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DELTARES, September 2016

23

FROM SATELLITE IMAGE

TOWATER MAPS

S

atellite images contain a lot of information

and they are a gold mine for researchers.

The only drawback: there is so much

information that you can't do anything

with it using a standard computer.

Researcher Gennadii Donchyts knows all about

this. He needed satellite images for his doctorate

study of interactive surface models.

He turned to Google Earth Engine, a platform that

provides access to petabytes of satellite images.

One petabyte is the equivalent of the amount of

information you can store in a 1.8-kilometre-high

tower of DVDs. Without sleeves. Google Earth

Engine also provides the computer capacity to

make calculations with these data.

Gennadii Donchyts developed a calculation

method that combines elevation measurements

with other satellite data to develop better water

maps. The Deltares Aqua Monitor website, which

was launched in October, uses these new water

maps to show how coasts and waterways move

and change in the course of the time, and increase

or decrease in size. This is all done on the basis of

objective, free, high-resolution information that

cannot be found in any other archive or dataset.

There is now a community where researchers

share calculation methods of this kind. ‘In that

way, knowledge becomes more widely available

and experience is shared with the community and

with Google, too,’ explains Gennadii. ‘Google can

work with big data but they lack water expertise.’

There are benefits in the other direction as well.

For example, the elevation model is no longer

accurate in some places on the map. Gennadii has

already identified a number of locations using his

calculation method and suggested corrections.

That is useful for Google.

More information:

gennadii.donchyts@deltares.nl

KNOWLEDGE

INOPERATION

Alliance between Deltares and industry produces innovative techniques

and creates newmarket opportunities for business.

Water transformed into land

Land transformed into water