Introduction to Google Earth Engine
Functionalities and Available Data
Types
Esubalew N.M. (PhD)
EiABC, Addis Ababa University
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✓What is Earth Engine?
✓How is Earth Engine different from Google Earth?
✓What can earth engine can do?
✓Google Earth Engine Functionality
Outline ✓Pros of GEE
✓Exploring GEE datasets
✓The GEE platform and its interface
✓How to create a GEE account
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What is Earth Engine?
A cloud-based platform for scientific
analysis and visualization of geospatial
datasets.
For academic, non-profit, business and
government users.
It hosts satellite imagery of more than
forty years and stores it in a public data
Credit: google earth engine
archive.
The images ingested on a daily basis and
made available for global-scale data
mining.
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How is Earth Engine different from Google Earth?
Google Earth enables you to travel, explore,
and learn about the world by interacting with
a virtual globe.
You can view satellite imagery, maps, terrain,
3D buildings, and much more.
On the other hand, Earth Engine is a tool for
analyzing geospatial information such as
flood delineation, land use change, forest
dynamics etc.
Credit: google earth engine
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Earth Engine
Earth Engine is a public data catalog,
compute infrastructure, geospatial
APIs and an interactive app server.
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Google Earth Engine platform
Google Earth Engine (GEE) provide
users with a single place for
accessing satellite data, applying
geospatial methodologies, and
displaying analysis results.
GEE’s API allows users to easily
apply land cover monitoring
algorithms and classifications with
coded commands.
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What can earth engine do?
Apply an
Get an image algorithm to an Filter a collection
image
Compute
Map an algorithm Reduce a
aggregate
over a collection collection
statistics
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Google Earth Engine Functionality
Uses of GEE for satellite imagery analysis include:
Automation of data processing and display
Near real-time monitoring (limited by the availability of data in the catalog)
Machine learning algorithm application
Graphical User Interface implementation
Scientists, researchers, and developers use Google Earth Engine to detect changes,
map trends, and quantify differences on the Earth's surface 8
Pros of GEE
❑Unprecedented speed: reduce processing time
using cloud-based computing power.
❑Store petabytes (massive) amount of data in
the archive.
❑Easy of use once familiar with geospatial
science.
❑Online platform for easy access to data,
scientific algorithms and computational power.
Note that one petabyte holds 1000 terabytes (TB 9
Cloud based raster computing removes barriers and
limitations
Data hosting and Personal computing Imagery access and
storing capabilities availability
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The EE catalog
Credit: Google Earth
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GEE Land Monitoring Applications
❑Long-term monitoring of landscape change
and land cover type.
❑ Computation of indices relevant to land
management such as normalized difference
indices for vegetation, water, soil, and urban
areas.
❑Landscape time series analysis and
change detection Summary statistics.
❑ Validation and accuracy assessment
methods.
❑Visualization and presentation of results. Time series of MODIS NDVI displayed using Google Earth
Engine. Image Credit: Google Earth Engine Developers
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Available Satellite Sensor Data in GEE: Land Cover Products
Copernicus Global Land Cover
Layers (CGLS).
MODIS Land Cover Type Yearly
Global 500m.
Global PALSAR-2/PALSAR Copernicus Global Land Cover Layers: CGLS-LC100 collection 3 displayed
Forest/Non-Forest Map. globally in
Credit: Earth Engine Data Catalog
USGS National Land Cover Database
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✓Global PALSAR-2/PALSAR
✓ High-resolution maps of global surface water
Forest/Non-Forest Map.
occurrence, change, seasonality, recurrence,
and transitions.
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Exploring GEE
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Datasets
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MODIS Collections in Earth Engine
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Sentinel collections
❑ Provides data from a dual-polarization C-band ❑ The Sentinel-2 mission collects high-resolution
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument. multispectral imagery useful for a broad range of
❑ SAR instruments are capable of acquiring data in applications, including monitoring of vegetation,
all weather conditions. soil and water cover, land cover change, as well as
humanitarian and disaster risk. 19
✓To understand the whole essence of GEE, watch the short video using
the link below
• https://earthengine.google.com/#
(credit: google earth engine).
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The platform
Three components
✓ Overview
✓ Code editor
✓ Documentation
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Code Editor
❑A web-based Integrated Dev’s Env’t (IDE)
for writing and running scripts.
❑ It requires log in with a Google Account
that’s been enabled for Earth Engine
access.
❑ Code Editor features are designed to
make developing complex geospatial
workflows fast and easy.
❑ It uses JavaScript and Python.
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Code Editor Interface
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GEE interface
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Getting familiar with GEE
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Google Earth Engine Account
1.Get a google account at: accounts.google.com
2.Create Earth Engine account at:
earthengine.google.com/signup
3. Earth Engine, Google's geospatial science platform in
Google Cloud, is available for paid commercial use and
remains free for academic and research use.
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Where to create a GEE account
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References
Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., & Moore, R. (2017).
Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote
Sensing of Environment.
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