the same format and meta-files) before transferred to ESA facilities to make a long time series accessible for scientific use. In the frame of ESA's Long Term Data Preservation program the archived AVHRR data will be stored and maintained for the next +50 years. We will present the different parts of the ESA-UniBern AVHRR-LTDP project and recommendations for the next processing steps needed to generate essential climate variables (e.g. snow extent, lake surface water temperature).
2012 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2012
The preservation and accessibility of digital data and of their associated knowledge is today a v... more The preservation and accessibility of digital data and of their associated knowledge is today a very challenging and critical item in Europe. Earth Observation data are unique by nature and are fundamental for the monitoring of our environment and planet and of its changes. They are considered [1] as humankind asset and as such need to be preserved without time constrains and kept accessible together with all the information and knowledge needed to understand and use them in future. The creation of a cooperative and harmonized collective approach on Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) in Europe in the Earth Observation domain was started at the beginning of 2008 under ESA leadership to coordinate and optimize European efforts in the LTDP domain and produced several results at the basis of an LTDP cooperative framework now in place in Europe.
in Venice, Italy, continued a series of international events addressing fundamentals of advances ... more in Venice, Italy, continued a series of international events addressing fundamentals of advances in geographic information systems and the new applications related to them using Web Services. Such systems can be used for assessment, modeling and prognosis of emergencies. As an example, they can be used as assessment of accidents from chemical pollution by considering hazardous chemical zones dimensions represented on a computer map of the region's territory. Geographical sensors and satellites provide a huge volume of spatial data which is available on the Web. Making use of Web Services, the users are able for provisioning and using these services instead of only for document searching. These services are published in a directory and may be automatically discovered in a given context by software agents. Accessing large digital geographical libraries with geo-spatial information raises some challenges with respect to data semantics, interfaces, data accuracy and updates, distrib...
Sharing and citing scientific data sources is becoming the global standard. Persistent identifier... more Sharing and citing scientific data sources is becoming the global standard. Persistent identifiers (PIDs) allow data providers to permanently and uniquely identify a resource, track its use by the scientific community, and increase its visibility. To encourage and coordinate the implementation of PIDs in Earth Observation, the CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS) recently developed a best practices document. The Best Practices include advice on choosing a PID system, assigning the IDs themselves, ensuring permanence, resolving the ID to the data resource, choosing an appropriate granularity, and documenting the PIDs properly. The recommendations are being applied in pilot implementations in DLR, ESA ESRIN, and NASA. Establishing common protocols and practices will help ensure interoperability among the global community of Earth Observation data providers. This paper will present the best practices, a few use cases, and the results of the pilot studies.
For decades, the Earth Science (ES) community has launched missions to monitor vital phenomena of... more For decades, the Earth Science (ES) community has launched missions to monitor vital phenomena of our planet and, through measurements, obtain data for improving their models. Indeed the proper characterisation of phenomena, such as desertification, Arctic sea ice melting, volcanic activities or earthquakes effects, requires the analysis of data acquired in a long period and the validation of correctness of scientific models. This means that digital data, especially in the ES domain, represents an important asset to be preserved over time. Despite each single ES mission’s cost being quantified and supported by well documented evidence, ES organisations are not able to assess the value of data generated by those missions over time. This paper describes the rationale for and an approach to modelling the value of data/information to be preserved over long term in digital archive. This is the result of experience in the SCIDIP-ES project [16] which has considered the: i) definition of m...
Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) aims at ensuring the intelligibility of digital information at... more Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) aims at ensuring the intelligibility of digital information at any given time in the near or distant future. LTDP has to address changes that inevitably occur in hardware or software, in the organisational or legal environment, as well as in the designated community, i.e. the people that will use the preserved information. A preservation data manages communication from the past while communicating with the future. Information generated in the past is sent into the future by the current preservation data. European Space Agency (ESA) has a crucial and unique role in this mission, because it maintains in its archives long time series of Earth Observation (EO) data. In order to ensure to future generations data use and accessibility of this cultural heritage is needed to define a systematic approach, accompanied by different use cases.
Digital preservation is difficult. The technical difficultie s are the cause of much research. Ot... more Digital preservation is difficult. The technical difficultie s are the cause of much research. Other types of difficulty ar e those to do with organisational commitment, funding and context. With the increasing interest on global change monitoring, also the use and exploitation of long time series of Earth Observation (EO) data has been increasing systematically, calling for a need to preserve the EO data without time constrains. On the other hand: • Data archiving and preservation strategies are still mostly limited to the satellite lifetime and few years after. • The data volumes are increasing dramatically. • Archiving and data access technology are evolving rapidly. • EO data archiving strategies, if existing at all, are different for each EO mission, each operator or agency. In the meantime the issue grows more urgent since more and more EO missions’ data can be called ‘historic’ and more and more operators are faced with the decision of whether and how to preserve their data. ...
Science and Earth Observation data represent today a unique and valuable asset for humankind that... more Science and Earth Observation data represent today a unique and valuable asset for humankind that should be preserved without time constraints and kept accessible and exploitable by current and future generations. In Earth Science, knowledge of the past and tracking of the evolution are at the basis of our capability to effectively respond to the global changes that are putting increasing pressure on the environment, and on human society. This can only be achieved if long time series of data are properly preserved and made accessible to support international initiatives. Within ESA Member States and beyond, Earth Science data holders are increasingly coordinating data preservation efforts to ensure that the valuable data are safeguarded against loss and kept accessible and useable for current and future generations. This task becomes increasingly challenging in view of the existing 40 years’ worth of Earth Science data stored in archives around the world and the massive increase of ...
The need for accessing historical Earth Observation (EO) data series strongly increased in the la... more The need for accessing historical Earth Observation (EO) data series strongly increased in the last ten years, particularly for long-term science and environmental monitoring applications. This trend is likely to increase even more in the future, in particular regarding the growing interest on global change monitoring which is driving users to request time-series of data spanning 20 years and more, and also due to the need to support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While much of the satellite observations are accessible from different data centers, the solution for analyzing measurements collected from various instruments for time series analysis is both difficult and critical. Climate research is a big data problem that involves high data volume of measurements, methods for on-the-fly extraction and reduction to keep up with the speed and data volume, and the ability to address uncertainties from data collections, processing, and analysis. The content of EO data archives is extending from a few years to decades and therefore, their value as a scientific time-series is continuously increasing. Hence there is a strong need to preserve the EO space data without time constraints and to keep them accessible and exploitable. The preservation of EO space data can also be considered as responsibility of the Space Agencies or data owners as they constitute a humankind asset. This publication aims at describing the activities supported by the European Space Agency relating to the Long Time Series generation with all relevant best practices and models needed to organise and measure the preservation and stewardship processes. The Data Stewardship Reference Model has been defined to give an overview and a way to help the data owners and space agencies in order to preserve and curate the space datasets to be ready for long time data series composition and analysis.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has the mandate to assure the long-term preservation, sharing and... more The European Space Agency (ESA) has the mandate to assure the long-term preservation, sharing and exploitation of space data and its associated knowledge. ESA's aim is to turn space exploration and space-related activities into an overall societal project involving a wide variety of stakeholders. To this end, it brings together and coordinates as many countries as possible under the banner of space missions. It is a basic principle that ESA deals with its stakeholders openly and with real transparency, an approach that has contributed to its long-term success. The Earth Observation (EO) Data Preservation System has the main objective of providing the required infrastructure and services to assure ESA and Third Party Missions (TPM) EO Data Records and Associated Knowledge preservation and accessibility, and to support the cooperation activities with national and international organizations in the data preservation domain. The generic "EO Missions/Sensors Preserved Dataset" content includes Data Records and Associated Knowledge.
Data-intensive science communities are progressively adopting FAIR practices that enhance the vis... more Data-intensive science communities are progressively adopting FAIR practices that enhance the visibility of scientific breakthroughs and enable reuse. At the core of this movement, research objects contain and describe scientific information and resources in a way compliant with the FAIR principles and sustain the development of key infrastructure and tools. This paper provides an account of the challenges, experiences and solutions involved in the adoption of FAIR around research objects over several Earth Science disciplines. During this journey, our work has been comprehensive, with outcomes including: an extended research object model adapted to the needs of earth scientists; the provisioning of digital object identifiers (DOI) to enable persistent identification and to give due credit to authors; the generation of content-based, semantically rich, research object metadata through natural language processing, enhancing visibility and reuse through recommendation systems and third-party search engines; and various types of checklists that provide a compact representation of research object quality as a key enabler of scientific reuse. All these results have been integrated in ROHub, a platform that provides research object management functionality to a wealth of applications and interfaces across different scientific communities. To monitor and quantify the community uptake of research objects, we have defined indicators and obtained measures via ROHub that are also discussed herein.
The European Space Agency is a powerful force for scientific discovery in numerous areas of space... more The European Space Agency is a powerful force for scientific discovery in numerous areas of space. The amount and depth of the knowledge produced throughout the different missions carried out by ESA and their contribution to scientific progress is enormous and involves large collections of documents like feasibility studies, technical reports, scientific publications, and quality management procedures, among many others. Handling such wealth of information, of which large part is unstructured text, is a colossal task that goes beyond human capabilities, hence requiring automation. In this paper, we present a methodological framework based on artificial intelligence and natural language processing to automatically extract information and enable machine understanding of space documents. We illustrate such framework through several case studies implemented across different functional areas of ESA, including Mission Design, Quality Assurance, Long-Term Data Preservation and the Open Space Innovation Platform, and demonstrate the value of our approach by solving complex information extraction and language understanding challenges that had not been addressed in space until now.
Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to vali... more Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to validate the output of climate models. Of special interest are data from the AVHRR sensor in 1km spatial resolution (LAC), which are available from 1981 until 2017 (2022). The data archived at different centers in Europe need consolidation (filling data gaps, removing redundant orbits etc.) and harmonization (generating the same format and meta-files) before transferred to ESA facilities to make a long time series accessible for scientific use. In the frame of ESA’s Long Term Data Preservation program the archived AVHRR data will be stored and maintained for the next +50 years. We will present the different parts of the ESA-UniBern AVHRR-LTDP project and recommendations for the next processing steps needed to generate essential climate variables (e.g. snow extent, lake surface water temperature).
Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to vali... more Historical satellite data are of high value for climate research as an independent source to validate the output of climate models. Of special interest are data from the AVHRR sensor in 1km spatial resolution (LAC), which are available from 1981 until 2017 (2022). The data archived at different centers in Europe need consolidation (filling data gaps, removing redundant orbits etc.) and harmonization (generating the same format and meta-files) before transferred to ESA facilities to make a long time series accessible for scientific use. In the frame of ESA's Long Term Data Preservation program the archived AVHRR data will be stored and maintained for the next +50 years. We will present the different parts of the ESA-UniBern AVHRR-LTDP project and recommendations for the next processing steps needed to generate essential climate variables (e.g. snow extent, lake surface water temperature).
2012 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2012
The preservation and accessibility of digital data and of their associated knowledge is today a v... more The preservation and accessibility of digital data and of their associated knowledge is today a very challenging and critical item in Europe. Earth Observation data are unique by nature and are fundamental for the monitoring of our environment and planet and of its changes. They are considered [1] as humankind asset and as such need to be preserved without time constrains and kept accessible together with all the information and knowledge needed to understand and use them in future. The creation of a cooperative and harmonized collective approach on Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) in Europe in the Earth Observation domain was started at the beginning of 2008 under ESA leadership to coordinate and optimize European efforts in the LTDP domain and produced several results at the basis of an LTDP cooperative framework now in place in Europe.
in Venice, Italy, continued a series of international events addressing fundamentals of advances ... more in Venice, Italy, continued a series of international events addressing fundamentals of advances in geographic information systems and the new applications related to them using Web Services. Such systems can be used for assessment, modeling and prognosis of emergencies. As an example, they can be used as assessment of accidents from chemical pollution by considering hazardous chemical zones dimensions represented on a computer map of the region's territory. Geographical sensors and satellites provide a huge volume of spatial data which is available on the Web. Making use of Web Services, the users are able for provisioning and using these services instead of only for document searching. These services are published in a directory and may be automatically discovered in a given context by software agents. Accessing large digital geographical libraries with geo-spatial information raises some challenges with respect to data semantics, interfaces, data accuracy and updates, distrib...
Sharing and citing scientific data sources is becoming the global standard. Persistent identifier... more Sharing and citing scientific data sources is becoming the global standard. Persistent identifiers (PIDs) allow data providers to permanently and uniquely identify a resource, track its use by the scientific community, and increase its visibility. To encourage and coordinate the implementation of PIDs in Earth Observation, the CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS) recently developed a best practices document. The Best Practices include advice on choosing a PID system, assigning the IDs themselves, ensuring permanence, resolving the ID to the data resource, choosing an appropriate granularity, and documenting the PIDs properly. The recommendations are being applied in pilot implementations in DLR, ESA ESRIN, and NASA. Establishing common protocols and practices will help ensure interoperability among the global community of Earth Observation data providers. This paper will present the best practices, a few use cases, and the results of the pilot studies.
For decades, the Earth Science (ES) community has launched missions to monitor vital phenomena of... more For decades, the Earth Science (ES) community has launched missions to monitor vital phenomena of our planet and, through measurements, obtain data for improving their models. Indeed the proper characterisation of phenomena, such as desertification, Arctic sea ice melting, volcanic activities or earthquakes effects, requires the analysis of data acquired in a long period and the validation of correctness of scientific models. This means that digital data, especially in the ES domain, represents an important asset to be preserved over time. Despite each single ES mission’s cost being quantified and supported by well documented evidence, ES organisations are not able to assess the value of data generated by those missions over time. This paper describes the rationale for and an approach to modelling the value of data/information to be preserved over long term in digital archive. This is the result of experience in the SCIDIP-ES project [16] which has considered the: i) definition of m...
Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) aims at ensuring the intelligibility of digital information at... more Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) aims at ensuring the intelligibility of digital information at any given time in the near or distant future. LTDP has to address changes that inevitably occur in hardware or software, in the organisational or legal environment, as well as in the designated community, i.e. the people that will use the preserved information. A preservation data manages communication from the past while communicating with the future. Information generated in the past is sent into the future by the current preservation data. European Space Agency (ESA) has a crucial and unique role in this mission, because it maintains in its archives long time series of Earth Observation (EO) data. In order to ensure to future generations data use and accessibility of this cultural heritage is needed to define a systematic approach, accompanied by different use cases.
Digital preservation is difficult. The technical difficultie s are the cause of much research. Ot... more Digital preservation is difficult. The technical difficultie s are the cause of much research. Other types of difficulty ar e those to do with organisational commitment, funding and context. With the increasing interest on global change monitoring, also the use and exploitation of long time series of Earth Observation (EO) data has been increasing systematically, calling for a need to preserve the EO data without time constrains. On the other hand: • Data archiving and preservation strategies are still mostly limited to the satellite lifetime and few years after. • The data volumes are increasing dramatically. • Archiving and data access technology are evolving rapidly. • EO data archiving strategies, if existing at all, are different for each EO mission, each operator or agency. In the meantime the issue grows more urgent since more and more EO missions’ data can be called ‘historic’ and more and more operators are faced with the decision of whether and how to preserve their data. ...
Science and Earth Observation data represent today a unique and valuable asset for humankind that... more Science and Earth Observation data represent today a unique and valuable asset for humankind that should be preserved without time constraints and kept accessible and exploitable by current and future generations. In Earth Science, knowledge of the past and tracking of the evolution are at the basis of our capability to effectively respond to the global changes that are putting increasing pressure on the environment, and on human society. This can only be achieved if long time series of data are properly preserved and made accessible to support international initiatives. Within ESA Member States and beyond, Earth Science data holders are increasingly coordinating data preservation efforts to ensure that the valuable data are safeguarded against loss and kept accessible and useable for current and future generations. This task becomes increasingly challenging in view of the existing 40 years’ worth of Earth Science data stored in archives around the world and the massive increase of ...
The need for accessing historical Earth Observation (EO) data series strongly increased in the la... more The need for accessing historical Earth Observation (EO) data series strongly increased in the last ten years, particularly for long-term science and environmental monitoring applications. This trend is likely to increase even more in the future, in particular regarding the growing interest on global change monitoring which is driving users to request time-series of data spanning 20 years and more, and also due to the need to support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While much of the satellite observations are accessible from different data centers, the solution for analyzing measurements collected from various instruments for time series analysis is both difficult and critical. Climate research is a big data problem that involves high data volume of measurements, methods for on-the-fly extraction and reduction to keep up with the speed and data volume, and the ability to address uncertainties from data collections, processing, and analysis. The content of EO data archives is extending from a few years to decades and therefore, their value as a scientific time-series is continuously increasing. Hence there is a strong need to preserve the EO space data without time constraints and to keep them accessible and exploitable. The preservation of EO space data can also be considered as responsibility of the Space Agencies or data owners as they constitute a humankind asset. This publication aims at describing the activities supported by the European Space Agency relating to the Long Time Series generation with all relevant best practices and models needed to organise and measure the preservation and stewardship processes. The Data Stewardship Reference Model has been defined to give an overview and a way to help the data owners and space agencies in order to preserve and curate the space datasets to be ready for long time data series composition and analysis.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has the mandate to assure the long-term preservation, sharing and... more The European Space Agency (ESA) has the mandate to assure the long-term preservation, sharing and exploitation of space data and its associated knowledge. ESA's aim is to turn space exploration and space-related activities into an overall societal project involving a wide variety of stakeholders. To this end, it brings together and coordinates as many countries as possible under the banner of space missions. It is a basic principle that ESA deals with its stakeholders openly and with real transparency, an approach that has contributed to its long-term success. The Earth Observation (EO) Data Preservation System has the main objective of providing the required infrastructure and services to assure ESA and Third Party Missions (TPM) EO Data Records and Associated Knowledge preservation and accessibility, and to support the cooperation activities with national and international organizations in the data preservation domain. The generic "EO Missions/Sensors Preserved Dataset" content includes Data Records and Associated Knowledge.
Data-intensive science communities are progressively adopting FAIR practices that enhance the vis... more Data-intensive science communities are progressively adopting FAIR practices that enhance the visibility of scientific breakthroughs and enable reuse. At the core of this movement, research objects contain and describe scientific information and resources in a way compliant with the FAIR principles and sustain the development of key infrastructure and tools. This paper provides an account of the challenges, experiences and solutions involved in the adoption of FAIR around research objects over several Earth Science disciplines. During this journey, our work has been comprehensive, with outcomes including: an extended research object model adapted to the needs of earth scientists; the provisioning of digital object identifiers (DOI) to enable persistent identification and to give due credit to authors; the generation of content-based, semantically rich, research object metadata through natural language processing, enhancing visibility and reuse through recommendation systems and third-party search engines; and various types of checklists that provide a compact representation of research object quality as a key enabler of scientific reuse. All these results have been integrated in ROHub, a platform that provides research object management functionality to a wealth of applications and interfaces across different scientific communities. To monitor and quantify the community uptake of research objects, we have defined indicators and obtained measures via ROHub that are also discussed herein.
Uploads
Papers by Mirko Albani