Google has a high geospatial profile in Copenhagen. The announcement of their forest monitoring system, named Earth Engine, is getting a lot of press coverage. Google is synonymous with cutting-edge technology these days, and their pledge to provide the system for free to tropical countries to monitor their forest programs means there’s no competition.

I have no doubt that Google has a well-developed solution for forest monitoring given their technology and academic partnerships. It’s good to have the boost in awareness to all things geo with Google’s high-profile presence.

Google discusses future applications for Earth Engine to “enable scientists, policymakers, and the general public to better monitor and understand the Earth’s ecosystems.” It sounds like the Digital Earth vision is alive and well at Google, and living in the Cloud.

This technical announcement, along with the policy announcements in Copenhagen, have made this a watershed event for the geospatial marketplace. The policy announcements have elevated the importance of geospatial tools to monitor ecosystem services, and Google has raised expectations regarding the availability of free and open data, modeling and analytical capabilities. If Earth Engine lives up to the hype for scientific-grade analytical capabilities, it could put a serious dent in the market potential for geospatial tools and services in the emerging carbon accounting market. And yet the market has enormous potential at all levels of government and in all industries.

I think it’s another case of Google priming the pump for all geospatial players. There will be plenty of work to go around.

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