We just have launched the SemantiX project website! In the future, you will find more information about the project here, and also a Blog by our project team members.

Get in contact with us! We love to hear from you.

Dr. Dirk Tiede
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Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics
Z_GIS - University of Salzburg, Austria

The goal of SemantiX is to retrieve Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) from AVHRR and Sentinel-3 data, curate them as a long time series in a semantic Earth observation (EO) data cube and facilitate public access from a citizen science smartphone application.

Progress in climatology has been very well documented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in AR4 to AR5, which makes it particularly worthwhile to focus on remote sensing in this field. Satellite remote sensing has increasingly contributed to monitoring global conditions of particular importance to climate change studies. The increasing spatial, temporal, spectral and radiometric resolution of these data, simplified access, and lower to no costs to users have led to an increased likelihood of documenting changes driven or accelerated by human activities.

SemantiX will combine AVHRR and Sentinel-3 A/B data using new methods to create a unique, long time series that can be carried into the future through continued integration of newly acquired Copernicus Sentinel 3 data. Until now, AVHRR data have only been accessible via sequential access, requiring a significant time investment and expert knowledge to find relevant data for analysis. Interested scientists from other disciplines or the broader public currently do not have any access to these methods or data.

Earth observation (EO)-based information are unfortunately still nearly as remote from relevant target groups as EO satellites are from the Earth. Therefore, unlocking the potential of EO-data-derived information is crucial. It contributes to finding solutions to pressing global problems, such as how best to mitigate climate change. The SemantiX project is an approach to better facilitate access to EO data and derived information for scientists and the public, and promote active public participation, gaining additional information through citizen science. The project aims to simplify information production from EO data to variables relevant to climate change monitoring.

Project information