On a rapidly changing Earth, space-based imaging provides one of the most critical inputs to our scientific understanding of the whole Earth system. With the rapid increase in the number of medium- to high-resolution imaging sensors, there is increasing need for standard calibration methodology. An increase in sensor fusion, in which researchers […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
With daily imagery over ports and coastlines, one of the most useful potential applications of Planet’s Dove imagery is the detection and classification of maritime vessels. Ship tracking has a vital role in security, but the enormous number of ships at sea at any given time limits the effectiveness of classical, human-powered […]
Landslides pose a major threat to people and property throughout the world, and particularly in landslide-prone regions. Improving our ability to monitor those landslides can improve mitigation, and may ultimately reveal approaches that could predict certain types of landslides in the future. Omid Ghorbanzadeh, from the University of Salzburg, and his team […]
In November, 2016, Haifa, Israel experienced a fire on the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), causing damage to homes and other infrastructure in the urban forest landscape. The damage was visible in several Earth Observation datasets, including MODIS, Sentinel-2, and the Planet Dove constellation. Yaron Michael, in the Department of Geography and Environment at […]
The proliferation of small satellites may make it easier to track near-Earth objects—asteroids and other potentially hazardous objects that could impact our Planet. In collaboration with Planet, Chengxing Zhai and team utilized SkySat-3 to demonstrate imaging of the main belt asteroid, 889 Erynia, and near-Earth oject 1998YP11. From January through April of 2017, SkySat-3 […]
As Planet’s Education and Research Community continues to grow, students are increasingly working with Planet imagery in college courses. At Stanford University, several students recently utilized Planet imagery in Computer Science 230: Deep Learning. Ian Avery Bick, Dennis Wang and Ben Mullet examined deforestation near Kibale National Park in Southern Uganda, an […]
