Will the new Dynamic World database from Google revolutionize the geodesy sector?

What is a Dynamic World?

Today, both the Earth and its surface are constantly changing. Even though in recent years a large number of different databases containing information on the diversity of land cover have been created, due to the numerous changes in the climate and the shape of the surface, most of them have become obsolete over time. Google decided to meet the expectations of surveyors and geologists and at the beginning of June 2022 presented Dynamic World to the world.

The new application was developed in cooperation with the non-profit organization World Resources Institute. The purpose of creating it in the form of a map was to visualize all environmental processes and track changes in land cover. For this purpose, the European Sentinel-2 optical satellites were used, which are capable of acquiring about 5,000 scenes per day.

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How does Google Dynamic World work?

The application runs on the Google Earth Engine and AI Platform. Detailed data is obtained due to a resolution of 10 meters, which allows for a detailed examination of a given fragment of the earth's surface and determination of its use. This application will be especially useful for surveyors and geologists who can now analyze different types of land cover with greater accuracy. In practice, specialists can check how much of the Earth is land and what types of surface features characterize given parts of it. This is done using artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

Dynamic World takes into account 9 categories of land cover, including water, trees, crops, vegetation, grasses, shrubs, ice, built-up areas, and land. It allows tracking changes in the topography from June 2015 to two days back.

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What are the benefits of the new application?

The introduction of Dynamic World helps to take action to protect the planet and fight against increasingly violent climate change. Since the application is open to everyone, including people dealing with e.g. agriculture, can see how the land is used and thus help protect critical areas from damage.

Analyzing land surface data in the application can also be used to detect and prevent threats such as volcanic eruptions or fires. Moreover, due to it, it is possible to detect unforeseen changes in the shape of the earth to undertake quick remedial actions. Dynamic World also gives researchers the ability to use Google's machine learning model, which is then used to create maps.

To sum up, Dynamic World is certainly a solution that will help not only all surveyors and geologists but also researchers and people who want to protect our planet. Due to the map update frequency from two to five days, we get complete, not out-of-date, and accurate maps. The Dynamic World database is available at www.dynamicworld.app.

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