OGC-Sensor Observation Service for a Standardized Access to Raster Time Series Data

In-Situ measurement stations for observing physical phenomenons (e.g. temperature, soil moisture, etc.) always related to a single geographic point. In contrast, remote sensing stations deliver area differentiated data, related to a certain geographic area. A new approach to manage raster time series data supports the OGC sensor observation service (SOS) specification. It comprises methods for a standardized access to all kinds of time series data with spatial relation to the earth. The advantage of using a SOS instead of e.g. a WCS-EO is the inherence of the temporal relation of each dataset, since a SOS is particularly designed for managing time series. A SOS supports to apply thematic filters to extract thematic attributes of raster data sets. We describe the conception and implementation of an OGC compliant SOS for a standardized access to raster time series data, which allows to select raster data sets using temporal, spatial and thematic filters and to deliver it in a standardized way