NCI is working with our Collaborating Partner Geoscience Australia (GA) to unlock more than two petabytes of geoscience data of national policymaking significance.
With support from the Australian Government's Research Data Storage Infrastructure project, experts from NCI and GA have been tackling the mammoth task of migrating this dataset to NCI.
The data represents 11 distinct projects, including 30 years' worth of Australasian earth observation images generated by NASA's Landsat satellites, and the Australian Natural Hazards Data Archive, which includes observational and probabilistic hazard, impact and risk data covering earthquakes, tsunami, floods and tropical cyclones.
Following migration, NCI's Data Management Team collaborates closely with data managers at GA to develop comprehensive data management plans to outline how best to make each dataset accessible, searchable and shareable.
The integration of NCI's filesystems with Raijin has enhanced GA's capacity to analyse their datasets, says Dr Adam Lewis, Head of GA's National Earth & Marine Observations branch.
"NCI has allowed us to revolutionise approaches to the analysis of satellite data through the Australian Geoscience Data Cube, producing world-first products such as our Water Observations from Space dataset (WOfS), which maps surface water across Australia," he says.
The WOfS project received the 2014 nationally significant work award in the Government category at the Resilient Australia Awards.
NCI is an integral part of GA's capability, says Dr Lewis.
"The NCI is benefitting all areas of GA science," he says.
"Through our partnership with NCI we have been able to develop our quantitative science cost effectively, and to increase our collaboration with other organisations such as the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and ANU, to name a few.
"For example, we've developed a coherent image of the deep geological structure of the Australian continent, which is an essential step toward future minerals prospecting because it helps us to 'see' beneath the regolith that covers much of Australia.
"We see our partnership in NCI as an exemplar of collaboration in Australian government science, which also leverages other government investments, such as the Research Data Services Infrastructure, to maximise value and impact for the taxpayer and the government."
