12 December 2018: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the launch of an online portal that will allow users to observe any location on the planet with satellite data. By 2019, the system is expected to offer features to support disaster management and forest and glacial monitoring, among other applications.

The free web-based portal, known as ‘Collect Earth Online,’ allows users to collect up-to-date data on the environment and its changes in a more efficient and participatory manner. The geospatial tool provides users with access to high-resolution satellite imagery from multiple sources in addition to leveraging four decades of historic satellite images and photo mosaics from NASA and EU satellite networks. These data aim to make it easier for users to collect samples, conduct surveys and use crowdsourcing techniques. FAO and NASA expect users will develop innovative uses for the tool, such as to measure links between biomass and poverty.

The Collect Earth Online portal will help countries around the world to better map and monitor their forests.

In early 2019, the Collect Earth Online portal will be integrated in FAO’s cloud-based platform, the System for Earth Observation Data Access, Processing and Analysis for Land Monitoring (SEPAL), which is anticipated to make it easier to link reference data to processing chains to generate accurate, transparent maps, data and statistics on forests and other land uses. In addition, the Collect Earth Online system will integrate TimeSync, a Landsat time series visualization tool created by the US Forest Service (USFS) and Oregon State University. According to FAO, the system’s open-source, cloud-based nature will both broaden access, and safeguard against data loss.

NASA’s Global Program Manager for SERVIR, Dan Irwin, said Collect Earth Online “changes how we collect data about the Earth” and will “help countries around the world to better map and monitor their forests.” FAO’s Forestry Division’s Policy and Resources Head, Mette Wilki, said the new portal allows users to explore the environment “using local experts that know the landscape and the underlying ecology.” Wilki stressed the importance of such accessibility “at a time when environmental challenges are taking on urgent and unprecedented importance.”

FAO will use Collect Earth Online to support the FAO global Remote Sensing Survey. [Collect Earth Online] [UN News Story] [FAO News Article]