NPL has a long history of promoting the benefits of traceability and quality assurance and is now heavily involved in developing new QA/QC procedures in collaboration with ESA for GMES. It is also playing a lead role in efforts to establish an internationally accepted data quality strategy assurance strategies within the wider community through CEOS and GEO.

Until 2008 there was no formalised arrangement in Europe, or elsewhere in the world, to ensure the general validity of Earth Observation (EO) data. Indeed, there is strong evidence that data collected by different EO instruments often have significant discrepancies and that this problem gets worse as higher level data products are produced. For example this is a factor fuelling the international controversy over the issue of global warming. The discrepancies and biases do not arise from any lack of care in the design and calibration of EO instrumentation nor on the processing steps used to generate higher level data products, but from the extremely challenging requirements for accuracy that are made on such instruments, if the data they collect are to meet the requirements of policy makers and regulators, and of the challenges of operating in the hostile space environment. NPL has led the international Earth Observation community in the development of a new Quality Assurance Framework for Earth Observation.

Research Areas

GMES Survey
In 2002 NPL undertook a web-based survey to solicit views of the EO community on the benefits, need and willingness to participate in a system of formal QA for EO based activities.

GMES Requirement Definition for Multi-Mission Generic Quality Control Standards – ESA Study
NPL is leading a consortium of European technical experts t review existing quality assurance/control practices and then to consider and propose strategies for improvement for the future as part of an ESA Strategy.

For further information, please contact: Nigel Fox