Big Data & Open data

Never before has there been a faster and cheaper way to obtain information about land, water, atmosphere, as well as human impact on it. In Europe, for example, the Copernicus satellite family provides the foundation for insight into our planet, together with long climate time series and further data, such as elevation models. For such Big Earth Data, spatio-temporal datacubes are an established cornerstone in OGC, ISO, and INSPIRE standardisation modelled as "coverages".
For robust, user-friendly, interoperable services, a technically sound coverage standards suite is indispensable. The ISO/OGC suite of coverage data and service model is instrumental for easy, interoperable handling, and a who’s who of primary open-source and proprietary geo tools support these standards. For example, the legal framework for a common European spatial data infrastructure, INSPIRE, has adopted CIS as its basis.
In summary, this work is of the highest practical relevance and visibility, with significant impact on geo data infrastructures and, ultimately, increased understanding of our planet and the impact we have on it, as well as everyday day-to-day use of insight from geo data.