Overview
Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a cloud-based planetary-scale platform for Earth science data and analysis and visualization of geospatial datasets. Earth Engine hosts
hundreds of petabytes of satellite imagery, storing it in a public archive that includes historical images going back 35 to 40 years. With its JavaScript and Python API,
images that are ingested daily or month are available for global-scale data mining.
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Gone are the old days of downloading bits and pieces of imagery over challenging internet conditions and analyzing these in a “retail” manner with desktop software –
welcome to Cloud Analytics – where the data and analytics reside in the cloud and anyone can do free powerful analytics from their smartphone for anywhere in the
world! This can be a game changer for us and our clients to improve project M&E and the evidence base for action!
Potential applications include monitoring and assessment of vegetation health, land cover change dynamics, precipitation or surface water changes, mapping of
deforestation hotspots, assessing agricultural productivity and near-real time air pollution trends, to name a few. This learning series session aims to introduce
participants to the fundamentals of Google Earth Engine, primarily through the code editor interface using JavaScript API.
This application is already in use by project engineers in World Bank projects and the Task team leader for planning and monitoring. Some examples will be shared
how easy it is to have your own script and setup monitoring system for your project.