The Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) Project: Status, Access, Applications, Tools, and More

Remote sensing satellites provide key data that can be used to better understand the Earth, respond to hazardous events, and to make decisions related to climate change, population growth, and more. For decades, many space agencies have provided high quality remote sensing data free of charge for their end-users. Although these data have been accessible, and widely used, the raw remote sensing measurements can be challenging to analyze for non-specialists. Furthermore, the large quantity of data available today makes it nearly impossible to perform large scale analysis on personal computers. To overcome these barriers, the Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) project, led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with project partners from NASA, USGS, and academia, are producing three analysis ready data products derived from satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical data. These products were designed to meet the needs of U.S. federal agencies that were identified by the Satellite Needs Working Group (an initiative of the U.S. Group on Earth Observations). The OPERA analysis ready data products are derived from the NASA/USGS Landsat 8/9 sensors, ESA’s Sentinel-1 and -2, and NASA-ISRO SAR Mission (NISAR). Specific products include: (1) a near-global Dynamic Surface Water eXtent (DSWx) product suite from optical and SAR data, (2) a near-global Surface Disturbance (DIST) product suite from optical and SAR data, and (3) a North America Displacement (DISP) product suite from SAR data. In addition, OPERA is producing intermediate-level products including: (1) a North America Land Coregistered Single-Look Complex (CSLC) product from SAR data, and (2) a near-global land surface Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC) SAR backscatter product from SAR data. These two intermediate SAR products allow for user-customized product generation. All OPERA products are freely available and all OPERA software are open-access (https://github.com/opera-adt). More information on OPERA can be found at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/go/opera. 

Here, we present the latest OPERA project updates. We provide an overview of OPERA’s in-production products, which include DSWx, DIST, RTC, and CSLC, and information about OPERA’s future DISP product. We will showcase product use-cases, with a focus on detection and monitoring of hazards such as floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and landslides. We also discuss how the free and open OPERA data can be accessed through the NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers. Finally, we demonstrate our open OPERA application tools (https://github.com/OPERA-Cal-Val/OPERA_Applications) that are designed to increase data use and discoverability.