Managing Earth observation data with distributed geoprocessing services

Geospatial web services within a Spatial Data Infrastructure framework enable discovery of, and access to, geospatial information and services as well as data visualization. Earth Observation data-based applications pose a challenge for these infrastructures due to their consumption of huge volumes of data. Spatial Data Infrastructures promote the processing of data in situ rather than downloading them for local processing, and therefore novel methods are needed for scientists to process EO data in a distributed way. We describe an approach to facilitate EO data exploitation via distributed geoprocessing services, and we use as a concrete use case a scenario for predicting runoff in Alpine river basins. We show a methodology for wrapping geoprocesses in standardized containers, and an API platform for accessing and combining collections of these service containers.