Integrate NASA Remote Sensing Data into your Research on COVID-19’s Impact on Sustainable Development Goals with our Data Pathfinder

Abstract:

NASA and other Earth-observing agencies are using satellite and airborne data to assess regional and global environmental, economic, and societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether the goal is to discover how the virus spreads or to look at effects on the environment due to changes in human behavior, NASA’s remote sensing data can provide the necessary components needed to study the impact of COVID-19 on U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). NASA Earth science data collections provide long-term continuity, contain a wide diversity of measurements, and supplement ground-based data.

These data provide a wealth of information to aid in our understanding of Earth’s processes and are all freely and openly available via earthdata.nasa.gov. Choosing the right datasets and tools to answer a scientific question often requires expert knowledge and guidance. To help novice users access, explore, and use NASA Earth science data, we have developed a series of data pathfinders.

Data pathfinders present background information in topical areas with guidance on how NASA observations can be used to aid in assessment, often in near real-time, of certain variables. The pathfinders provide information about spatial and temporal resolutions of and direct links to commonly-used datasets. In addition, they showcase tools that can be used for subsetting, visualizing, analyzing, and exporting the data in a variety of file formats.

The COVID-19 pathfinder is for users who are studying the environmental signals surrounding the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Along with other complementary data pathfinders, it provides links to datasets that can be used to research COVID-19’s impact on:

• food production and security (SDG 2),
• air quality (SDG 3),
• water quality (SDG 6),
• climate change (SDG 13), and
• biological diversity and land use (SDG 15).

Datasets related to the above-mentioned SDGs include the amount and rate of precipitation, soil moisture, groundwater resources, land use/land cover, vegetation indices, nitrogen dioxide, aerosol optical depth, and much more.

Come see how you can easily find NASA data to enhance your research.