Data Discovery for Earth Science
DiscovEarth
Summary
DiscovEarth is a web app developed to aggregate publicly available datasets and collections offered by various government agencies (NASA, CSA, JAXA, ESA) into a more easily accessible database with a user-friendly interface. The goal is to help citizen scientists around the world find data for their own projects and create a hub for others to share and organize more resources in one succinct place.
How We Addressed This Challenge
While there is an abundance of publicly-available data for earth scientists and researchers to utilize, these archives are difficult to find and traverse, especially if you’re not a professional. Our team discovered this first-hand just by looking through the resources provided on the Space Apps Challenge website!
We thought it would be helpful to create a database of the resources provided (and websites found in our own search), a sort of ‘one-stop shop’ for someone who doesn’t quite know where to begin their research, and “minimize the amount of time it takes for researchers to search, collect, and prepare data to study Earth science events in detail”.
How We Developed This Project
Our initial plan was to use the available APIs - such as NASA’s CMR, or the Copernicus Open Access Hub - to create an easily searchable collection. However we soon realised our own difficulty in understanding the metadata enough to thoroughly utilize the API. Additionally, while some agency websites and resources were user-friendly enough for the beginner researcher (a.k.a us!), others were confusing and jargon heavy.
Therefore, we thought it best to take a step back and pivot to creating a more general database of resources for the average “citizen scientist”, who might have a keyword in mind (e.g. climate change) and wants to know which catalogues to begin their search in. We also thought it was important to include a form for users to add resources they found elsewhere, to share their knowledge with future researchers.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
Currently our web app utilizes a database we built with links to numerous space and government agencies, that a user can discover after searching with keywords (based on country of origin, whether an account is required, and a predetermined keyword list). A future goal of the app is to use the APIs to make datasets themselves searchable alongside the agency website/catalogue where the data has been collected.
Project Demo
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1W4lhONog-HzHAo3C6bTQiyZ2TmvOFz6y_tISBKhromQ/edit?usp=sharing
Data & Resources
https://wiki.earthdata.nasa.gov/display/CMR/CMR+Client+Partner+User+Guide