Big Data Analytics is an emerging field since massive storage and computing capabilities have been made available by advanced e-infrastructures. Earth and Environmental sciences are likely to benefit from Big Data Analytics techniques supporting the processing of the large number of Earth Observation datasets currently acquired and generated through observations and simulations. However, Earth Science data and applications present specificities in terms of relevance of the geospatial information, wide heterogeneity of data models and formats, and complexity of processing. Therefore, Big Earth Data Analytics requires specifically tailored techniques and tools. The EarthServer Big Earth Data Analytics engine offers a solution for coverage-type datasets, built around a high performance array database technology, and the adoption and enhancement of standards for service interaction (OGC WCS and WCPS). The EarthServer solution, led by the collection of requirements from scientific communities and international initiatives, provides a holistic approach that ranges from query languages and scalability up to mobile access and visualization. The result is demonstrated and validated through the development of lighthouse applications in the Marine, Geology, Atmospheric, Planetary and Cryospheric science domains.

We present the design and development of an open-source web application called Water Data Explorer (WDE), designed to retrieve water resources observation and model data from data catalogs that follow the WaterOneFlow and WaterML Service-Oriented Architecture standards. WDE is a fully customizable web application built using the Tethys Platform development environment. As it is open source, it can be deployed on the web servers of international government agencies, non-governmental organizations, research teams, and others. Water Data Explorer provides uniform access to international data catalogs, such as the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) Hydrologic Information System (HIS) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Hydrological Observing System (WHOS), as well as to local data catalogs that support the WaterOneFlow and WaterML standards. WDE supports data discovery, visualization, downloading, and basic data interpolation. It can be customized for different regions by modifying the user interface (i.e., localization), as well as by including pre-defined data catalogs and data sources. Access to WDE functionality is provided by a new open-source Python package called “Pywaterml” which provides programmable access to WDE methods to discover, visualize, download, and interpolate data. We present two case studies that access the CUAHSI HIS and WHOS catalogs and demonstrate regional customization, data discovery from WaterOneFlow web services, data visualization of time series observations, and data downloading.

The GEOSS Platform is a key contribution to the goal of building the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). It enables a harmonized discovery and access of Earth observation data, shared online by heterogeneous organizations worldwide. This work analyzes both what is made available in the GEOSS Platform by the data providers and how users are utilizing it including multiyear trends, updating a previous analysis published in 2017. The present statistics derive from a 2021 EOValue report funded by the European Commission. The offer of GEOSS Platform data has been the object of various analyses, including data provider characterization, data sharing trends, and data characterization (comprising metadata quality analysis, thematic analysis, responsible party identification, spatial–temporal coverage). GEOSS data demand has also been the object of several analyses, including data consumer characterization, utilization trends, and requested data characterization (comprising thematic analysis, spatial–temporal coverage, and popularity). Among the findings, a large amount of shared data, mostly from satellite sources, emerges with an issue of low metadata quality and related discovery match. Moreover, the trend in usage is decreasing. Therefore, the progressive disconnection of the GEOSS platform from its data Providers and Users and other possible causes are also reported.

In a world driven by the Internet and the readily accessible information it provides, there exists a high demand to easily discover and collect vast amounts of data available over several scientific domains and numerous data types. To add to the complexity, data is not only available through a plethora of data sources within disparate systems but also represents differing scales of space and time. One clear divide that exists in the world of information science and technology is the disjoint relationship between hydrologic and atmospheric science information. These worlds have long been split between observed time series at discrete geographical features in hydrologic science and modeled or remotely sensed coverages or grids over continuous space and time domains in atmospheric science. As more information becomes widely available through the Web, data are being served and published as Web services using standardized implementations and encodings. This paper illustrates a framework that utilizes Sensor Observation Services, Web Feature Services, Web Coverage Services, Catalog Services for the Web and GI-cat Services to index and discover data offered through different classes of information. This services infrastructure supports multiple servers of time series and gridded information, which can be searched through multiple portals, using a common set of time, space and concept query filters.

Global Change challenges are now systematically recognized and tackled in a growingly coordinated manner by intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations. Heterogeneous observing networks provide the founded data sources to assess the Earth environmental status and take sound decisions to achieve a sustainable development. WMO Hydrological Observing System (WHOS) allows to discover and access historical and near real time hydrological observations. WHOS represents the hydrological contribution to the wider WIGOS-WIS system of WMO. It is a digital ecosystems framework contributed by a set of data providers and technical support centers. In this framework, three regional pilots were successfully completed. The WHOS architecture applies the services brokering style, implemented through the Discovery and Access Broker technology. A brokering approach makes a global system of systems possible and sustainable, where the different enterprise systems are enabled to interoperate, despite they implement heterogeneous communication interfaces and data models. In this manuscript, the WHOS brokering solution is detailed by recurring to the definition of a set of transversal viewpoints to describe the important aspects of the complex ecosystem –namely: enterprise, information, computational, engineering, and technological views. Finally, the three regional pilot ecosystems are described as successful cases of WHOS implementation.

The development of a clearinghouse catalog solution arises from the need of interoperability among different communities. This component, provides search and access capabilities across catalogs, inventory lists and their registered resources. In an SOA (service oriented architecture) approach, a clearinghouse catalog solution may be implemented as a Broker/Mediation component applying mediation services to address standards multiplicity. An example of such solution is GI-cat. In this work we describe its architecture. GI-cat implements a distributed approach in order to achieve scalability and accuracy. It implements metadata querying and browsing in an asynchronous way. As far as query distribution is concerned, it provides advanced features such as the possibility to retrieve intermediate query results and related feedbacks. The main GI-cat components, their interfaces and roles are described and discussed. A specific GeoBrowser was developed in order to demonstrate the advanced GI-cat functionalities: GI-go. GI-cat was successfully used in international initiatives and programmes such as GEOSS and EC-funded projects.