Coastal wetlands, especially salt marshes, store vast amounts of terrestrial carbon both above and belowground. Conserving and restoring them can help sequester such carbon, but sea-level rise and other anthropogenic threats risk liberating these long-term carbon stores to the atmosphere where they would contribute to climate change. Gwen Miller, a Ph.D. Student […]
The towering mountain ranges of the Tibetan Plateau, such as the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush, are a prime area for a host of natural disasters. Earthquakes, landslides, and glacial floods are common occurrences in the region thanks to the confluence of geological activity there, along with the effects of climate change. […]
Satellite-derived bathymetry has numerous applications, including enhanced mapping and classification of bathymetric features such as coral reefs and seagrass meadows, as well as use in maritime navigation and coastline infrastructure. Dimitris Poursanidis from the Foundation for Research and Technology in Hellas, with colleagues from the German Aerospace Centre, used Planet’s Dove images […]
Globally, landslides kill ~5,000 people per year. If landslides—including rock falls, mudslides and other surface failures—can be better predicted, these deaths could be avoided. Landslides are highly heterogeneous, both spatially and temporally. They are more common in the steep, mountainous regions of the Earth, but also more frequent during particular seasons due […]
Temporal resolution is one of four axes by which one may judge the value of a remote sensing data source. Unlike spatial, spectral and radiometric resolution, temporal resolution can be used to decompose the day-to-day dynamics of ecosystems, revealing their phenology—the natural processes by which ecosystems (particularly vegetation) change over time. A […]
When disaster strikes, accurate information about the scale and scope of impact becomes critical. The first 24 hours are often the most important, and any accurate data may prove life saving. Leveraging data from Planet’s Disaster Program, Bruno Adriano and his team used a variety of data sources and machine learning to […]
The movement of river sediment influences many aspects of land management, including water quality and the life cycle of dams and other impoundments. Hydrologists will benefit from improved methodologies to track river sediment flow and geomorphological evolution of the river channel. Robert Strick, from the University of Brighton, and colleagues used a […]
If it were possible, a stationary observer in sun synchronous orbit would see one Planet Dove satellite rocket past every ~90 seconds. At polar latitudes, the relative speed of Earth’s rotation is much lower, like the inside tracks of a vinyl record. As a result, Planet often collects multiple images of the […]
The flow of suspended sediment—fine particles carried by the water column—varies widely in tropical rivers, and can influence water availability, silting of reservoirs and pollution. Monitoring sediment loads over large rivers can be difficult with ground stations, making remote sensing a preferred solution. However, high spatial and temporal resolution are required to […]
In the Arctic and Boreal regions, millions of freshwater lakes influence carbon dioxide and methane emissions to the atmosphere. Lakes that are more dynamic, with a variable shoreline, may have a greater flux of these greenhouse gases. Leveraging the Planet Dove and RapidEye constellations, which collectively image daily and sometimes multiple times […]
