Coverage Data
A coverage is the digital representation of some spatio-temporal phenomenon. Coverages play an important role in geographic information systems, geospatial content and services, GIS data processing, and data sharing.
A coverage is a special kind of geographic feature, with the distinguishing characteristics that other features have one particular value associated (such as a road number, which remains constant over all the road's extent) whereas a coverage typically conveys different values at different locations.
A coverage is represented by its "domain" (the universe of extent) and a number of range of values representing the coverage's value at each defined location. For example, a satellite image derived from remote sensing might record varying degrees of light pollution. Aerial photography, land cover data, and digital elevation models all provide coverage data. Generally, a coverage can be multi-dimensional, such as 1-D sensor timeseries, 2-D satellite images, 3-D x/y/t image timeseries or x/y/z geo tomograms, or 4-D x/y/z/t climate and ocean data. Actually, climate data sometimes occur as 5-D coverages, showing that the coverage goes beyond spatio-temporal axes.
An interoperable service definition for navigating, accessing, processing, and aggregation of coverages is provided by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Coverage Service (WCS).
Read more about Coverage Data: Standards, Coverage Model, Coverage Encoding, Services, Industry Terminology: GIS Format
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