At the moment, there is a wealth of earth observation, or remote sensing, data available from different sensors. At the same time, the volume of data being collected is increasing substantially. Particularly important data sources for environmental monitoring in Finland are the Sentinel satellites of the Copernicus programme of the European Union, the Landsat mission of the United States Geological Survey, and the national laser scanning programme. However, the full potential of earth observation data has not yet been harnessed in monitoring changes in habitats, biodiversity, and ecosystems.

With the help of Earth observation, it is possible to detect and delineate habitats as well as estimate changes, for example, in their extent, species composition, or structure. The strengths of satellite remote sensing include global coverage and frequent revisit times, enabling even daily observations. Depending on the characteristics of the habitat type being monitored, Earth observation can be a primary or secondary data source for estimating habitat extent and condition. The potential of Earth observation is typically small for habitats smaller than the sensor’s spatial resolution, such as narrow water courses, and for habitats that cannot be observed from space, such as caves.

Earth observation data is big data

Data collected from Earth observation is big data, which means that proper data management, processing and distribution requires generous storage space and processing power. In practice, this requires dedicated national and international cloud processing environments. Appropriate planning and implementation of data management are prerequisites for extensive utilisation of Earth observation data in environmental monitoring.