Overview
ISO 19165-2:2020 - Geographic information - Preservation of digital data and metadata - Part 2 - provides content specifications for long-term preservation of Earth observation data and derived digital products. It extends ISO 19165-1 by defining the types of content, provenance and contextual information that must be captured for data collected by spaceborne, airborne and in situ instruments. The standard is aimed at ensuring future users can understand, reuse and (where feasible) regenerate EO datasets without relying on original mission teams.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Mission lifecycle coverage: Content requirements are organized by mission stages - concept, definition, implementation, operations and post-mission - to preserve information from planning through archive handover.
- Preservation content: Specifies the classes of information to retain (provenance, processing history, instrument and sensor descriptions, calibration/validation material, ancillary/auxiliary data, quality information and derived-product documentation).
- Metadata interoperability: Builds on ISO 19115‑1 and ISO 19115‑2 metadata models to ensure preserved content can be expressed, exchanged and interpreted consistently across organizations.
- Conformance and testing: Includes conformance guidance and an abstract test suite (Annex A) plus an XML representation example (Annex C) to support machine-readable implementation and validation.
- Domain-specific terms: Defines EO-centric concepts (e.g., analysis ready data, ancillary data) to align preservation content with remote sensing workflows and data products.
- Normative references: Cross-references related technical standards for sensor models, data quality, calibration/validation and preservation fundamentals (see Related Standards).
Keywords: ISO 19165-2:2020, Earth observation data preservation, provenance, metadata standards, remote sensing archives, long-term digital preservation.
Applications and who uses it
ISO 19165-2 is practical for organizations and professionals responsible for collection, processing, stewardship and archiving of Earth observation data:
- Space agencies and mission operators ensuring mission products remain reproducible and understandable over decades.
- National data centers, archives and trusted repositories implementing preservation policies and conformance audits.
- GIS and remote sensing data managers designing metadata capture and packaging workflows (e.g., analysis-ready data production).
- Researchers and data consumers who rely on consistent provenance and processing history to reproduce analyses and validate long-term trends.
- Systems integrators and software developers implementing XML schemas, validation tools and archive ingest/export workflows.
Related standards
Adopting ISO 19165-2 helps institutions achieve robust, interoperable preservation of EO datasets - supporting reproducibility, long-term scientific value and cross-mission synthesis.