Glossary

AEZ: Agro-Ecological Zone. Several DE Africa datasets, such as Water Observations from Space, use AEZs to subdivide the African continent when performing data validation and accuracy assessments.
API: Application Programming Interface. The Open Data Cube Application Programming Interface gives programmers full access to the capabilities of the Cube, allowing query and advanced data retrieval.
ARD: Analysis Ready Data. Data which has been pre-processed and compiled to make it more accessible. This makes it easier for users to perform their own analysis.
ARN: Amazon Resource Name. The naming method used by Amazon Web Services to unambiguously specify resources.
AWS: Amazon Web Services. Cloud computing infrastructure provided by Amazon (United States).
CEOS: Committee on Earth Observations. An international panel focusing on the interoperability, validation, and coordination of Earth observation activities. See https://ceos.org/.
COG: Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF. A data file format optimised for efficient workflows on the cloud and remote reading. See https://www.cogeo.org/.
DE Africa Notebooks: Digital Earth Africa Notebooks. An open-source repository containing Jupyter Notebooks, tools and workflows for geospatial analysis with Open Data Cube and xarray. See https://github.com/digitalearthafrica/deafrica-sandbox-notebooks.
DE Africa Sandbox: Digital Earth Africa Sandbox. A learning and analysis environment for getting started with DE Africa and the Open Data Cube. It includes sample data and Jupyter notebooks that demonstrate the capability of the Open Data Cube.
DE Africa: Digital Earth Africa. DE Africa delivers routine, reliable and operational services using Earth observations to produce decision-ready products for policy, science and industry. For more information see https://www.digitalearthafrica.org/.
EO: Earth Observation. The field of gathering information about Earth using surveying techniques such as satellite-based remote sensing, or ground-based data collection.
ESA: European Space Agency
FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FC: Fractional Cover. Fractional Cover (FC) is a measurement that splits the landscape into three parts, or fractions; green (leaves, grass, and growing crops), brown (branches, dry grass or hay, and dead leaf litter), and bare ground (soil or rock).
GeoMAD: Geomedian and Median Absolute Deviation product.
Geomedian: A robust high-dimensional statistic that maintains relationships between spectral bands. Forms part of the GeoMAD product.
GEE: Google Earth Engine
GIS: Geographic Information System
Jupyter Notebook: A user-friendly file type that allows code to be run and presented alongside explanatory documentation, figures, and scientific notation. Has the file extension .ipynb.
JupyterLab: An interactive web-based user interface for editing and running Jupyter Notebooks. JupyterLab is used as an analysis environment on the DE Africa Sandbox.
Landsat: A joint NASA/USGS program of medium resolution satellites that have been collecting publicly available Earth observation data continuously since 1972.
MAD: Median Absolute Deviation. In DE Africa, MADs are a measure used to quantify variation in the geomedian. Forms part of the GeoMAD product, where three different MADs are used: Euclidean MAD, Spectral MAD, and Bray-Curtis MAD.
MODIS: Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, a sensor on board NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites that collects publicly-available low resolution Earth observation data every one to two days.
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (United States)
NBR: Normalised Burn Ratio, calculated from near-infrared (NIR) and short wave infrared (SWIR).
NDVI: Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, calculated from visible and near-infrared light reflected by vegetation.
NIR: Near Infrared, referring to particular bands used to collect Earth observation data
ODC: Open Data Cube, an international open-source project developing the technology that powers Digital Earth Africa. For more information see http://opendatacube.org/.
OGC: Open Geospatial Consortium
OWS: OGC Web Services. Geospatial services for data access, display and processing.
Python: The programming language used to develop the Open Data Cube. It is easy to use while still allowing high performance access and processing capabilities. See http://www.python.org/ for more information.
SAR: Synthetic Aperture Radar
Sentinel: A series of satellites from the ESA Copernicus programme. They collect publicly-available Earth observation data. The program includes the Sentinel-2 multispectral instrument mission, and the Sentinel-1 SAR mission.
STAC: The SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) is a specification that provides a common language to describe a range of geospatial information, so it can more easily be indexed and discovered. A “spatiotemporal asset” is any file that represents information about the earth captured in a certain space and time. See https://stacspec.org/.
USGS: United States Geological Survey
WOfS: Water Observations from Space, a Digital Earth Africa product that provides images and data showing where water has been seen in by satellites.
xarray: An open source project and Python package that for working with labelled multi-dimensional arrays such as those returned by the Open Data Cube (ODC). See http://xarray.pydata.org/.