Tag: geospatial data

The AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program makes high-value, cloud-optimized datasets publicly available on AWS. Our full list of publicly available datasets are on the Registry of Open Data on AWS and are now also discoverable on AWS Data Exchange. This quarter, we released 15 new or updated datasets including OpenFold, OpenAlex, and radar data from Capella Space. Check out some highlights from the new or updated datasets.

In a data-dependent world, success belongs to the side with decision advantage: the ability to acquire data and make sense of a complex and adaptive environment, and act smarter and faster than the competition. Understanding global environments requires more than just more data – it requires live two- and three-dimensional maps, new support tools, improved processes, seamless connectivity, and better collaboration that can scale to the needs of the environment. This blog post explores how to address challenges of big data and accelerate time to data insights with machine learning with AWS Snowball Edge device deployment at the edge.

With increasing pressure from climate change, loss of biodiversity, and demand for natural resources from already stressed ecosystems, it has become essential to understand and address environmental changes by making sustainable land use decisions with the latest and most accurate data. As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), AWS invited Joe Sexton, chief scientist and co-founder of terraPulse, to share how AWS technologies and open data are supporting terraPulse’s efforts to provide accurate and up-to-date information on the world’s changing ecosystems.

Since 1971, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO) at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has accumulated an Earth observation (EO) data archive in excess of two petabytes (PB). NRCan wanted to modernize its geospatial offerings at a faster pace, so they turned to the AWS Snow Family on AWS to migrate their large volume of data.

Geospatial datasets are increasingly large, reaching terabyte and even petabyte scale, which can cause many challenges for geospatial analysts and educators–but Amazon AppStream 2.0 can provide some solutions. In this blog post, we walk through how to deploy QGIS, a no cost, open-source geospatial information system (GIS) application used by geospatial analysts, in Amazon AppStream 2.0. We also load an example dataset to demonstrate how desktop GIS application users can access large, cloud-hosted geospatial datasets with high performance by keeping the data and compute components together on the cloud, and streaming the desktop application instead of downloading the data itself.

As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), AWS invited Rafael Monge Vargas, director of the National Center of GeoEnvironmental Information (CENIGA) at the Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), to share how his team is helping advance conservation and economic development in Costa Rica and how they utilize ASDI and AWS to support these efforts.

The nonprofit American Forests is focused on advancing social equity with a national reforestation movement. Trees provide significant benefits against heat related illnesses and climate change, and trees can help advance social equity when they are planted in the neighborhoods that need them the most. But the challenge of achieving Tree Equity across the country is immense. To address this, American Forests is leading a new national campaign through the Tree Equity Score, powered by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud.

Data has become a new global currency in the digital age, thus the capacity to turn it into useful information is becoming increasingly important. Geospatial data is collected and used by the Canadian government to support goals such as economic growth, environmental management, and social well-being.

During the 10th anniversary of re:Invent, I was thrilled to share announcements and achievements from AWS Partners and programs for the public sector around the world. Since its launch, AWS’s Public Sector Partner Program participation has increased by an average of 54% year over year, with partners providing solutions in mission areas across healthcare, space, energy, transportation, government, education, and nonprofit. In both the Global Partners Summit keynote at re:Invent 2021, as well as in my public sector leadership session, I highlighted the new and upcoming AWS Partner solutions and accomplishments.

AWS re:Invent 2020 is not over. Additional content will be released January 12-14, 2021 including more than 200 new no-cost, virtual sessions. In the public sector track, watch five new sessions this January on topics from preparing for ransomware to designing AI and ML applications. Hear from customers like the United States Census Bureau and Capella Space in sessions aired first in Americas, then in Asia-Pacific, and finally in EMEA – all available later on demand.