Discrete Global Grid Systems for Developing Digital Earth Systems
Recent advances in geospatial sensors used in various technologies (e.g., satellites, smartphones, and UAVs) have resulted in unprecedented opportunities for innovative applications of Digital Earth. Conversely, the explosion in the volume, scale and variability of geospatial data has created new challenges which require novel digital earth systems to address these challenges. Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS) is one of the innovative approaches for implementing Digital Earth Systems. In DGGS, the globe is discretized into highly regular multiresolution cells using iterative refinements of an initial polyhedron. The underlying cells are uniquely indexed and used as a placeholder for any datasets associated with the corresponding regions on the globe.
The fundamental properties of DGGS make them a powerful and consistent framework for integrating and managing large multiscale geospatial datasets of varying resolutions. This is especially important in the context of Digital Earth, where working with multiresolution data that range from global to local scales is common. DGGS can effortlessly handle this variability, ensuring that data can be easily integrated and managed regardless of its resolution or scale. Furthermore, unlike the continuous foundations of GIS, the explicit and discrete nature of DGGS cell representations makes them an ideal framework for integrating data from geospatial sensors that measure various attributes using digital (discrete) technologies. This feature allows for more precise and accurate analyses and provides an explicit method to handle geospatial data uncertainty.
This Article Collection aims to cover recent trends in Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) for developing Digital Earth Systems and their applications.
Edited by
Professor Faramarz Samavati(University of Calgary, Canada)