ESA EOPF 101

Your community guide for working with EOPF Sentinel Zarr data in the cloud

Explore EOPF 101, an open community resource designed to help Sentinel data users explore EOPF Sentinel Zarr data in the cloud. With our step-by-step and hands-on tutorials, you’ll learn how to effectively use EOPF Sentinel Zarr products and build Earth Observation workflows that scale.

🚀 Ready to explore EOPF 101?

EOPF 101 is designed for Sentinel data users who are new to cloud-optimised geospatial formats and cloud-based workflows. It introduces you to fundamental cloud-native geospatial concepts, the Earth Observation Processing Framework (EOPF) activities by ESA, re-processed EOPF Sentinel Zarr data, as well as tools and libraries to work with EOPF Sentinel Zarr data in the cloud.

Across six chapters, EOPF 101 gradually introduces you to the EOPF Sentinel Zarr products, how you can search and access these, relevant tools and plugins to use EOPF Sentinel Zarr data in different working environments, as well as practical end-to-end application workflows highlighting the benefits of EOPF Sentinel Zarr data.

• Chapter 1 - About EOPF

  • Introduction to the EOPF
  • About Cloud-Optimised Formats
  • EOPF Sentinel Zarr products

• Chapter 2 - About EOPF Zarr

  • Overview of the EOPF Zarr format
  • Discover EOPF Zarr - Sentinel-1 GRD
  • Operations with EOPF Zarr - Sentinel-1 GRD
  • Discover EOPF Zarr - Sentinel-2 L2A
  • Discover EOPF Zarr - Sentinel-3 SLSTR Level-2 LST

• Chapter 3 - About Chunking

  • An introduction to Chunking
  • Best practices and Chunking optimisation in EOPF

• Chapter 4 - EOPF and STAC

  • Introduction to STAC
  • Explore the web interface of the EOPF Zarr STAC Catalog
  • Access the EOPF Zarr STAC API with Python
  • From STAC to Data: Accessing EOPF Zarr with xarray

• Chapter 5 - Tools to work with EOPF Zarr

  • Python
    • EOPF Zarr + Rio-tiler Fundamentals with Sentinel-2
  • R
    • Access the EOPF Zarr STAC API with R
    • Access and analyse EOPF STAC Zarr data with R
    • More examples analysing EOPF STAC Zarr data with R
    • Comparisons of SAFE vs Zarr in R
    • Access EOPF Sentinel Zarr using Rarr
    • Access EOPF Sentinel Zarr via GDAL in stars and terra
    • Creating a raster cube from STAC items of the EOPF Sentinel Zarr Samples Service using rstac and `gdalcubes
  • Julia
    • Access Zarr Data with Julia
  • Qgis
    • Access EOPF Zarr in QGIS Using STAC

• Chapter 6 - EOPF Zarr in Action

  • Flood Mapping - Time Series Analysis in Valencia
  • Surface Water Dynamics - Time Series Analysis with Sentinel-1
  • Fire in Sardinia 2025
    • True and False Composites with Sentinel-2
    • Heat Detection with Sentinel-3 LST
    • Normalised Burn Ratio
  • Create and Visualise Zarr at Several Resolutions
    • Creating Zarr Overviews
    • Visualising Multiscale Pyramids
  • Reservoir Surface Monitoring
  • Analysing Forest Vegetation Anomalies
  • African rangeland monitoring with Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3
    
  • Cloud-Native Intertidal Vegetation Monitoring with Sentinel-2 and EOPF Zarr <!– * Cloud Probability Analysis with EOPF Sentinel-2 Data
  • Computing Leaf Area Index Using Sentinel-2 Data –>
  • Sentinel-1 SAR Flood Detection and Mapping Using Change Detection
  • Vegetation Productivity and Drought Monitoring in the Horn of Africa Using PPI, fPAR, and EOPF Zarr

💡 How best to use EOPF 101

You can use EOPF 101 as a reference online resource to get started, example code and workflows for working with Zarr data, the EOPF STAC Catalogue, and different libraries and plugins facilitating the use of EOPF Sentinel Zarr data.

If you would like to execute the notebooks through the JupyterHub, simply follow the Launch Button available in all the executable notebooks:

Beyond this browsable version, you can also set up our Docker images within your own JupyterHub Server and test workkflows yourself!

When starting your server, you will be able to select the Docker image you want to work with. The EOPF Toolkit has designed updated environments to support your development!

You can select: Specify an existing docker image.

Once you click, the following box is displayed:

In the box, you can copy and paste the following custom lines:

• If you would like to develop your workflow in Python:
  ghcr.io/eopf-toolkit/eopf-toolkit-python:latest

• Or, if you prefer to use R:
  ghcr.io/eopf-toolkit/eopf-toolkit-r:latest

And select Start.

📢 Stay Involved!

EOPF 101 is a living, open-access resource designed for the Earth Observation (EO) community. While our initial launch events and competitions have concluded, the mission to refine EOPF Zarr products continues.

There are several ways you can still leverage this work and contribute to the ecosystem:

🚀 Explore the Competition Legacy

The EOPF Toolkit Notebook Competition (2025–2026) brought together innovators from across the EO sector. You can now use the results of this competition as a starting point for your own research and explore the power of Zarr.

• View the Winners: Browse the EOPF Zarr in Action Chapter to see top-tier examples of EOPF Zarr integration.

• The Case Studies: Winner Notebooks have been integrated into EOPF 101 as official case studies, providing proven workflows for complex data processing.

🗺️ Meet the EOPF Sentinel Zarr Explorer

The EOPF Explorer drives the standardization of cloud-native geospatial data formats. Through intensive collaboration with the Zarr community, it looks forward to establishing foundational Zarr Conventions that enable interoperable access to Earth Observation data across the entire ecosystem.

Follow the upcoming Webinars and Events the project is preparing for you!

💡 Ideas & Feedback?

Is there a plugin or library missing that you would like to see integrated? Do you have feedback on EOPF 101? Please submit an issue and we will review your request.

About the ESA EOPF Toolkit project

EOPF 101 is a community resource developed as part of the EOPF Toolkit project funded by the European Space Agency. EOPF 101 is brought to you by Development Seed, thriveGEO and SparkGeo.

Special Thanks to @ciaransweet for developing the pipeline and processes for this book!! 📕 🚀

Open knowledge, freely shared Apache 2.0