Open Geospatial System for LUCAS In Situ Data Harmonization and Distribution

Abstract

The use of in situ references in Earth observation monitoring is a fundamental need. LUCAS (Land Use and Coverage Area frame Survey) is an activity that has performed repeated in situ surveys over Europe every three years since 2006. The dataset is unique in many aspects; however it is currently not available through a standardized interface, machine-to-machine. Moreover, the evolution of the surveys limits the performance of change analysis using the dataset. Our objective was to develop an open-source system to fill these gaps. This paper presents a developed system solution for the LUCAS in situ data harmonization and distribution. We have designed a multi-layer client-server system that may be integrated into end-to-end workflows. It provides data through an OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) compliant interface. Moreover, a geospatial user may integrate the data through a Python API (Application Programming Interface) to ease the use in workflows with spatial, temporal, attribute, and thematic filters. Furthermore, we have implemented a QGIS plugin to retrieve the spatial and temporal subsets of the data interactively. In addition, the Python API includes methods for managing thematic information. The system provides enhanced functionality which is demonstrated in two use cases.