Compliance Monitoring Government Strategies: Enhancing Regulatory Oversight With Satellite Technology
SkySat image of the Permian Basin in New Mexico, captured November 11, 2018. © 2018 Planet Labs PBC. All Rights Reserved.
TechLearn how earth observation technology has evolved to support government compliance strategies and enforcement of regulatory frameworks.
Government agencies tasked with regulatory compliance oversight and enforcement often face visibility challenges. A government agency can do very little if it remains unaware of compliance violations because it cannot see them.
The government's proactive compliance monitoring and enforcement usually involves on-site visits and assessments.
However, the enormous scope of a government agency’s responsibilities — alongside potential staffing and resource challenges — frequently hampers efforts to provide sufficient coverage.
This is why current advancements in Earth observation (EO) technology will become increasingly instrumental to compliance monitoring. Government agencies can adopt more proactive roles and strategies by leveraging daily satellite imagery and data for improved visibility.
The Role of Satellite Imagery and Data in Compliance Monitoring
Agencies must frequently adopt reactive roles regarding compliance monitoring and enforcement. They may not have the personnel to procedurally evaluate every organization, square mile, or infrastructure project for which they hold responsibility. They may overly depend on citizen complaints and whistleblowers to identify and address noncompliance.
For example, the Federal Lands Highway (FLH) Program, which existed under the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), oversees more than 500,000 mi (800,000 km) of roads, 11,000 vehicular bridges, and 1 billion acres of Federal properties. Regular, on-site compliance assessments simply are not feasible.
This lack of visibility (and delays receiving any at all) frequently causes government agencies to insufficiently meet their compliance oversight responsibilities, resulting in multiple problematic outcomes:
- Noncompliant organizations and individuals go unpunished for violations, threatening broader adherence to a government agency’s authority. Some organizations will choose to ignore compliance requirements because they rarely witness enforcement.
- Individuals, groups, and the environment directly impacted by the consequences of noncompliance will be affected longer and more severely.
- The government agency is deprived of funds it would have gathered through noncompliance fines or other penalties, restricting its available resources and operational capabilities in the future.
Visibility achieved via EO capabilities demonstrates the importance of leveraging technology in compliance monitoring and enforcement over broad land areas. On-site assessments continually prove inefficient and insufficient for these applications.
Impact of Improved Visibility on Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement
Consider an illegal logging operation encroaching onto protected land and violating environmental compliance requirements. It may go undiscovered for a considerable length of time if no one stumbles upon it or reports it to the proper authority.
Even if an agency like the U.S. Department of Agriculture sources aerial images after receiving a tip about the regulatory compliance violation, the photos may be months or years out of date by the time of receipt.
If the agency responds too late and the illegal operation has already departed with no trace besides the impacts observed up close, there may be little to nothing the agency can do.
However, with EO technology, the government agency would promptly receive satellite imagery captured before and during the illegal operation.. The agency can easily scan broad land areas for non compliant logging activity, assess duration and extent, and determine any hazards (e.g., risk of falling trees) to protect personnel who will evaluate the violation on-site.
Prompt visibility with the most current ground truth leads to prompt agency responses.
EO Technology
The satellite technology used for government compliance monitoring — or, more specifically, EO technology — refers to the image- and data-capture capabilities currently facilitated by constellations of satellites orbiting our planet.
These constellations directly support compliance monitoring and enforcement by equipping government organizations with significantly expanded visibility. The captured images and data provide an invaluable perspective of the planet and activity on its surface.
Notably, this umbrella category for technology also extends to solutions like those offered by Planet, which enable organizations to:
- Access new and existing satellite imagery
- Request satellite imagery of specific locations and subjects (i.e., tasking)
- Assist with analyzing or exporting satellite imagery
- Observe and detect changes over time regarding specific locations or subjects
How Does EO Technology Work?
The satellite constellations that capture and transmit images sit suspended in low Earth orbit (LEO). LEO refers to orbital paths at or below roughly 2,000 km or 1,200 mi above the planet’s surface. For example, the Flock constellation sits at about 475 km or nearly 300 mi.
At these altitudes, satellites complete roughly 16 revolutions over the course of each day, continually capturing images of their surface throughout the journey. The technology on board can capture and transmit extremely detailed images. For example, the library of images captured by Planet satellites includes resolutions of 50 cm and 3.7 m, which means each pixel represents that scale.
In addition to images captured during standard orbits, agencies responsible for regulatory compliance and government oversight can also task satellites to capture high-resolution images of specific locations and subjects to further improve their visibility.
Enhancing Regulatory Oversight With Real-Time Data
Earth observation provides government agencies with the regulatory technology and visibility they need. These capabilities prove necessary when performing new types and levels of analysis — for compliance monitoring and enforcement or otherwise:
- Using science-based measurements, experts can granularly quantify changes and develop statistical models.
- Detection capabilities leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) notify agencies about subjects of interest via individual snapshots or changes in imagery over time.
- Agency findings leveraging satellite imagery inform the highest-priority locations and subjects that require continued monitoring or immediate on-site evaluation.
Strategies for Implementing Satellite Technology in Government Compliance
The vast majority of government agencies don’t possess the expertise, resources, or funding to launch and maintain a dedicated satellite constellation. But that doesn’t mean satellite imagery and data remain unavailable; numerous government agencies and commercial entities now leverage EO technologies.
Strategies for implementing satellite technology in government compliance include leveraging satellite data for broad area management, enabling governments to monitor large geographical regions efficiently. This can support regulatory compliance in sectors such as environmental protection, land use, and resource management. Satellite technology provides accurate and timely data, helping governments ensure adherence to laws and regulations, track changes over time, and make informed decisions based on real-time insights.
New Mexico State Land Office (NMSLO): Case Study
Similar to the illegal logging example above, the New Mexico State Land Office previously struggled with compliance management, particularly with identifying and pursuing trespassers.
The state agency knew it didn’t have the visibility or oversight capabilities to continuously monitor the 9 million surface acres and 13 million mineral acres it oversees — and realistically, no government agency does.
Instead, NMSLO partnered with Planet.
Using current and historical satellite imagery to monitor active and inactive mines for trespassers, the agency discovered five violations amounting to $800,000. Given the trial’s success, NMSLO soon leveraged Planet EO technologies to access 3.7 m resolution imagery of the Permian Basin over the next year.
This effort identified 53 trespassing and material release incidents, which amounted to $2.7 million in back payments owed to the state and 22 new land leases that generated an additional $800,000. Millions of dollars that New Mexico contributed to public funding would be missing without EO capabilities.
EU CAP: Case Study
The European Union (EU) developed the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to regulate policy goals and determine farmer subsidies. Traditionally relying on on-the-spot-checks (OTSCs) for area-based payments, the EU sought to reform a system that struggled to adequately oversee 174 million agricultural hectares by leveraging EO technology and remote sensing.
However, the Copernicus Sentinel satellites and other sources of EO imagery and data weren’t sufficient for the Slovenian National Payment Agency (ARSKTRP) because:
- Copernicus Sentinel missions were too infrequent and lacked high-enough resolution images.
- Roughly 25% of Slovenian fields are too narrow to be evaluated by Copernicus Sentinel missions with reliable time-series data.
- Cloud cover often obscured visibility.
- Activity on permanent grasslands and orchards proved too difficult to detect.
Still seeking a Checks by Monitoring (CbM) solution, ARSKTRP and its service provider, Sinergise, began incorporating Planet imagery and data to complement the Copernicus Sentinel missions.
With both sources of EO imagery, ARSKTRP decreased the number of parcels with inconclusive determinations by 73% — reducing expected expenditures for OTSC follow-ups by over €1 million.
Additionally, when ARSKTRP personnel spot-check the remaining parcels, they leverage Planet satellite imagery. This enables them to determine the cause of inconclusive CbM results in roughly 30 seconds — reducing expected expenditures by another €70,000.
EO Technology Represents the Future of Compliance Monitoring
Earth observation technology continues to grow in importance to support government compliance strategies and enforcement of regulatory frameworks.
Daily satellite images and data prove invaluable for promptly and accurately enforcing compliance, reducing oversight costs, protecting public property and individuals’ rights, and recouping substantial funds to help the agency’s budget or other public programs.
Government agencies leveraging EO technologies finally achieve the visibility and insights needed to monitor and enforce compliance properly.
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