There are over 800 data sets on Google's Earth Engine.  Earth Blox can access all of them, but it is optimised to make it easy to access and analyse a collection of commonly used data sets. These are described in this article. 

What data is available in Earth Blox?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Selected Satellite Image Data
• Access any data from Earth Engine
• Landcover 
• Forests and forest change
• Fires
• Terrain and elevation
• Weather and climate
• Human-related data
• Other Data Sets

Selected Satellite Image Data

• The vast majority of users of Earth Engine access Sentinel and Landsat data.
• All of these data sets are georectified and calibrated so that they are analysis ready. 
• Sentinel 2 and Landsat are optical data. See the article on the Optical Satellite Data Block to learn how to access and analyse these data.
• For optical data, you will also need to address the cloud cover in the data. See the article on how to Create a Cloud-Free Image of Your Area of Interest.
• Sentinel 1 and PALSAR are radar data.  See the article on the Radar Satellite Data Block to learn how to access and analyse these data.

Access any data from Earth Engine

• The EE DATA LAYERS block allows access to any Earth Engine data set.
• NB: Not all versions of Earth Blox will give you access to this block. 
• It will automatically create a GeoTIFF that will appear in your ASSETS tab.
• It is found in the Toolbox via  1.INPUT->EE DATA LAYERS, and looks like this:

• You can use the link on the block to browse the Earth Engine catalogue or visit their page here. 
• The key thing you need is the Earth Engine Asset ID. 
• You can find the ID within the catalogue, as shown in the example below.

Landcover 

• Earth Blox includes easy access to a number of landcover products. These are:
  • World Cover 10m (2020).  The European Space Agency (ESA) WorldCover 10 m 2020 product provides a global land cover map for 2020 at 10 m resolution based on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data.
  • Copernicus Global. These Land Cover maps are provided for the period 2015-2019 over the entire Globe, derived from the PROBA-V 100 m time series.
  • The CORINE Land Cover (Europe) (from 1989 onwards). The CORINE (coordination of information on the environment) Land Cover (CLC) inventory was initiated in 1985 to standardize data collection on land in Europe to support environmental policy development. 
  • The global Croplands map. Global Food-Support Analysis Data (GFSAD1000): Cropland Extent 1km Crop Dominance (2010). 

Forests and forest change

• Earth Blox includes easy access to a number of other data products.
  • Hansen Global Forest Change v1.8. Results from time-series analysis of Landsat images in characterising global forest extent and change.
  • Other Forest Change Datasets. 
    • PALSAR forest change. This global forest/non-forest map is generated by classifying the SAR image in the global 25m resolution PALSAR-2/PALSAR SAR mosaic.  The years covered are 2007-10, and 2015 onwards.  
    • Aboveground Biomass.  A data layer showing the estimated aboveground forest biomass in Mg/ha.

Fires

• Earth Blox includes easy access to three products related to fire. The three products are:
  • Annual Burnt Area. This dataset is based on the MODIS Burned Area Monthly Global 500m dataset. It shows the area of land that has been identified as having been burnt by fire in any given year. 
  • Fire Temperature (in K).  Based on the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) dataset. The brightness temperature of a fire pixel using MODIS channels 21/22.
  • Fire Confidence. Based on the Terra Thermal Anomalies & Fire Daily Global 1km dataset. It is a detection confidence intended to help users gauge the quality of individual active fire pixels. The confidence estimate ranges between 0% and 100% for all fire pixels within the fire mask.

Terrain and elevation

• Earth Blox includes easy access to three different global terrain maps. These are:
  • The SRTM 30m DEM. This Shuttle Radar Topography Mission V3 product (SRTM Plus) is provided by NASA JPL at a resolution of 1 arc-second (approximately 30m).
  • The GMTED 2010. The Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010) dataset contains elevation data based on the SRTM DEM but augmented by several other sources, including national data sets and satellite stereo photogrammetry.
  • ALOS 30m DSM. ALOS World 3D 30m (AW3D30) is a global digital surface model (DSM) dataset with a horizontal resolution of approximately 30 meters (1 arcsec). It is calculated from optical stereo photogrammetry.

Weather and climate

• Within the Weather and climate data block are several different products. The first drop-down offers a choice of sources which include:
  • Daily Global Land Data Assimilation System
  • Ocean Color SMI: Daily MODIS Aqua Data
  • S-5 Near Real Time Cloud Data 
  • Daily NOAA Ocean Near-Surface Air Atmospheric Properties
  • Terra Daily Snow Cover 500m
• The second drop-down offers a choice of individual products. These include:
  • Daily surface Albedo.  The reflectivity of the surface over the shortwave region of the spectrum. 
  • Sea Surface Temperature.  The skin temperature of the ocean surface measured using thermal infrared by the MODIS instrument at 4.6km resolution.  
  • Chlorophyll a concentration. at 4.6km resolution.
  • Particulate organic carbon. The at 4.6km resolution.

Human-related data

• Earth Blox includes two categories of products related to humans and human activity.
• Human population, given as either:
  • Population count. The number of people within each coloured region). 
  • Population density. The number of persons per square kilometre consistent with national censuses and population registers.
• Or, Night Lightsdata:
  • VIIRS Monthly V1. Monthly average radiance composite images using nighttime data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB).
  • VIIRS Monthly Stray Light Corrected V1. The same as above, but it uses a procedure to correct for stray light.

Other Data Sets

• There are several other data sets that you can explore using Earth Blox. We encourage you to try them out. 

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