Highway

Context

In an era of increasing global complexity, understanding the intricate links between Earth’s natural phenomena and human activities is essential for building a resilient and sustainable future.

In 2022, the European Commission launched Destination Earth (DestinE), an initiative aimed at creating a Digital Twin of the Earth capable of:

• predicting extreme weather events
• analyzing climate adaptation scenarios
• assessing socioeconomic impacts
• testing mitigation policies and strategies

In this context, Earth Observation (EO) data is fundamental, and services are needed to make them easily accessible and usable.

The project

HIGHWAY (HIGH  performance earth observation digital twin components ready data gateWAY) is the ESA service that makes EO data accessible and ready to use to feed the Digital Twin Earth models into the DestinE platform.

MEEO’s role

Within the HIGHWAY service, MEEO plays a strategic technological role through two main activities:

1. ARCO transformation of EO data
   MEEO is responsible for the ARCO (Analysis Ready, Cloud Optimized) transformation of EO data.
   This process harmonizes datasets from ESA satellite programmes. The transformation follows the Earth Observation Processing Framework (EOPF), a standard model used to ensure consistency across datasets.
   Once processed, the data are made available in cloud-optimized formats, such as Zarr and Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG). These formats allow users to access and analyze large volumes of satellite data more quickly and efficiently.

2. Advanced Data Access service
   MEEO also develops and maintains the Advanced Data Access (ADA) service, which allows users to easily find, view, and analyze EO data prepared in ARCO format.
   Through ADA, datasets can be searched using either OpenSearch and STAC (Spatio Temporal Asset Catalog), and explored as interactive maps through the Web Map Service (WMS).
   These tools and services make it easier to integrate satellite data into scientific studies, applications, geospatial analyses.

Consortium

The consortium combines complementary expertise in Earth Observation data processing, cloud services and infrastructure, quality assurance, and operational service delivery.

• adwäisEO, acts as prime overseeing the management of the service and contributes to the IT infrastructure, supports data processing workflows.
• MEEO, contributes by providing the ARCO transformation and the Advanced Data Access service.
• ACRI-ST,  contributes by providing the remaining portion of the IT infrastructure, performing quality assessments of the ARCO generated products, and ensuring end-to-end monitoring.
• EarthLab Luxembourg, responsible for on-demand data processing.

RoadMap

Advance Data Access Roadmap