Context
WEkEO is the EU’s Copernicus DIAS platform that provides federated access to a wide range of environmental data from its partner organisations (ECMWF, EUMETSAT, EEA, MOi and ESA) and cloud-based tools. Whether you're monitoring climate trends, studying land use, analyzing marine ecosystems, or exploring atmospheric conditions, WEkEO allows you to access, combine and analyse high-quality data from multiple sources directly in the cloud, through a common interface.
In this article, we’ll explore the types of data you can access through the platform, from Copernicus core services to Sentinel satellite imagery, and how they can support your environmental research and projects.
Data accessible through WEkEO
WEkEO federates access to data from its partner organisations through a common interface, including the following Copernicus services:
Copernicus Services
Copernicus is the European Union's Earth Observation programme, looking at our planet and its environment to monitor the Earth health and offers information services from global data from satellites and ground-based, airborne, and seaborne measurement systems (more about Copernicus).
Its activities are made available and shared with users through six thematic streams of Copernicus services, of which the following five provide data accessible through WEkEO:
Atmosphere (CAMS): global atmospheric composition
Climate Change (C3S): monitoring the climate change
Emergency (CEMS): management of natural disasters, emergency situations and humanitarian crises
Land (CLMS): land cover and vegetation
Marine (CMEMS): marine safety and resources
Security: information in response to Europe’s security challenges, as crisis prevention, both border and marine surveillance and support to EU External Action
Copernicus Sentinel missions
Sentinel-1: imaging radar mission (SAR instrument) providing continuous all-weather, day-and-night imagery at C-band, used for imaging landmasses and coastal zones
Sentinel-2: multi-spectral imaging mission, supporting CLMS studies, mostly in the monitoring of vegetation, soil, water cover, inland waters and coastal areas
OLCI: optical instrument used to screen the ocean and land surface to harvest information related to biology
SLSTR: temperature radiometer to provide global and regional Sea and Land Surface Temperature
Altimetry: topography mission to study the ocean topography and measure the sea surface height, wave height and speed of surface winds
Sentinel-5P: measuring the solar radiation reflected by and radiated from the earth, together with other atmospheric measurements for air quality, ozone and more others (more info)
Sentinel-6: latest radar altimetry reference mission for sea-surface height measurements
📌Note: a complete documentation about Sentinel missions is available in the SentiWiki.
The WEkEO Catalogue gives access to more than 400 datasets that you can visualize on the map and/or download through the Expert Data Viewer or using the Harmonized Data Access (HDA) API.
💡WEkEO Pro Tip: every 6 hours a metadata synchronisation is performed between HDA, Portal and Product navigator to provide access to all new products available on Provider side.
🔍 To learn more about how to download data, you can check this article:
External data
WEkEO also offers the possibility to access and work with datasets not coming from Copernicus Satellites and services.
Using the Virtual Machines plan, users can take advantage to the WEkEO infrastructure available to process and manage external data.
What's next?
Additional resources can be found in our Help Center. Should you require further assistance or wish to provide feedback, feel free to contact us through a chat session available in the bottom right corner of the page.