Calibrated amplitude image of Canberra on 26 September 2011 produced using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the German TerraSAR-X satellite.

The Australian Reflectance Grid (ARG) is a new generation Earth Observation product suite from Geoscience Australia. These standard data products deliver optical surface reflectance data across the Australian landmass and its coastal fringes. This means the products are representative of the optical reflectance properties of the surface, with the variable effects of the atmosphere removed. The resulting datasets are effectively sensor agnostic and future products in this suite are intended to be readily comparable between scales. The first product in this suite is the ARG25, a medium resolution (25 m) grid based on Landsat imagery.

The Australian Reflectance Grid is an optical surface reflectance product which covers the Australian landmass and its coastal fringes. The ARG datasets are effectively sensor agnostic and future versions of products in this suite are intended to be readily comparable between scales. The first product in this suite is the ARG25, a medium resolution (25 m) grid based on Landsat imagery.

The PQ product is an accompaniament product which is designed to faciliate interpretation and processing of the Australian Reflectance Grid 25 (ARG25) and Fractional Cover 25 products. The first product in this suite is the PQ25, a medium resolution (25 m) grid based on Landsat imagery.

This project commenced in November 2012 and is intended to provide satellite data and related scientific services to support the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's monitoring of how the condition of riparian vegetation responds to changing river run-off and wetland inundation levels. Under this project, Geoscience Australia started to build a satellite data processing infrastructure; named the 'datacube', as a proof of concept for expected on-going time series analysis applications including historical flood and bathymetry mapping. The work incorporates an automated processing chain for Landsat satellite images from Geoscience Australia's extensive archive, into customised high level intermediate products, including automated ortho-rectification, atmospheric correction, cloud-removal, and mosaicking, and finally into statistics on the spectral and derivative indices (that is, vegetation condition indices or various types) for the summer periods of December-March, each year for the period 2000-2013. These vegetation indices and associate statistics are then used, by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and its collaborators, as inputs to a mathematical model of vegetation types and their respective conditions within the Murray-Darling Basin.

The Australian Government is investing in a world first analysis platform for satellite imagery and other Earth observations. From sustainably managing the environment to developing resources and optimising our agricultural potential, Australia must overcome a number of challenges to meet the needs of our growing population. Digital Earth Australia (DEA) will deliver a unique capability to process, interrogate, and present Earth observation satellite data in response to these issues. It will track changes across Australia in unprecedented detail, identifying soil and coastal erosion, crop growth, water quality, and changes to cities and regions. DEA will build on the globally recognised innovation, the Australian Geoscience Data Cube1; which was the winner of the 2016 Content Platform of the Year at the Geospatial World Leadership Awards and was developed as a partnership between GA, CSIRO and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) supported National Computational Infrastructure (NCI).