Long term preservation of earth observation data: The challenge and the cooperation activities

The preservation and accessibility of digital data and of their associated knowledge is today a very challenging and critical item in Europe. Earth Observation data are unique by nature and are fundamental for the monitoring of our environment and planet and of its changes. They are considered [1] as humankind asset and as such need to be preserved without time constrains and kept accessible together with all the information and knowledge needed to understand and use them in future. The creation of a cooperative and harmonized collective approach on Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) in Europe in the Earth Observation domain was started at the beginning of 2008 under ESA leadership to coordinate and optimize European efforts in the LTDP domain and produced several results at the basis of an LTDP cooperative framework now in place in Europe.