← Back to Expertise

Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) research

A Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS) is a unique type of spatial reference system comprising of a hierarchy of uniquely identifiable discrete grid cells that span the globe at multiple resolutions. Several schemes for tesselation and indexing schemes exist and DGGS can support efficient management, storage, integration, exploration, mining, and visualisation of large geospatial datasets. We conduct research into innovative DGGS indexing and storage software and query APIs to integrate, visualise and analyse arbitrary raster and vector data and perform ML workloads on DGGS-based datacubes. We also contribute to open standards, most recently with our open-source OGC API – DGGS server pydggsapi in the OGC AI-DGGS Disaster Management Pilot.

Current DGGS projects

In the ESA-funded GRID4EARTH project (grid4earth.eu), a European consortium builds a standardised, cloud-native data infrastructure for Copernicus Sentinel and Destination Earth data on the ellipsoidal HEALPix DGGS. We advise the consortium on DGGS and prepared the internal technical report on the DGGS integration workflow performance for Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 data. The project’s open-source HEALPix tool stack (including xdggs) is available on GitHub.

Our DGGS-related Publications

Chan, W. T., Charette-Migneault, F., Uuemaa, E., and Kmoch, A.: pydggsapi – a query web service for discrete global grid systems (DGGS) collections, SoftwareX, 103042, DOI: 10.1016/j.softx.2026.103042, 2026.

Contarinis, S., Taghavikish, S. (Eds.), with contributions by Kmoch, A., Chan, W. T., and other pilot participants: AI-DGGS Disaster Management Pilot Report, OGC Engineering Report 25-031, Open Geospatial Consortium, docs.ogc.org/per/25-031, 2026.

Zamudio-Monserratt, M., Uuemaa, E., and Kmoch, A.: DGGS-Native Data Cubes: A Design Pattern for Scalable, Distortion-Aware Analytics, AGILE GIScience Ser., 7, 48, DOI: 10.5194/agile-giss-7-48-2026, 2026.

Kmoch, A., Chan, W. T., Ameline, G., Magin, J., Delouis, J.-M., Odaka, T., Bovy, B., Fouilloux, A., and Uuemaa, E.: Towards universal building blocks for cloud-native digital-twins, Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVIII-4/W20-2025, 45–52, DOI: 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W20-2025-45-2026, 2026.

Kmoch, A., Sahr, K., Chan, W. T., and Uuemaa, E.: IGEO7: A new hierarchically indexed hexagonal equal-area discrete global grid system, AGILE GIScience Ser., 6, 32, DOI: 10.5194/agile-giss-6-32-2025, 2025.

Kmoch, A., Bovy, B., Magin, J., Abernathey, R., Coca-Castro, A., Strobl, P., Fouilloux, A., Loos, D., Uuemaa, E., Chan, W. T., Delouis, J.-M., and Odaka, T.: XDGGS: A community-developed Xarray package to support planetary DGGS data cube computations, Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVIII-4/W12-2024, 75–80, DOI: 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W12-2024-75-2024, 2024.

Kmoch, A., Vasilyev, I., Virro, H., & Uuemaa, E. (2022). Area and shape distortions in open-source discrete global grid systems. Big Earth Data, 6(3), 256–275. DOI: 10.1080/20964471.2022.2094926

Kmoch, A., Matsibora, O., Vasilyev, I., and Uuemaa, E.: Applied open-source Discrete Global Grid Systems, AGILE GIScience Ser., 3, 41, DOI: 10.5194/agile-giss-3-41-2022, 2022.

More detailed background articles