Government agencies managing vast forests can now leverage satellite imagery to monitor forest health more effectively, overcoming traditional challenges like limited resources and personnel.

Government agencies responsible for developing and implementing strategies to protect and restore forested lands face a difficult task. With areas often exceeding millions of acreage, there simply isn’t enough personnel, funds, or time to regularly monitor, detect, or measure change efficiently or effectively. 

However, always-on, up-to-date data derived from satellite imagery offers government agencies the advanced capability for forest health monitoring over broad and remote areas. Rather than reactionary responses or infrequent, costly aerial photos, satellite imagery empowers civil agencies to increase the efficiency of pest and disease monitoring, fuels reduction and treatment, and forest restoration work.

We’ll explore how government agencies can draw on historical satellite data, receive new imagery daily, and task high-resolution imagery to detect early threats and support conservation efforts of our forests.

The Importance of Forest Health Monitoring

Governments around the globe rely on forest health monitoring to support stewardship and legislative initiatives. This practice involves carefully managing and reporting on these initiatives, watching for any new or worsening threats, and responding as needed.

Forest health monitoring includes responsibilities such as:

• Conducting biological, physical, and social scientific research and developing beneficial applications from it
  
  
• Ensuring agroforestry practices (i.e., combined forestry and agriculture) help keep farms and woodlands productive and profitable without threatening ecological balance or encroaching into protected spaces
  
  
• Monitoring invasive species, illegal logging, trespassing, and other legal or regulatory compliance violations committed by individuals or commercial entities

Early Threat Detection

For fairly obvious reasons, proactive forest health monitoring proves crucial for effective protection and mitigation. The longer a threat goes unnoticed, the more difficult management and remediation efforts become — especially in remote and vast environments. 

Take wildfires. Some governments, like the Government of Canada, have adopted forest management strategies to improve mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery practices. Combining satellite data with other geospatial, weather, and behavioral indices help the government map burned areas, monitor fire risk, and model carbon emission estimates.

Why Is Traditional Forest Health Monitoring So Difficult?

Simply put, there’s too much forest to effectively or efficiently monitor all the acreage (even when there aren’t enough forests). For example, consider the following areas some countries must manage:

• The U.S. federal government and collective state governments monitor over 321 million acres (130 million hectares) of forests across public lands.
  
  
• Canada contains around 815 million acres (330 million hectares) of public forests. 
  
  
• The European Union (EU) collectively controls roughly 160 million acres (65 million hectares) of publicly owned forests.
  
  
• Brazil’s public forests—largely bolstered by the Amazon Rainforest—almost match Canada’s, with 808 million acres (327 million hectares).

Regardless of how many regional agencies, branch offices, personnel, and other resources the government has at its disposal for forest health monitoring, the fact remains that they can’t be everywhere at once. More importantly, these agencies traditionally couldn’t gain the reliable visibility necessary to mitigate this disparity between capabilities and scope.

Improving Forest Health Monitoring With Broad Area Management

Regularly viewing and analyzing near-real-time ground truth compiled from satellite imagery provides reliable early warning indicators. Applying broad area management practices not only improves visibility but also reduces costs and accelerates decision-making capabilities.  

Broad area management is the practice of monitoring, detecting, and measuring change over large land areas. Planet offers broad area management with:

• Global, Daily Monitoring: 3.7 meter resolution images in four multispectral bands; RGB and Near Infrared collected over 300 million square kilometers each day. 
  
  
• High-Resolution Imagery: Enhanced 50 cm ortho spatial resolution images delivered less than three hours from capture.
   
• Automated Change Detection and Alerts: Timely alerts when new roads are cut into forests or new buildings emerge.
  
  
• Derived Data Products: Forest carbon datasets and automated field boundary detection. 

These capabilities enable government agencies and commercial entities to monitor:

• Forest inventory and estimated logging capacity
• Newly planted areas for reforestation and the clearfell regions after harvesting
• Forest disease detection
• Pests
• Invasive species
• Trespassers
• Disasters like wildfires
• The long-term impacts of climate change
• Tree growth encroaching on power lines or other dangers

Whether the geospatial analysis focused on these threats prompts immediate response or continued monitoring, government agencies gain the visibility needed to make the right decision. Satellite imagery supports all monitoring and response activities—from fighting wildfires to writing new public policies that help prevent them.

Conservation: Practices and Policies

Brazil’s Federal Police began utilizing satellite imagery to monitor the Amazon Rainforest in pursuit of environmental protections, potential trespassers and wildfire culprits, a low-carbon economy, and forest conservation.

In 2021, Brazil’s government passed a new proposal—Regulate the National Policy of Payment for Environmental Services. The document outlines law enforcement’s environmental monitoring responsibilities, inclusive policy goals for all stakeholders, minimal payment criteria to establish safeguards, and reasonable incentives for commercial entities. This policy’s creation and future enforcement will depend on augmenting forest health monitoring via satellite imagery.

Pest and Disease Detection Case Study

In the Czech Republic, summers affected by climate change caused the bark beetle population to rapidly increase in the dry heat, causing the forest ecosystem to fall out of balance. The insects devastated Czech conifer forests, impacting 18 million m³ and putting 80% of the spruce growth at risk.

By leveraging Planet surface reflectance basemaps, the Czech Forest Management Institute (FMI) collaborated with various stakeholders to rapidly determine the affected areas, which covered 16,000 hectares (valued at €200 million). Additional assessments helped inform landowners of the severe impacts, with one out of every five unaware that forests on their property were affected.

As Peter Lukeš, a remote sensing scientist at FMI, stated, they can now mitigate the damage and provide data to the “Ministry of Agriculture so they can discern affected areas and decide where finances should be allocated for reforestation going forward.”

If FMI had not leveraged satellite imagery (and basemaps), they may not have discovered the full extent of the bark beetle’s damage. This would have caused the problem to persist if any affected forests or trees were overlooked and created a resurgence. Given the unpredictability of climate change’s effects, as seen via the beetle population boom, increased visibility and monitoring are paramount.

Tools and Techniques for Forest Health Monitoring

GIS platforms provide the best tools for accessing, analyzing, and visualizing satellite imagery. Specifically, Esri’s ArcGIS and the open-source Q-GIS typically receive the highest praise from users.

Data Integration

Depending on which commercial satellite imagery provider organizations partner with, they may access various integration methods. These connect the provided image library to the organization’s GIS implementation (and potentially other software platforms).

For example, organizations partnering with Planet gain access to the following integrations:

• Desktop integrations allow users to search, access, and import Planet imagery within GIS.
  
  
• API integrations allow more technical users to build and configure connections to various resources, streamlining and simplifying data transfer.
  
  
• Planet images can be streamed to any platform that complies with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) WMS or WMTS standards. 

Planet: Leading Future Trends in Forest Health Monitoring

Although remote sensing technology was not considered until roughly the 1980s, today’s forestry and forest health monitoring professionals leverage it alongside satellite imagery to achieve new levels of visibility and insight. Future trends will likely see continued adoption of satellite imagery and more efforts to incorporate various intelligence sources like drones and LiDAR.

These augmentations to remote sensing and satellite imagery will only help create a more comprehensive understanding, visibility, and more targeted and actionable guidance.

But rather than waiting for the future, Planet has already been busy working toward facilitating sustainable forest management for a decade.

Every day, we’re helping governments and commercial entities—from gradually monitoring reforestation growth over time to receiving prompt notice about trespassers, illegal loggers, and other malicious activity.

Organizations tasked with forest monitoring and inventory management need visibility to be effective. And no one provides visibility like Planet. 

Contact us to learn more.

Professionals and decision-makers tasked with analyzing the rapid changes occurring on our planet face an overwhelming abundance of data. Transforming this data into actionable insights to support their choices can be daunting. Swift Geospatial, a GIS and remote sensing company, alleviates this burden by leveraging near-daily Planet imagery to create proprietary dashboards that enable swift and sustainable solutions.

“It’s [Swift’s] mission to bridge the gap between the raw satellite data that comes down, turning that data into information for our clients,” commented Michael Breetzke, Co-Founder and Director at Swift Geospatial. “Having the ability to always see what’s happening on the ground at a large scale provides us with the raw information needed to provide our clients with decision support.”

With the support of Planet, Swift Geospatial provides business intelligence to help organizations in agriculture, mining, forestry, and sustainability monitoring to make informed decisions based on analyzed geospatial data. The combination of GIS and remote sensing empowers decision-makers by providing timely and accurate spatial insights.

Swift Geospatial and Planet Unlock Potential of Spatial Data for Commercial Forestry Customers

Timber companies worldwide need to manage their forest assets, including monitoring their in-field operations. Harvesting is often planned months, sometimes years, in advance and executed year-round. Timely, accurate imagery is needed  post-harvest to audit the harvest and update forest inventories. Additionally, newly planted compartments need to be monitored for die-off, pests, and diseases while mitigating actions can still be taken.

Swift Geospatial has monitored commercial forests in South Africa of around 12,000 sq km per week for the past seven years. They track the plantations for tree health, harvesting progress, encroachment, and post-fire analysis to aid in decision support. “We’ve got this wealth of data that they’ve been using week in and week out to inform decisions within the organization,” said Breetzke. “Continuous monitoring with Planet is taking that data down to the statistical analysis and now understanding what trees to plant where.”

Combined with PlanetScope data, Swift’s advanced GIS and Precision Forest technology runs analyses across broad areas to provide a feasible and cost-effective method of monitoring the health of their plantations and changing the game for tree conservation. Monitoring contractors’ progress, timber transportation, and sapling planting and growth during the critical initial phases allows for significant gains and logistical operational efficiencies, along with the preservation of lush, indigenous landscapes.

A Collaborative and Forward-Looking Partnership

Swift Geospatial has found Planet’s combination of high-cadence coverage and medium-resolution imagery over broad areas to be the optimal solution. Our partnership has helped Swift grow over the past seven years to provide customers with the data, knowledge, and decision support they need. “For us, technology and satellites are one thing that Planet provides, and they continue to innovate,” Breetzke commented on the partnership. “But what we see as more important is the networking and support that we receive from Planet.”

Looking towards the future, Swift Geospatial is focused on providing proactive change detection and earth monitoring GIS solutions for risk assessment and European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) compliance. Swift’s advocacy for open and unrestricted access to geospatial data, ensures that farmers, operators, and traders have access to actionable information required for enhancing cultivation practices and ensuring compliance with the new regulations. 

Watch the accompanying video to hear more from Michael Breetzke on how this partnership is improving efficiency and accuracy in forestry, mining, agriculture, and sustainability monitoring:

Traditional methods of geospatial data collection, like field surveys and aerial imagery, are costly, labor-intensive, and often outdated. Advancements in satellite technology provide near-daily, accurate data, enabling organizations to conduct efficient geospatial analysis for better decision-making, from land management to disaster recovery.

Not long ago, government agencies and businesses relied on older, more complex methods to gather geospatial data. These traditional approaches included a range of manual and on-site collection methods—such as field surveys and direct measurements, often referred to as “boots on the ground.” 

Additionally, aerial views were obtained by taking pictures from planes. But these methods were not without significant challenges—they were expensive, difficult to manage, and didn’t always provide accurate or up-to-date information.

Collecting data in remote areas was particularly onerous, with teams facing harsh conditions and logistical hurdles. Moreover, acquiring cloud-free imagery was often difficult, leading to incomplete or unusable data. The manual nature of these efforts also made them time-intensive and, at times, risky for those involved.

Thanks to commercial satellite imagery, organizations can access current, reliable images of the Earth’s surface today. These near-daily images allow companies and agencies to simplify access to geospatial data for new and deeper insights.

This article will explain how daily satellite imagery and geospatial analytics work and how they can benefit your organization. By understanding these tools, you’ll be better equipped to make informed decisions that impact business operations and policy outcomes.

Deepen Your Understanding of Geospatial Analytics

Geospatial analytics involves using geographic information systems (GIS) to manage and analyze satellite images and other geographic data. This allows organizations to gain insights about specific locations and activities on Earth. By combining data from various sources within a GIS, organizations can create detailed analyses that guide decision-making and operations.

Geospatial analytics brings together different types of geographic, spatial, and location data to provide insights into environmental changes and human activity. In the past, these insights were hard to get because traditional methods were expensive and complicated. 

Now, with advancements like commercial satellite imagery, geospatial analytics is much more accessible. Organizations can easily access both historical and current satellite data, request new images, and combine this information with other data sources to make informed decisions—all without the high costs and challenges of the past.

Types of Satellite Imagery: Tailoring Data to Your Needs

When performing geospatial analysis, the choice of satellite imagery or data source plays a critical role in the quality and effectiveness of the insights you generate. Here’s how different types of imagery can be used:

• Free satellite imagery: Sourced primarily from government satellites, free imagery provides a cost-effective entry point for organizations. However, these images often have limitations, such as lower resolution and less frequent updates, which can result in analysis gaps. This option may not meet the demands of projects requiring high-precision or frequently updated data.
  
  
• Commercial satellite imagery: Commercial providers like Planet offer high-frequency, high-resolution imagery with near real-time updates captured by constellations of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). This type of imagery is ideal for applications requiring detailed, up-to-date information, such as disaster recovery, land use verification, or environmental monitoring. The ability to task satellites for specific capture requests ensures organizations receive the exact data they need precisely when needed.

Key Data Sources for Geospatial Analysis

Geospatial analysis uses diverse data sources to provide insights across industries like environmental monitoring and urban planning. Key sources include:

• Satellite imagery: Offers broad, up-to-date views of Earth’s surface, tracking changes like deforestation and urban growth. It is widely available through platforms like NASA’s Landsat or ESA’s Sentinel.
  
  
• Field data: Provides ground-level verification of satellite data, crucial for localized details such as soil conditions or water quality.
  
  
• Remote sensing: Utilizes specialized sensors to capture data beyond the visible spectrum, such as temperature and vegetation health, supporting detailed environmental monitoring.
  
  
• Public information: Open-source data from governments and institutions, like maps or demographic stats, enhances geospatial datasets.
  
  
• Non-satellite alternatives (e.g., drones): Drones offer high-precision data for localized tasks like surveying or disaster assessment, complementing satellite imagery.

Satellite imagery and remote sensing are the most valuable sources, offering comprehensive, real-time data for disaster management and resource exploration applications. Combining them with field data and other sources ensures accurate, multi-layered analysis.

Practical Applications of Daily Satellite Imagery

Daily satellite imagery is particularly valuable for compliance monitoring, disaster recovery, and land management.

For example, Slovenia’s ARSKTRP agency used Planet satellite data to improve their agricultural assessments, reducing the number of inconclusive assessments by 73% and saving over €1 million in the process. 

Similarly, the New Mexico State Land Office used satellite imagery to identify land trespassers and establish new leases, resulting in $4.3 million in additional revenue.

Discover more about how satellite imagery is used for environmental monitoring in this article about measuring global streamflow with Planet imagery.

Tools and Techniques for Geospatial Analytics

Organizations rely on a combination of robust Geographic Information System (GIS) platforms and effective integration techniques to harness the full potential of geospatial analytics. These tools and techniques enable the seamless combination of satellite imagery with other data sources, facilitating detailed analysis and actionable insights.  

GIS Software: Choosing the Right Platform

Selecting the right GIS software is critical for effective geospatial analysis. Below are two of the most popular GIS platforms, each catering to different needs:

• ArcGIS:
  • Industry-standard: Developed by Esri, ArcGIS is widely recognized as the industry leader.
    
    
  • Comprehensive tools: Offers a full suite of advanced tools for detailed spatial analysis, complex mapping, and large dataset management.
    
    
  • Professional support: Comes with extensive support and additional modules for enhanced functionality.
    
    
  • Paid license: Requires a commercial license, which might be a barrier for smaller organizations or those with limited budgets.
    
    
  • Best for: Users who need a feature-rich environment and are willing to invest in professional-grade software.
    
    
• QGIS:
  • Open-source: A free alternative to ArcGIS, offering a wide range of geospatial analysis features.
    
    
  • Cross-platform: Supports multiple operating systems, making it accessible to a broader audience.
    
    
  • Community-driven: Lacks formal support but has a vibrant user community and a large repository of plugins for extended functionality.
    
    
  • Cost-effective: Ideal for organizations seeking a no-cost solution for most geospatial tasks without the need for a commercial license.
    
    
  • Best for: Users looking for a flexible, cost-effective solution that can handle standard geospatial analysis tasks.

Data Integration: Enhancing Geospatial Analysis

Integrating satellite imagery with other data sources is crucial for comprehensive geospatial analysis. Here’s how organizations can do it effectively:

• Combining data sources: Successful geospatial analysis often begins with high-resolution satellite imagery as the foundational layer. Integrating this imagery with other datasets—such as field data, remote sensing information, and public data—creates a more complete and nuanced view of the area being studied. For instance, combining satellite images with ground-level data can significantly enhance the accuracy of land use assessments or environmental monitoring efforts.
  
  
• Preprocessing techniques: Before conducting analysis, it is crucial to preprocess your data to ensure it is clean, accurate, and ready for integration. This process involves correcting errors, aligning different data layers to a common coordinate system, and converting data into formats compatible with your GIS platform. Proper preprocessing lays the groundwork for reliable and effective analysis. Additionally, Planet offers preprocessed or derived data products known as Planetary Variables. These datasets are ready for immediate use and provide high-quality, scientifically validated variables to simplify data preparation. 

Best Practices for Geospatial Analysis

• Ensure accuracy: Start with precise data and maintain consistency across all sources.
  
  
• Stay updated: Use the most current data available, especially in dynamic environments.
  
  
• Think scalability: Choose tools that can grow with your project’s needs.
  
  
• Facilitate collaboration: Opt for platforms that support easy collaboration and data sharing.

The Future of Geospatial Analytics

As more organizations adopt geospatial analytics, the potential for new applications and insights will continue to grow. With Planet’s leading satellite technology, organizations can stay at the forefront of this exciting field, leveraging the most advanced tools and data available.

Contact Planet today to learn more about the new insights and analysis-backed guidance your organization can achieve with commercial satellite imagery.

The Bureau of Land Management’s new public lands rule highlights the growing importance of satellite imagery in conservation. With Planet’s remote sensing technology, government agencies gain invaluable insights to monitor ecosystems, prevent illegal activities, and protect forests, wetlands, and wildlife, driving impactful, cost-efficient environmental preservation efforts.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is making significant changes under the public lands rule to increase efforts and resources to protect natural resources. Now more than ever, satellite imagery for conservation is crucial, as satellite technology transforms the field through remote sensing, monitoring, and the innovative use of its insights.

Below, we’ll briefly explain remote sensing imagery and how satellite technology is vital in conservation. We’ll also explore the benefits government agencies can gain from using satellite images and what the future holds for this technology.

Understanding Remote Sensing Satellite Images

Remote sensing for land management involves collecting data from a distance, typically satellites orbiting the Earth. These satellites capture images of the earth’s surface using optical, radar, sonar, and other sensors. This technology allows us to “sense” features of the planet on a scale impossible to achieve from the ground.

Remote sensing provides government agencies with high-resolution, high-frequency images across board areas. These images help make informed decisions, enforce regulations, monitor environments, and prevent disasters and degradation.

Using satellite images, we can better manage and protect public lands—a concept known as Forestry 4.0.

Applications in Protecting Public Lands

Remote sensing helps track and mitigate the impacts of natural disasters and slow environmental degradation. For example, NASA collaborated with Yosemite National Park to minimize forest fire damage by determining fire characteristics and the best response strategies.

Satellite imagery also supports the detection and prevention of illegal activities, such as unauthorized logging, mining, or poaching in protected areas.

The ability to analyze historical data also provides insights that were previously unavailable or required extensive resources. A study in BioScience demonstrated how images from the 1960s support current conservation efforts, showing that looking back in time is just as important as having a broad, detailed view of the present.

Forest Conservation

Governments use satellite imagery to monitor forests, better understand the health of plants and wildlife, and assess the severity of threats. This helps prevent both immediate and long-term damage to forests more effectively.

For instance, the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) improved forest monitoring using Planet’s satellite data by detecting threats like illegal logging and mining. With this data, FZS could address these threats more effectively, even with budget constraints.

Wetland Preservation

Governments also use satellite imagery to protect wetlands by monitoring their health and detecting threats like pollution or damage to vegetation. This is vital because wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems globally, comparable to rainforests and coral reefs in their ecological importance.

Wildlife Protection

Satellite images help track animal movements, habitat changes, and other vital data. This capability extends beyond human activities and enables better understanding and protection of wildlife.

In the Asia-Pacific region, home to critical ecosystems, Planet high-resolution satellite imagery helps monitor biodiversity. For example, our imagery provides detailed monitoring of the Indonesian archipelago, which hosts 17% of the world’s wildlife.

Benefits of Remote Sensing for Public Lands

Remote sensing satellite images provide accurate, timely monitoring, enabling better data-driven decision-making. This technology’s unique advantages are why governments rely on it for land management.

Key benefits include comprehensive coverage and cost-efficiency:

• Comprehensive coverage: Remote sensing provides consistent data collection over large, remote, or hard-to-reach areas. Governments gain extensive coverage of any landmass they need to monitor, with daily images offering an accurate view of changes.
  
  
• Efficiency and cost-effectiveness: Satellite imagery reduces the need for ground surveys, lowering costs and improving project efficiency. The substantial economic benefits allow governments to allocate resources more effectively and build public trust through innovative conservation efforts.

Future Prospects and Innovations

Advancements in satellite technology will enhance these benefits, enabling more government collaboration and stronger public-private partnerships. Leading providers are already improving efficiency across diverse data sets. For example, Planet Insights Platform integrates earth data with advanced analytics, making insights more accessible to decision-makers.

Planet continues to lead in innovation and is committed to constant improvement. We use an agile aerospace approach and rapid iteration.

How Planet Powers Public Lands Monitoring

Planet’s remote sensing technology is at the forefront of environmental protection with satellites. Our satellite imagery supports governments worldwide in conserving forests, wetlands, wildlife, and other public lands.

We offer comprehensive, efficient coverage, enabling decision-makers to act confidently and drive positive environmental changes. Our continued innovation ensures we remain at the cutting edge of global conservation efforts.To learn more about our work protecting public lands, browse our customer stories. You can also contact us to discuss how we can support your conservation efforts.

Getting ahead of natural disasters is no easy feat, especially in a geographically challenging area like the Aosta Valley of Northern Italy. Home to the Italian slopes of Mont Blanc, this region separates the Pennine Alps from the Graian Alps and is particularly susceptible to landslides. These natural events have caused flooding, destruction, and loss of lives and resources. To mitigate these risks, the government of the Aosta Valley leverages Planet’s satellite data to build an early warning system aimed at effectively managing riverbeds and preventing floods.

A Land Suitable for Remote Sensing

The Aosta Valley is characterized by its extreme geography, making it both a suitable and challenging area for remote sensing. Spanning 19,350 hectares of glaciers, it is home to all the “4,000” peaks of the western Alps, with over 40 mountain peaks exceeding 4,000 meters. The region also features numerous impervious and inaccessible areas and serves as an EGMS validation site for landslide issues.

“We are the smallest region in Italy, located in the northwestern corner, a very mountainous region with the highest peaks in the Alps, including Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. We are very prone to landslides and geohazards, which threaten human lives and obstruct access to important tourist resort towns like Courmayeur. Our job is not only to react but also to prevent these geohazards as much as possible,” shares Davide Bertolo, Chief Geologist of the Aosta Valley region.

The Regional Geological Survey is dedicated to tackling land stability issues through comprehensive field inspections and geophysical analyses. Their risk mitigation strategies are multifaceted, incorporating topographic surveys using total stations, GNSS, UAS, and scanning stations, along with 24/7 monitoring of large landslides exceeding 1 million cubic meters. 

Leveraging Planet Data for Proactive Disaster Management

Planet’s PlanetScope and SkySat data has markedly enhanced the Geological Service’s analysis capabilities. The decision-making system, primarily based on Planet satellite images, provides swift and effective information crucial for managing riverbed maintenance and flood prevention.

With our PlanetScope data, this team has been able to run NDVI analyses, and when combined with cosmic ray data and field inspections, this has supplied essential information for aqueduct repair. Furthermore, RGB analysis of our PlanetScope data has enabled their identification of precursor elements, significantly enhancing the understanding of the triggering dynamics behind the Challand-Saint-Anselme landslide.

“We have been working with Planet since 2017 and were immediately aware of its potential due to its daily revisit frequency and multispectral bands. These features enable us to assess the evolution of landslides and detect early warning signs like water infiltration in the ground, which usually triggers landslides. With Planet’s capabilities, we can deploy our field teams to the right places promptly, saving time, human lives, and preventing damage to infrastructures,” says Bertolo. 

Looking ahead, the Geological Service aims to explore the potential of Artificial Intelligence, deepen their understanding of landslide precursor events, and integrate multisource information. They also plan to extend their aqueduct analysis across the entire Aosta Valley region, enhancing their proactive disaster management capabilities.

Watch the accompanying video to hear more from Davide Bertolo on how this partnership is transforming disaster management in one of Italy’s most challenging regions.

Learn how to calculate Growing Degree Days to optimize crop management and enhance growth modeling.

Authors: Maddie Grady and Annett Wania

Accurately tracking crop growth stages is vital for optimizing agricultural practices. Temperature has a significant impact on crop growth rates, and an effective way to quantify this is through growing degree days (GDD) or thermal time. In this article, we’ll explore how to calculate GDD using Planet Land Surface Temperature.

GDD measures the accumulated temperature over the growing season by adding up the daily average temperatures that exceed a certain base threshold necessary for crop growth. This can be used to infer crop growth stages. For example, 800 GDD accumulated from the planting means that the crop should be flowering. This provides farmers with valuable insights into crop development, enabling them to make smarter management choices, like applying crop protection products or fertilization in optimal windows.

Calculating GDD usually relies on air temperature data from weather stations. However, satellite-derived Land Surface Temperature (LST) offers an alternative data source that can improve on weather station data for two reasons:

1. The 100 m spatial resolution captures field level variations missed by meteorological data that measures a single point. LST can capture more granular, field-level temperature fluctuations that might arise from microclimatic conditions in a given area.
2. Weather stations measure air temperature 2 m above the surface. Although a strong proxy for available thermal energy, surface temperature may serve as an alternative representation of the thermal energy available to the crops. Integrating surface temperature data into thermal time calculations could enhance the accuracy of crop growth modeling, by measuring the surface temperature directly, rather than relying on correlation between air and surface temperatures.

Calculating Growing Degree Days From Land Surface Temperature

There are two inputs needed to calculate GDD: 

1. Daily maximum and minimum temperatures to calculate the average temperature. 
2. A crop specific development threshold to identify the temperature range for crop development. 

LST acquisitions occur at 13:30 (1:30 p.m. local time) in the day and 01:30 (1:30 a.m. local time) at night. Although these times roughly align with daily minimum and maximum temperature, they don’t match the exact timings needed to calculate the daily average temperature. To address this, daily temperature extremes were modeled using LST day and night acquisitions and air temperature in hourly measurements by the United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN), achieving an r2 of 0.72 for minimum temperature and 0.82 for maximum temperature.

The development threshold is crop specific. In this example, commonly used local crop development thresholds for air temperature were applied. The daily average temperature (calculated from the daily minimum and maximum) is adjusted to represent the available thermal energy for crop growth, by subtracting the crop development threshold. This value is then cumulatively summed from the start date (e.g. crop planting or emergence) to indicate the total temperature accumulation.

Validation Against Weather Station Data

When crops reach the same phenological stage, it means they’ve received a similar amount of thermal energy for growth, so the cumulative thermal time should also be similar. For instance, if crops in Field 1 emerged on April 1 and flowered on May 15, while crops in Field 2 emerged on April 7 and flowered on May 18, the cumulative thermal time between these dates should be comparable. We compared LST-derived GDD to weather station GDD using crop growth records from the 2020–2023 growing seasons for multiple crops in Brandenburg, Germany and 208 fields from the 2017 growing season for maize in Kansas, U.S. Air temperature data for comparison was sourced from the local weather stations and cumulative GDD was computed from the visit date closest to crop emergence. We evaluated the quality of the GDD data by comparing it against crop development phases to ensure consistency across different years and locations.

Standard deviation in total cumulative GDD between the Kansas fields was 8.6% lower for LST-derived GDD than the weather station GDD. The graphs below illustrate how across multiple fields and growth seasons the accumulation of thermal time can be a consistent predictor of phenological development from LST. In these plots the crop growth stage and the cumulative thermal time should align between fields or years, for example stage 30 in 2021 should have a similar thermal time total to that recorded at stage 30 in 2022. For the validation fields in Germany and Kansas, the LST-derived GDD appears more similar than those from the weather station data.

GDD can also be used to compare crop conditions at the same development stage across fields or years. For example, by indexing NDVI on accumulated thermal time rather than calendar day, productivity at similar thermal energy or growth can be more easily compared. 

Try Out Land Surface Temperature

Want to try this workflow out? Sign up for a 30-day free trial for Planet Insights Platform and get access to the Land Surface Temperature data used in this blog.  Follow along with the workflow in this Python Notebook.

Acknowledgements

The work was performed under the research project NaLamKI which has received funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action of Germany BMWK (Teilvorhaben 01MK21003G). The two phenology datasets which were used for validation were provided by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research ZALF (PatchCROP) and CropQuest, Inc. (Kansas). The weather station data was sourced from publicly available data from the German Weather service (DWD) and Kansas Mesonet. 

We are thrilled to announce today that our first hyperspectral satellite, Tanager-1, along with 36 SuperDoves (Flock 4BE) were successfully launched into orbit during the Transporter-11 Rideshare mission with SpaceX, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Friday, August 16, 2024. Our team has successfully made contact with Tanager-1 and started its commissioning process.

Tanager-1 is made possible by the Carbon Mapper Coalition, a philanthropically-funded effort to develop and deploy satellites designed to detect and track methane and CO2 super-emitters at a level of granularity needed to support direct mitigation action. Tanager-1 combines Planet’s cutting-edge agile aerospace and smallsat bus technology with the state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer design developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

“This is an amazing all California effort! A Planet satellite carrying a JPL payload on a SpaceX rocket, from Vandenberg Air Force Base for a California charity Carbon Mapper to help the State of California! We’re proud to be a part of it,” said Will Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet. “Delivering innovative space-based solutions to our customers that improve environmental conditions is core to our mission. Placing cutting-edge imaging spectrometer technology in a smallsat bus platform is a remarkable achievement for this Coalition. I’m incredibly proud of our team and everyone who helped bring this satellite to life.”

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that has accounted for around 30 percent of atmospheric warming since 1750. In order to slow and ultimately halt global warming, methane emissions must be slashed this decade along with a sustained program to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Future Tanager imagery will be analyzed by expert scientists at Carbon Mapper for methane and CO2 source detection and quantification, meanwhile we at Planet will commercialize the hyperspectral data for a variety of use cases including defense and intelligence monitoring, biodiversity assessments, mineral mapping, and water quality assessments.

“The successful launch of Tanager-1 is a testament to the power of collaboration,” said Laurie Leshin, Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Our partnership with Planet and Carbon Mapper exemplifies how we can come together to develop innovative solutions that address our most urgent climate challenges. JPL has a long history of developing advanced instruments and the imaging spectrometer onboard Tanager-1, combined with Planet’s expertise, will drive impact for environmental monitoring and mitigation. We’re excited to see the continued success of this coalition and are proud to be part of it.”

“Any serious effort to tackle climate change must include a focus on minimizing high emission point sources, particularly methane ‘super-emitters’ where a small fraction of infrastructure contributes disproportionately to total emissions,” said Riley Duren, Co-Founder and CEO of Carbon Mapper. “There are solutions at hand today that are capable of eliminating unnecessary leaks and wasteful practices but until now most emission sources have remained unobserved at the granular scales necessary to guide mitigation action. We’re incredibly excited to apply Tanager’s unique capabilities to make methane and CO2 emissions visible at high resolution globally—translating data into transparent and actionable information to help decision makers act now. There’s no time to waste.”

In addition to Tanager-1, the Transporter-11 rocket delivered 36 of our SuperDoves to orbit to contribute to our flagship daily, global monitoring mission. PlanetScope data is used by hundreds of our customers in defense and intelligence, civil government, and commercial markets to take informed action, and better contextualize events they’re seeing on the ground now. Our daily scan and deep archive of data across the globe is unique within the industry and provides our customers with a continuous and comprehensive view of their areas of interest. Further, the archive acts as a rich training ground for predictive machine-learning and advanced artificial-intelligence models, accelerating users’ ability to draw insights from the terabytes of data collected by Planet each day.

Forward Looking Statements

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, the Company’s ability to capture market opportunity and realize any of the potential benefits from current or future product enhancements, new products, or strategic partnerships and customer collaborations, the Company’s ability to successfully design, build, launch and deploy, operate and market new products and satellites and the Company’s ability to realize any of the potential benefits from product and satellite launches, either as designed, within the expected time frame, in a cost-effective manner, or at all. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company’s management’s beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to them. Because such statements are based on expectations as to future events and results and are not statements of fact, actual results may differ materially from those projected. Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to the Company’s ability to obtain and maintain required licenses and approvals from regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in a timely fashion, or at all; whether the Company will be able to successfully build, launch and deploy or operate its satellites, including new satellites either as designed, in a timely fashion or at all; the Company’s ability to develop and release product and service enhancements to respond to rapid technological change, or to develop new designs and technologies for its satellites, in a timely and cost-effective manner; whether the Company will be able to continue to invest in scaling its sales organization, expanding its software engineering (including its ability to integrate new satellite capabilities) and marketing capabilities; whether the Company will be able to accurately predict and capture market opportunity; whether current customers or prospective customers adopt the Company’s platform or new products; the Company’s ability to realize any of the potential benefits from new products and satellites, as well as strategic partnerships and customer collaborations; and other risk factors and disclosures about the Company and its business included in the Company’s periodic reports, proxy statements, and other disclosure materials filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which are available online at www.sec.gov, and on the Company’s website at www.planet.com. All forward-looking statements reflect the Company’s beliefs and assumptions only as of the date such statements are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

Learn 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.

Contact Planet to discuss your needs today

Yesterday, we were proud to showcase our major customers and partners from across Central and South America at our “Planet On The Road” conference series, hosted in Bogotá Colombia. Speakers at the in-person event included data and artificial intelligence experts and government leaders from Brazil, Colombia, and Bolivia, who focused on how satellite data was being used across Latin America for sustainable development, law enforcement, disaster response, and Amazon forest protection.

At Planet, we provide our customers and partners with satellite datasets and analysis feeds, helping them conduct broad area management and quantify changing conditions on the surface of the Earth. At the Bogotá event, Planet President and CFO, Ashley Johnson expanded on these capabilities, highlighting the company’s newly launched Planet Insights Platform and shared, “Our daily global scan can help authorities improve situational awareness, allocate resources during complex incidents that occur over large areas, understand flood risks in burned areas, and plan long-term recovery operations.”

Planet has experienced business momentum in Latin America over the last year and by working with partners in the region, valuable insights and novel workflows have emerged for governments and businesses in the region. “Our community is uniquely equipped to harness the power of space data and AI technologies to see the signal in the noise, to modernize and digitize our workflows, use transparency to promote peace and security and to accelerate the transition toward a sustainable economy,” said Robbie Schingler, Planet Co-founder and CSO in his keynote address at the event.

We were honored to have our customers and partners take to the stage for the day to share how they are leveraging Planet satellite data. Representatives from INRA, Bolivia’s land management agency, discussed how they worked in collaboration with Planet and our partner CIVIS to modernize their approach to land management. Aiming to balance sustainability, food sovereignty, and national development, INRA leveraged the Planet Insights Platform to gain near real-time insights and streamline management for monitoring for carbon emissions compliance and land use and titling, establishing ambitious sustainable targets across the nation.

In a keynote, alongside INRA, our customer Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi (IGAC), a Colombian government entity responsible for managing cartographic data, shared how they provide user access to PlanetScope and Planet Basemaps covering the entire Colombian territory. Through their platform, Observatorio de la Tierra y el Territorio (OTT), organizations are able to conduct efficient land-use planning and territorial management. With data analysis and AI, the platform aims to offer capabilities for monitoring infrastructure change and detect anthropogenic changes to the environment. 

In a fireside chat hosted by Robbie Schingler and Guillermo Ocampo, Microsoft’s National Digital Transformation Officer, the industry leaders discussed how artificial intelligence and satellite imagery have been transforming biodiversity protection in South America, helping to inform scientists and raise public awareness. Microsoft’s Project Guacamaya, for instance, runs AI-enabled analyses on top of Planet satellite imagery of biodiverse regions to swiftly detect ecosystem changes, potentially caused by deforestation or mining. 

Felipe Trujillo, General Manager at Procalculo Prosis S.A.S. and Alfredo Aramayo, President of CIVIS came on stage for a keynote presentation about how Planet’s satellite imagery is leveraged to provide unique data solutions in Latin America, including helping governments modernize their approach to land management and enabling disaster and environmental risk management. Additional representatives from Planet partner Procalculo also spoke about their collaborative work with organizations across Colombia to provide geospatial insights derived from our satellite data in areas, such as risk management and disaster response. At the event, Procalculo shared how they used deep learning models on top of Planet data to evaluate yearly drought impacts and risks, wildfire threat zones, and mapping roads for disaster management. They also spoke with the Head of Space Production Area for the Airforce of Colombia about how Planet data offers the capabilities of broad area management for the Amazon, enabling authorities to combat illegal deforestation. 

Representatives across the Brazil MAIS program shared how Planet data has enabled the success and expansion of the program, working to protect the Brazilian Amazon in collaboration with the Federal Police of Brazil, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security of Brazil, and Planet partner SCCON Geospatial. Leveraging our satellite data, SCCON supports a change detection alert system on their platform, making near real-time information regarding illicit activities, such as environmental crimes and illegal mining accessible to Brazilian government agencies. The Federal Police of Brazil have been able to implement justice across the country, protecting the Amazon rainforest and enhancing their law enforcement operations. With Planet satellite data and SCCON’s automated change detection, the project collected over $3 billion from fines, seized goods, and the freezing of assets since 2020.

We also hosted a myriad of leaders leveraging Planet satellite data across the Latin American agricultural industry and disaster response programs. In the digital farming arena, customers and partners speaking included Disargo, a leading supplier of fertilizers originating from Guatemala, Auravant, an Argentina-based digital agricultural monitoring system, and Oryzatvia, which integrates Planet data into their digital platform to support rice farming in Uruguay. Focusing on how AI and machine learning can transform proactive disaster response, Planet customers and partners EPM and Procaculo from Colombia, and Chile-based Raster4 shared how satellite data and emerging technologies are supporting all stages of disaster life cycle management, including prevention, response, and recovery. 

It was an incredible day at On The Road Bogotá, and we’d like to sincerely thank everyone who joined us in-person for inspirational keynotes and brainstorming sessions. From combating environmental crimes and leveraging AI for biodiversity conservation to digitally transforming land management and enabling disaster response, we were empowered and excited about all of the solutions shared on stage, and look forward to continued and expanded collaborations with customers and partners across the region!

We are excited to share that our SkySat data has been leveraged by the government of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s Survey and Land Registration Bureau (SLRB), to enhance urban planning initiatives nationwide. In collaboration with Planet, our partner Aetosky (formerly known as SkyMap Global) has implemented an advanced urban planning system. This turnkey solution integrates AI-enabled change detection technology with our high-resolution satellite imagery, exemplifying a sophisticated approach to modern urban management. 

Leveraging our SkySat 50 cm satellite imagery, Aetosky has enabled government authorities in the Kingdom of Bahrain to deploy this comprehensive urban planning system, covering 850 sq kilometers. This sophisticated system integrates Planet’s high-resolution satellite data with Aetosky’s advanced Change Detection Analysis capabilities to monitor and categorize various changes in the region, including modifications to existing buildings, rooftop alterations, vegetation shifts, and water changes. This innovative approach has led to an increase in effectiveness of building permit validation activities by the municipalities, highlighting the system’s significant impact on efficient urban management and planning.

“The Kingdom of Bahrain is making remarkably innovative strides in enabling smart city planning by leveraging cutting-edge satellite data and AI,” said Will Marshall, Planet CEO and co-founder. “This project has demonstrated how governments can embrace smart change detection systems to automate their projects, saving time and resources. We look forward to helping countries across the world to follow suit.”

The government of the Kingdom of Bahrain now receives regular biweekly updates, facilitating the tracking and analysis of developments, infrastructure changes, and environmental alterations, such as urban greenspaces and coastline activities. The new system, powered with Planet’s data, incorporates proprietary data cube technology, enabling the cataloging and management of spatial-temporal datasets. This technology empowers the SLRB to automatically extract and analyze changes across the entire country, significantly reducing monitoring time, identifying new activities on a national scale, and directing resources more cost-effectively.

“This advanced technology marks a significant leap forward, further enhancing our ability to track and manage construction and environmental changes across the Kingdom of Bahrain, with unprecedented efficiency, speed and accuracy. This, in turn, feeds into the development of the country’s smart cities, sustainable agricultural practices, and proactive environmental protection,” stated H.E Eng. Basim Yacob Alhamer, President of the Survey and Land Registration Bureau. “This collaboration epitomizes the Kingdom of Bahrain’s dedication to harnessing the power of cutting-edge technology to propel our nation towards a future defined by sustainable development and intelligent urban planning.”

The implementation of change detection using satellite data in the Kingdom of Bahrain is a significant advancement for smart city planning. By tracking and categorizing changes in urban development, infrastructure, and vegetation, the system provides essential data for urban planners and policymakers. This supports informed decision-making, promoting sustainable growth, optimizing resource allocation, and enhancing city functionality. The initiative aligns with smart city principles, contributing to more efficient, resilient, and environmentally friendly urban spaces.

With access to our bi-weekly satellite data, analysis-ready time series data management solutions, and AI-enhanced Change Detection Analysis, the Kingdom of Bahrain’s SLRB now serves as a centralized data hub. This hub supports various government departments. Leveraging Planet’s satellite imagery, this collaborative approach addresses environmental monitoring, transportation, and municipal response throughout the region.