Pressures on natural resources are increasing and a number of challenges need to be overcome to meet the needs of a growing population in a period of environmental variability. Some of these environmental issues can be monitored using remotely-sensed Earth Observations (EO) data that are increasingly available from a number of freely and openly accessible repositories. However, the full information potential of EO data has not been yet realized. They remain still underutilized mainly because of their complexity, increasing volume, and the lack of efficient processing capabilities.

EO Data Cubes (DC) are a new paradigm aiming to realise the full potential of EO data by lowering the barriers caused by these Big data challenges and providing access to large spatio-temporal data in an analysis ready form.

The main objectives of the Swiss Data Cube (SDC) is to support the Swiss government for environmental monitoring and reporting and enable Swiss scientific institutions (e.g., Universities) to facilitate new insights and research using the SDC and to improve the knowledge on the Swiss environment using EO data.

The Swiss Data Cube is a joint initiative of: