About This Dashboard

An Open Science Platform for Earth Observation

This dashboard is powered by open source software originally developed as part of NASA's Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) project in collaboration with NASA IMPACT (Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team). The VEDA platform represents a significant advancement in making Earth science data more accessible, interactive, and engaging for researchers and the broader public.

The Story Behind VEDA

The foundation for this platform was laid during the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, when researchers noticed dramatic changes in the global environment as much of the world's population stayed home. NASA's COVID-19 Dashboard emerged from this need to visualize large-scale environmental changes, which later evolved into the comprehensive VEDA platform we use today.

Scientists at NASA were clamoring for more exploration and analysis capabilities, leading Development Seed and NASA IMPACT to create the VEDA project in winter 2022. The challenge was clear: NASA had vast data resources, but the data wasn't always readily accessible or in user-friendly formats that could serve diverse user needs, from data access to analysis and sharing.

What Makes This Platform Special

Open Source Foundation

In keeping with NASA's open science policies, all VEDA project code repositories and associated documentation are publicly available and accessible via GitHub. This commitment to openness ensures that the tools and methodologies developed can benefit the entire Earth science community.

Advanced Visualization Capabilities

The dashboard visualizes data directly off a single authoritative reference that contains data optimized for visualization as well as direct access, avoiding the issue of missing links between source and rendered data. This means that what you see in the visualizations is directly connected to the original scientific data, maintaining the integrity needed for reproducible science.

Cloud-Native Architecture

The platform leverages Analysis-Ready, Cloud-Optimized (ARCO) data formats and open standards like the Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog (STAC). Using ARCO data formats and open source tools is vital because, once ingested, this data must be accessed by a variety of tools for many different purposes.

Interactive Storytelling for Science Communication

The VEDA Dashboard presents complicated scientific information to the general public in an engaging and understandable way. By incorporating interactive maps and expert narratives, complex information is transformed into engaging stories that attract a wide range of readers, from scientists to enthusiasts with limited scientific knowledge.

This approach recognizes that modern data-driven science is not only presented through papers, posters, and lectures to fellow scientists and through reports to decision makers, but also through up-to-date interactive online tools and blogs that are available directly to either audience.

Built for Collaboration and Reuse

VEDA seeks to fill the gap in the Earth Observation community for a flexible, open-source, yet powerful platform for scientists to access data, analyze that data to create new data products, and share their work with stakeholders. The platform follows core guiding principles to reuse, combine, and improve existing open-source development efforts.

VEDA consolidates Geographic Information Systems (GIS) delivery mechanisms, processing platforms, analysis services, and visualization tools, providing an ecosystem of open tools for addressing Earth science research and application needs.

Beyond NASA: A Growing Ecosystem

While originally developed for NASA's Earth science missions, more science teams are taking notice of VEDA's capabilities and want to replicate it for their purposes. This workshop dashboard demonstrates how the open source components can be adapted and customized for different scientific communities and use cases.

Our Workshop Context

This ESIP workshop dashboard showcases how the open source software powering VEDA can be used to create engaging, interactive stories about Earth science research. You'll learn to harness these same tools and techniques to transform your own research data into compelling narratives that reach beyond traditional academic audiences.

The platform you're experiencing represents the cutting edge of open science infrastructure, designed to make complex Earth science data more accessible, explorable, and impactful for decision-makers and the public alike.

For more information about the VEDA project, visit NASA Earthdata or explore the public GitHub repositories.