Long Tail of Science's Requirements for Earth Observation Services in Europe

OCRE has published the results of its Earth Observation requirements gathering survey, which was conducted by OCRE partner RHEA Group in conjunction with Trust-IT and EARSC. The analysis of the responses has allowed the identification of consumption habits, needs and technical requirements.

Requirements Gathering
The requirements gathering activities regarding EO services covered different fronts, from online media (LinkedIn promotion, Twitter pools and online surveying) to conference and workshop participation (EGU, Living Planet, Phi-Week among others) and face2face events during 2019 to ensure the maximum participation from EU researchers from different domains.

The role of the online survey
From the total participation in the researchers’ survey, the majority replying are (57.1%) considered experts in EO, while the other groups are equal with a 14.3% each. From the responders, the main groups were researchers (39%), PhD students (13%) and Post-docs (8%). The domains more represented (following the EARSC thematic taxonomy) were Land (41%), disaster and geohazards (24%) and built-environment (13%).

Aggregation of EO domains representation

These researchers based their research in EO data differently, where 19% of the researchers based their research a 100% in EO data and products, a 42.9% based their research on a 75% on EO data, while 19% of the total based their research just a little (25%) or not in EO products (0%).
Over the 76% of them have experience in using cloud services, with only 9.5% of them considered experts, and 33% both of them intermediate and beginners.

Who responded to the requirements gathering activities?

The total participation counts with 19 EU member states replying and participating to our requirements gathering activities covering all 6 thematic groups and all their subdomains, with a total of 25 subdomains covered with over 65 participants.

Geographic distribution of the total participants in the OCRE requirements gathering

Requirements gathered

From the requirements gathering activities, OCRE identified a ranking or requirements coming from researchers involved in Face2Face meetings, workshops, conferences, online surveys and interviews.

This ranking of requirements is:

1. Processing with collocated data
2. EO data processing
3. User algorithm hosting
4. Interactive algorithm development
5. Data available/provided by the EO suppliers
6. Data analytics
7. Data sharing capabilities
8. On-demand and online services easy to use
9. Support and training.

The requirements gathering can conclude that there are different specific applications for different themes but all have in common the following general use cases:

• EO data processing
• User algorithm hosting
• Interactive algorithm development
• Value added products
• Data analytics
• Data sharing capabilities

The requirements gathering insights will be a key input for the preparation of the OCRE tender for digital Earth Observation services. The preparation for the publication of this tender is expected to begin after the publication of the OCRE IaaS+ Tender.

For a closer look at the EO requirements gathering insights, download this paper now!