CNES projects library

December 6, 2017

Theia

Theia is a data and services centre specializing in land surfaces.

Theia is one of the 4 pillars—alongside Aeris (atmosphere), Odatis (oceans) and Form@ter (solid Earth)—of France’s Earth System Research Infrastructure.

Theia aims to foster uptake of value-added satellite, in-situ and aerial data and to federate scientific stakeholders with a view to developing new and innovative methods and specific products to complement the European Copernicus programme. It also aims to bring scientists and users together through regional networks.

Theia offers a portfolio of products and associated services for the scientific community and public bodies through its web portal. This data infrastructure pulls together a number of centres, including CNES, IGN Saint-Mandé and Géosud Montpellier.

These value-added products are disseminated via Theia and are being added to as scientific research continues to advance. Flagship products widely recognized by the community include those delivering ground reflectance data derived from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, 10-metre land cover data generated automatically and updated annually, 10-metre cloud cover data updated every five days, surface water heights for the world’s major rivers and lakes, and soil moisture indicators.

CNES is closely involved in spinning off the results of the space programmes on which it is working. Besides its involvement in the Theia data centre, it is supporting national research laboratory projects and grants funding every year for doctoral and post-doctoral theses through calls for projects via its TOSCA solid Earth, ocean, land surfaces and atmosphere programme. The agency is also helping to develop algorithms through a specific budget devoted to optimizing and adapting codes, and to data production operations and application resources.

Theia is governed by an inter-agency agreement updated every 5 years.

See the Theia website.