Earth observation data archiving in the USA and Europe

The growing number of Earth observation satellites are producing exponentia l increases in the amount of data produced. These data sets contain valuabl e information on the state of the environment to accurately monitor and pre dict the impact of global change. Global change investigations require acce ss to long-term data. This paper is a review of the current archiving pract ices of NOAA, NASA, SPOT, ESA and the DLR. It is demonstrated that despite recognition at a regional and organisational level of the importance of dat a archiving much work remains to be done. Funding responsibility is identif ied as a particularly problematic area of data archiving: it is an issue al ong with the need for easy accessibility and adequate metadata that will ne ed to be resolved to ensure that future generations have access to adequate Earth observation data archives. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.