Applications

Agriculture

Main EO Products

Agriculture is one of the most important application fields using Earth Observation data from all missions, where other data sources are often too expensive, or too restricted in scope.
Typical applications include crop inventory, yield prediction, soil/crop condition monitoring and subsidy control. The scale of products varies, but typical applications are based on the recognition of individual agricultural parcels.

This is a mature market, where the use of EO data is consolidated practice with recognised advantages in production and trend monitoring, yield estimation and crop damage assessment. New techniques such as precision farming can benefit from the contributions of EO data, including the coming generation of high-resolution data, in synthesis with other information sources.

When combined with other data (farm census, seed sales, market information, etc.) EO makes a significant contribution to the efficiency of modern agricultural practice, while the consistency and broad coverage are important to the large companies in today’s market.

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Forestry

Main EO Products

For many years, the only published information on European and global forests was statistical, from data collected in different ways, at different times, using different underlying definitions.

Precisely located EO data has assumed great importance in forest mapping and management, fire damage monitoring and the increasingly important problem of illegal logging in developing countries.

The scale requirements are mainly compliant with medium resolution satellites, in the range 1:100.000 - 1:250.000 for national and regional applications. Higher scales are required for local cutting management plans.
Government organisations have been using satellite EO data for 20 years as a tool in creating forest maps. As a result, government users represent the most mature sector of the market.
Currently the demand for forestry information is driven by International and European environmental conventions. National governments are introducing GIS to provide the information necessary for forest policy development. This means that EO data can be more easily and cost-effectively managed by private operators.

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Geology & Exploration

Main EO Products

Geology and related oil, mineral and gas exploration activities make up an application segment that takes full advantage of satellite capabilities. The large-scale satellite view allows the generation of Rock Unit Maps and Tectonic Structure Maps; interferometry allows the generation of DEMs and the monitoring of mining subsidence, while radar data are a powerful tool for off-shore oil seep detection and monitoring. Alternative methodologies, such as the use of existing published maps, ground survey mapping or aerial photography, when available, need be used only when very local and detailed information is required.

The market is mature, and satellite data are now commonly used for geological studies and on-shore/off-shore exploration. Key users of EO data include oil companies, mineral companies, government organisations, engineering companies and environmental agencies and geological services.

Any enlargement of this application segment depends on the market price of oil or other specific raw material, which determines the extent of on-shore and off-shore exploration activities by mining companies. Data is also much requested for research projects in environmental protection and sea monitoring.

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Cartography

Main EO Products

Earth Observation data make an excellent basis for medium to large scale cartography. Consequently, this segment makes extensive use of satellite data, especially in those situations where the requirements for accuracy can be met, and alternative data sources are too expensive or even unavailable.

Satellite data, with different processing levels, are used for the generation of cartography and digital elevation models. Typical map scales are in the range 1:100.000 - 1:250.000.
This is a mature market where the use of satellite data is consolidated practice. The market potential is high, because there are large areas of the earth that remain unmapped at both medium and large scales, and other parts that, even if already mapped, require regular updating. High resolution data from Quickbird now offers solutions for topographic scales and cadastral activities.

Affordable Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) can now be generated with 20 metre resolution grid and 8-10 metres of elevation accuracy from ERS 1 & 2 tandem data, satisfying most needs for this product.

DEMs from Radar Interferometry are based on the combination of two or more data sets taken from only slightly different positions in orbit (in the order of hundreds of metres only for tandem ERS1-ERS2 missions). The phase differences can be used to compute the altitude of each pixel. Where there are more than two coherent data sets, spatial variations of an object or terrain at the metre to centimetre scales can be determined.

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Environment

Earth Observation data offer powerful solutions for environmental monitoring. Products that can be used in this segment are mainly related to land cover/use, water management and impact assessment. The scale requirements are consistent with medium resolution satellites, with typical values are in the range 1:25.000 - 1:250.000.

Customers are almost exclusively governmental organisations or international agencies. The use of satellite resources is accepted and operational, but there is still room for expansion of this market into new applications, particularly those coming from the new ‘polluter pays’ principle, which gives private companies a cost incentive for environmental monitoring.

EO data are very important for land cover and land use mapping and monitoring, offering:

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Risk management

Main EO Products

Risk management is one of the fields where EO (especially SAR) data may play a primary role. Three different risk situations may be considered:

Products needed in the first situation are mainly related to the collection of land cover, geological and hydrological information, while near-real time mapping and tracking of events is required in crisis and post crisis situations.

Currently satellite data are commonly used for the management of risk situations, but very demanding user requirements (particularly for better revisit times), prevent fully operational use. There are unexploited opportunities in this field.

In the three possible risk management situations, crisis prevention is currently seen as the main opportunity, much more than crisis monitoring and damage assessment. This is mainly due to the fact that the coverage needs of crisis monitoring and damage assessment are less than those required for prevention or for monitoring of an on-going crisis. In addition, the number of crises occurring around the world in one year remains rather small. The importance of post-crisis analysis could be improved if the insurance sector should start operational use of satellite data for the assessment of damage due to natural disasters.

As examples, SAR Image data, with the active radar capable of penetrating clouds and acquiring images regardless of lighting conditions, is ideally placed to provide images during floods; SAR image data is almost the only, and easily the most cost-effective, method available for taking a snapshot of flooded areas in all weathers.

Oil slicks have a dampening effect on surface waves and this can be detected in good viewing conditions by the SAR instrument, particularly the C-band instrument on the ERS, providing medium resolution images in near-real time.

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Defence & Security

Main EO Products

For the defence segment EO information is a key information source, and it is handled with more and more sophisticated GIS instruments.

The main applications are the generation of maps, target monitoring and detection, and digital elevation model generation. Data fusion techniques that combine data from different sources are also used. The scale of data is variable, and goes from 1:200.000 down to very detailed scales.

This segment is mature, since military organisation have always been a driving factor in the development of new techniques and instruments for satellite EO. Modern and efficient military organisations are fully conscious of satellite capabilities, allowing a discrete monitoring of every part of the earth with frequent revisit and different levels of detail. The full operational use of EO satellite data is so far a reality only for a few states, mainly in Western Europe and North America. In other areas, the diffusion is quite limited, mainly but not only for budget reasons.

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Utilities

Main EO Products

This segment is opening up to Satellite Earth Observation data, but cannot be considered a typical user, especially for products which are not High Resolution. EO data can be embedded in GIS systems used for planning and monitoring of pipelines, roads, technological networks and plants. The most requested products are therefore cartography, specific thematic and morphological maps, DEMs.

When dealing with the monitoring of large areas, satellite data are always a cost-effective solution. Different scales are required for planning and monitoring, and, at the moment, satellite data fits better the requirements of the planning phase, where medium-scale knowledge of the territory is needed. In the monitoring phase, the satellite contribution is important for change detection.

Not all the potential users are accustomed to satellite data or have satellite data processing capabilities. High resolution data, as this sector matures, will open up new and important applications for the Utilities segment

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Telecomms

Main EO Products

Telecommunication application fields may be broken down into two main sub-segments: regional planning and urban planning of wireless communication networks.

This specific segment makes intensive use of remotely sensed data for planning purposes. Telecomms operators use packages made up of several products (DEMs, clutter maps, road network maps) that are mainly or entirely based on EO data. These products are generated at different scales, according to the specific needs. Different requirements have to be considered for the bid and the design phases, and according to the target area (regional or urban). For example, for regional planning in a bid phase, a network operator needs to have not very detailed digital elevation models (100 m - 1 km postings) and coarse land cover and road network maps (scale 1:100.000 or lower). Then, when in the design phase, the requirements in terms of resolution are higher, and detailed DEMs, sharpened (medium and high resolution data) clutter maps and road network maps are required. ERS tandem data can provide cost/effective DEMs.

The segment is mature, in the sense that it has been using digital geographic data for some time. However, there are still enormous opportunities for EO data applications. Telecomms operators are mainly interested in the content and reliability of the information, not in how it has been collected.

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Marine & Coastal

Main EO Products

The opportunities for EO data in marine and coastal zones is very large because in these areas are located some very valuable economic activities as, for instance, fishing and shipping. Dedicated marine monitoring satellites, beginning with the first Seasat launched in 1978, can collect many types of data and products about the oceans and many additional characteristics can be estimated from the analyses of these data.

SAR data plays a very important role in this segment. The main products and services regard: ice monitoring, ship detection and routing, fishery and aquaculture, and coastal management.

The scale requirements vary between low and medium resolution approach, in the range of 1:100.000 - 1. 1.000.000.

The digital information obtained by EO data elaboration is used as an operational decision support aid on-board sub-marines, coast guard vessels, drilling rigs and fishing fleets. Besides ship routing and detection there is a potentially significant strong economic dynamic (coastal erosion, pollution, bathymetry for pipelines etc.). Its development depends on the fit of product availability with the main requirements, such as high revisit time for continuous monitoring and near real time data distribution

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Media & Consumer

Main EO Products

This specific market segment is not yet a fully typical user of Earth Observation data. All products are ranging from low-resolution to very high res. products (ATSR, NOAA, MERIS to Landsat till 1m imagery) where processing has the unique goal of enhancing the "pictorial" content of the data.

Currently, the usual users of EO data in this segment are the atlases and poster publishers that have included satellite data in their publications. All the other potential customers are from sub-segments where players have little or no awareness of how satellite data can be used.

The potentiality of the market is quite high, because the potential users are not limited to the technical community. The huge consumer community can virtually be a client. The problem is to bridge the gap existing between EO data and these users, through actions that must rely mainly on the "pictorial" aspect of the data

The new and not conventional EO data processing for these typical new products are:

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Applications Summary - chart showing the utility of different data sets for different applications

Agriculture - Inventory and yield forecast; subsidy controls; crop damage assessment; production process management; precision farming

Forestry - Forest mapping; forest management; illegal logging; fire damage

Geology - Geological mapping; on-shore and off-shore exploration; Environmental impact (mining pollution, subsidence etc.)

Cartography - Topographic mapping and updating; urban planning; transport; cadastral mapping, illegal construction

Environment - Land classification; ecosystem monitoring; landscape assessment; waste deposits; water / wetland management

Risk management - Landslides and subsidence; earthquake/ volcano damage monitoring; pollution detection; flood, wind, fire damage monitoring; risk assessment; emergency planning

Defence & Security - Cartography & mapping; strategic target monitoring; mission planning and training; treaty verification; de-mining

Telecomms - Utility corridor monitoring and management; navigation and transportation network support

Utilities - Urban and regional network planning; bid phase planning

Marine & Coastal - Coastal management; ice monitoring; fishing activities; ship detection and routing; algal blooms

Media & Consumer - Tourism marketing; tourism geographic publishing; geography and education, property neighbourhood analysis

Guide to using Photoshop with QuickBird images (also covers pan-sharpening techniques that can be used with Landsat 7 imagery)

 

Applications Summary

 

 

Excellent

  

Useful in certain conditions

 

Useful

  

Not normally useful
 
Landsat5
TM
Landsat
MSS
Landsat
ETM+
ERS
SAR
RADARSAT
SAR
ERS
ATSR
JERS-1
SAR
IRS
Pan
IRS
MS
NOAA/
AVHRR
Hi-Res:
QuickBird

Agriculture

                      

Forestry

                      

Geology & Exploration

                      

Cartography

                      

Environment

                      

Risk management

                      

Security

                      

Utilities

                      

Telecomms

                      

Marine & Coastal

                     

Media & Consumer

                      

 

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