In early April, we had the pleasure of hosting Dirk Tiede and Martin Sudmanns from the Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg for two days of workshops on advanced satellite data analysis techniques. The workshops covered Spatio-Temporal Analyses in Data Cubes and Object-based Image Analyses, and here’s what happened.

Day 1: Spatio-temporal Analyses in Data Cubes

The first day focused on Spatio-Temporal Analyses in Data Cubes, which are multidimensional data structures that can be used for large spatial datasets. Participants used cloud computing platforms to perform analyses using Python programming in Jupyter Notebooks.

Day 2: Object-based Image Analyses

On the second day, participants explored Object-based Image Analyses (OBIA) and its applications in quickly analyzing land use. OBIA is particularly useful for those in fields such as geomorphology, where land use analysis is required but pre-processing can take months. Participants were also introduced to the capabilities of Google Earth Engine and used pre-prepared scripts that could be modified to download large amounts of satellite images and perform band calculations.

Dirk Tiede giving lecture on spatial analyses

Overall, the workshops were informative and useful for participants in fields beyond GIS. The techniques and applications presented can serve as a foundation for other analyses in different disciplines.