IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2017 - 57

◗ Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution
◗ NA SA-India Space Research Organization synthetic ap-

erture radar.
The complete table is available online (http://tinyurl.com/
nhmv9ky).
DATA DISCOVERABILITY AND USABILITY
Creating an inventory is one step toward making data
more visible, but workshop attendees emphasized that
improving discoverability and usability would make
the data more accessible. Data discoverability enables
potential end users to determine what data are available and where they can be obtained; the inventory
documents the low-latency data, but users expect to be
able to find data through geospatial search clients and
search engines.
Data usability enables users to easily visualize or integrate the data into analysis tools to facilitate data use; this
could be through making data available in easy-to-use
formats (e.g., Geographical Information System-ready formats), making the data available for machine-to-machine
access, or enabling users to interactively browse full-resolution imagery. NASA's EOSDIS has existing capabilities for
discovery and visualization. Such capabilities include the
Common Metadata Repository, Global Imagery Browse
Services (GIBS), Worldview, and the Earthdata Search Client
(https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov).
SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP RECOMMENDATIONS
The workshop highlighted the importance of low-latency
data for a range of applications and concluded that ongoing
investment in the development of NRT data and products
will enable increased societal benefit, particularly if outreach and data discoverability are improved. The workshop
recommendations include
1) actions to accelerate data discoverability and access
2) improved data usability
3) early engagement between new missions and the
NRT community to encourage mission development
in support of NRT data (when feasible within science
requirements).
NASA could improve data discoverability by requiring
that all NASA programs producing low-latency Earth observation data register their products in the CMR. The CMR
could consider registering both NASA applications products and non-NASA-funded operational products that use
NASA data. Where feasible, imagery from low-latency data
products should also be added to GIBS to enable visualization. Specific actions to increase data access include custom
low-latency data portals and adding key low-latency modeling products into Worldview and GIBS.
Improving data usability is as important to the community as accelerating data discoverability and access. It
was recommended that NASA increase training opportunities and conduct case studies that enhance data usability.
NASA already makes some data sets available as web-based
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IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

mapping services and is working to expand this capability
further. This is particularly relevant, as many operational
and application users do not have appropriate remotesensing expertise or capability to process data at their facility computers.
As the uptake of NRT data increases, there is a need to
engage with new missions to encourage NRT data availability
for operational decision makers.
The workshop recommended
that future solicitations and diIMPROVING DATA
rected missions evaluate data
USABILITY IS AS
latency and the benefits and
IMPORTANT TO THE
costs of providing NRT data visà-vis the benefit to operational
COMMUNITY AS
decision makers. Adding such
ACCELERATING DATA
an evaluation within phase A
DISCOVERABILITY
(mission proposal review) would
AND ACCESS.
help ensure that mission teams
have an opportunity to explore
the benefits of including lowlatency data products in their mission concepts. To do this, it
is recommended that, during the prephase A stage (concept
formulation), mission teams survey the user communities to
determine the value of low-latency products and the possibilities for accommodating NRT data without compromising
a mission's primary science objectives.
CONCLUSIONS
NASA successfully leverages existing systems to provide
low-latency ESD data at little extra cost to the standard
processing, search, and delivery systems. Looking to the
future, representatives from NASA headquarters agreed to
continue this approach and consider additional low-latency data sets from new missions where large populations of
supporters would significantly benefit from their delivery.
In doing so, NASA will continue to increase the societal
value of its investment in Earth observations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Diane Davies and Molly Brown acknowledge the valuable input from David Green (program manager for Disaster Applications, NASA headquarters) and Prof. Chris Justice (University of Maryland) for their guidance and support during the
workshop. Natasha Stavros acknowledges that part of the research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Diane K. Davies (diane.k.davies@nasa.gov) received her
M.Sc. degree in land resource management from Cranfield
University and her B.Sc. degree in geography from Nottingham University, United Kingdom. She is the operations
manager for NASA's Land Atmosphere Near-Real-Time Capability for Earth Observing System. Previously, she was at
the University of Maryland, where she was principal investigator for the Fire Information for Resource Management
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http://www.tinyurl.com/ https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov http://www.M.Sc http://www.B.Sc

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2017