$3M collaboration between Google and GEO to open Earth mapping data

CANBERRA — After calling for private sector solutions to support cloud-based processing of Earth observation data, the Group on Earth Observations announced a new partnership with Google at GEO Week in Canberra: 25 projects with licenses for Google Earth Engine over the next two years — worth $3 million — for any GEO member state or participating organization. Google Earth Engine provides access to open EO data over time — and algorithms to support the rapid computation of images to convert them into meaningful data to support decision-making. “We need to teach people to think bigger. That it’s possible to ask and answer questions that were never possible before… We want projects to be meaningful and really impactful — not just a 1% improvement over what they are doing today.” --— Rebecca Moore, director, Google Earth Outreach For GEO member countries and participating organizations, the challenge has been the ability to manage the massive amounts of EO data and computational power required to produce data that is meaningful to policymakers — a challenge Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth Outreach, told Devex may be heightened in low- and middle-income countries. “They may have computers that are 12 years old or constant power outages — how can you build a forest or water monitoring system for a country with this?” she asked. “But now they can point their web browser at the cloud with all the data there that is updating every 10 minutes, and computing at their fingertips.” The call for project proposals will begin in late November and will be assessed by both GEO and Google — and the proposals will need to focus on delivering impact at scale. Solutions supporting the delivery of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, Sustainable Development Goals, and biodiversity preservation are high on the list of objectives for both GEO and Google. And they need to deliver open data and accessible tools that enable transparency for better government policy. Moore and Dr. Gilberto Camara, secretariat director of GEO, discussed with Devex the partnership and provided advice on what applicants should be prioritizing in their proposals. Google’s advice Google Earth Engine is already being used by a range of organizations to tackle sustainable development challenges including forest cover, water management, climate change, and disease outbreaks. For example, to study surface water over 35 years, the European Commission uses Google Earth Engine to analyze millions of satellite images, perform 600 million hours of computations, and analyze quadrillions of pixels to produce a statistical picture of drying lakes, new water sources, trends by region, and more. “There has been increasing awareness that Google Earth Engine is very useful for taking massive amounts of Earth observation data and distilling it down into actionable information,” Moore said. “That’s what people need. They don’t care about the pixels — they need to know what is happening to their water. And a lot of the Sustainable Development Goals can be deeply informed by this.” Moore explained that her favorite uses of Google Earth Engine are ones that are “solution-oriented projects.” The data has been used to assess where on the planet would be suitable for planting trees for a massive global reforestation initiative and found that there were almost 1 billion hectares suitable for reforestation that could sequester two-thirds of the atmospheric carbon emitted. Moore advises potential applicants to look at past projects and think big on what challenges they may throw at the platform. “One of the things we have found is that we need to teach people to think bigger,” she said. “That it’s possible to ask and answer questions that were never possible before. There will be opportunity for engagement during this application development process, but the main message is that we want projects to be meaningful and really impactful — not just a 1% improvement over what they are doing today.” Projects that aim to be transformative in their outcomes, Moore said, are what she wants to see. “There must be competition, quality, and transparency in the process.” --— Dr. Gilberto Camara, secretariat director, GEO GEO’s advice Despite the agreement between GEO and Google offering Earth Engine licenses for 25 projects, Camara warned that they will not use all licenses if they do not receive 25 quality proposals over the next two years. “There must be competition, quality, and transparency in the process,” Camara said. “I don’t think it is worthwhile in the end allocating money because you can.” Merit and quality are the key factors in the decision for GEO, with the open process hoping to build diversity in ideas and applicants from around the world. For applicants, ensuring that transparency and openness is built into their proposals is critical. If proposals bring organizational data into Earth Engine to assist in developing programs and applications, they will need to be shared. And algorithms and code will also need to be available to ensure processes are repeatable and transparent. “We are not giving away grants to people who are not interested in sharing,” Camara said. For GEO, this is critical for ensuring governments build transparency in their environmental decision-making. “There is important information about the environment that is technical, and most of this information is born out of state institutions,” Camara said. “If these institutions are not able to do their work independently and in a verifiable form, democracy is at risk if results are fudged.” Ensuring data that is critical for good policy and decision-making is available on an open system that can be independently confirmed, Camara believes, is critical for responding to global development challenges — and delivering good democracy. “There is no solution for the long-term environmental crisis that does not include very detailed assessments of the conditions,” he said. “If the data is not available, people will deny what science knows and try to fake the information so they don’t have to act until it’s too late — and then everyone suffers.”