Biodiversity and conservation
A protected area is a promise. Imagery is the audit.
The boundary is on the map. The clearing is on the ground.Protected-area boundary encroachment detection
Agricultural clearing, road-cutting and settlement expansion inside gazetted protected areas can be detected weeks earlier than ground patrols can confirm them. Multispectral and SAR change-detection applied to Sentinel time series flags legal-boundary crossings automatically, separating permanent conversion from seasonal burn or flood.
Sentinel-2 MSISentinel-1 SAR (C-band)Planet SuperDove
A forest looks intact on a map. The metrics say otherwise.Habitat fragmentation and patch-connectivity mapping
Patch size, shape, edge density and inter-patch distance tell ecologists what a land-cover map alone cannot: whether a landscape can still sustain viable populations. Satellite-derived fragmentation indices turn that question into a measurable, repeatable number.
Sentinel-2 MSILandsat 8/9 OLIMaxar WorldView-3
Mangroves hide behind tides. Physics still finds them.Mangrove extent and canopy-structure mapping
Mapping mangrove extent demands tidal-phase-aware optical composites and L-band SAR that sees through canopy to woody structure. Together, Sentinel-1, ALOS-2 PALSAR-2, Sentinel-2 and Landsat resolve stand boundaries and canopy architecture that single-sensor approaches routinely miss.
ALOS-2 PALSAR-2Sentinel-1 SARSentinel-2 MSI
Seagrass is invisible from the shore. It is not invisible from orbit.Seagrass bed distribution mapping in shallow coastal waters
Satellite water-column correction methods can map submerged seagrass meadows to depths of roughly five to ten metres, giving coastal managers areal estimates that field surveys alone cannot match in scale or frequency.
Sentinel-2 MSIPlanet SuperDoveWorldView-2 / WorldView-3
Corals cannot hide from a satellite radiometer measuring tenths of a degree.Coral-reef thermal stress and bleaching-context monitoring
Satellite thermal sensors track sea-surface temperature anomalies daily, giving reef managers quantified bleaching risk before divers enter the water. This page explains the physics, the sensors, and the honest limits of remote prediction.
NOAA-20 and SNPP VIIRSTerra and Aqua MODISSentinel-2 MSI
An animal does not read a map. Its habitat leaves one.Wildlife habitat-suitability modelling from satellite-derived covariates
Species distribution models built from satellite-derived covariates turn raw sensor data into spatially explicit habitat suitability scores. The choice of covariate and its resolution determines whether the model is useful for elephants or lizards.
MODIS MOD13/MYD13 (Terra and Aqua)GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation, ISS-mounted LiDAR)Sentinel-1 SAR (C-band, 5.405 GHz)
Funders pay for ranger posts. Satellites confirm they exist.Anti-poaching infrastructure and ranger-post monitoring
Very-high-resolution optical and SAR imagery provides independent verification of ranger infrastructure and detects unauthorised tracks before poaching networks consolidate. An audit layer donors can trust.
Maxar WorldView LegionAirbus Pléiades NeoPlanet SkySat
Radar sees through clouds. Dense canopy defeats it anyway.Ecosystem-services carbon-stock accounting from satellite biomass layers
Estimating forest carbon stocks from space is tractable in low-to-moderate biomass ecosystems but runs into a hard physics wall in dense tropical forests. This page explains which sensors work where, why, and what the incoming ESA BIOMASS mission changes.
GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation)ESA BIOMASS (P-band SAR)ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (L-band SAR)
Habitat patches do not move. The land between them does.Ecological corridor planning using satellite land-cover time series
Least-cost path analysis across satellite-derived resistance surfaces can identify viable wildlife corridors, but only if the land-cover record is long enough to separate stable natural cover from temporarily green degraded ground.
Landsat 8/9 OLISentinel-2 MSIVIIRS VNP46 (night lights)
Native and invasive plants look alike. Their chemistry does not.Invasive plant species detection using hyperspectral and multispectral signatures
Hyperspectral and red-edge multispectral imagery can discriminate many invasive plant species from native vegetation by exploiting differences in leaf biochemistry, canopy phenology and structure. This page explains which invasives are spectrally separable at current sensor resolutions, which remain ambiguous, and how PRISMA, DESIS and Sentinel-2 are used operationally.
ASI PRISMADESIS (ISS-mounted)Sentinel-2 MSI
Water hides under clouds. Wetlands disappear before anyone counts them.Surface-water permanence and seasonal wetland mapping for biodiversity
Multi-temporal Landsat and Sentinel imagery can resolve how long water sits on any patch of ground, year by year. That hydroperiod signal is the foundation of waterbird, amphibian and freshwater-invertebrate habitat assessment.
Landsat 8/9 OLI (JRC Global Surface Water)Sentinel-1 SAR (C-band, 5.6 cm wavelength)Sentinel-2 MSI
Peat sinks silently. Radar measures what levelling crews cannot reach.Peatland drainage and subsidence monitoring using InSAR
Drained peatlands subside at rates of centimetres per year, releasing stored carbon invisibly. InSAR time series turns that subsidence into a spatially continuous, millimetre-scale record without a single ground benchmark.
Sentinel-1 (C-band SAR, ESA)ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (L-band SAR, JAXA)NISAR (L/S-band SAR, NASA/ISRO, forthcoming)
Fire shapes savanna life. The pattern matters more than the flame.Savanna fire-regime mapping for biodiversity outcomes
Burn frequency, seasonal timing and spatial patchiness together determine savanna biodiversity more than any single fire event. Satellite data from MODIS, VIIRS and Sentinel-2 can reconstruct those patterns at landscape scale, with honest caveats about resolution and low-intensity burns.
MODIS MCD64A1 Burned Area ProductVIIRS 375 m Active Fire (VNP14IMGTDL_NRT)Sentinel-2 MSI
Two forests, same height. Only one took three centuries to build.Old-growth forest structural complexity mapping from spaceborne lidar
Canopy height alone cannot distinguish old-growth forest from a mature plantation. GEDI waveform lidar reveals vertical structure, gap fractions and understory layers that betray ecological age, even from 400 km up.
GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation)ICESat-2 ATL08Sentinel-1 SAR (C-band)
The birds arrive. Satellites tell you whether the food did.Migratory bird stopover habitat condition monitoring
Satellite spectral and hydrological data can characterise the phenological and inundation condition of wetland and grassland stopover sites at key migration windows, giving conservation managers an objective, repeatable picture of habitat quality across entire flyways.
Sentinel-2 MSILandsat 8/9 OLIMODIS MOD09 (Terra/Aqua)
Kelp absorbs red light differently from water. That difference is the map.Kelp forest canopy extent and seasonal dynamics mapping
Surface-canopy kelp produces a strong near-infrared and red-edge reflectance signal that open water cannot replicate. Sentinel-2 and Landsat imagery can resolve this contrast down to roughly 10–30 m, but cloud cover, wave submergence and turbid plumes each impose real detection limits that any honest monitoring programme must account for.
Sentinel-2 MSILandsat 8/9 OLI and OLI-2Planet SuperDove
The carbon is underground. The satellite sees only what grows above it.Saltmarsh extent and blue-carbon stock mapping
Saltmarshes store disproportionate carbon for their area, yet their extent is poorly mapped and their below-ground stocks invisible from orbit. Multispectral and SAR data together can delineate marsh communities and estimate above-ground biomass, but allometric field work remains non-negotiable for full carbon accounting.
Sentinel-1 C-band SAR (ESA)Sentinel-2 MSI (ESA)Landsat 8/9 OLI (USGS/NASA)
Rivers move. Their buffers shrink. Satellites notice both.Riparian vegetation buffer width and condition assessment
Vegetated strips along rivers filter sediment, stabilise banks and shelter aquatic life, yet their width and condition are rarely monitored at scale. Multispectral imagery combined with DEM-derived stream networks makes reach-scale buffer assessment tractable, with honest caveats about narrow channels.
Sentinel-2 MSIPlanet SuperDoveMaxar WorldView-3
Snow clears on its own schedule. Montane species cannot negotiate.Alpine snowpack retreat and high-altitude habitat phenology
The date snow leaves an alpine patch determines when plants green up, insects emerge, and specialist montane species can breed. Satellites track that date across entire mountain ranges, though cloud and terrain shadow make it harder than it sounds.
MODIS MOD10A1 (Terra)VIIRS VNP10A1 (Suomi-NPP / NOAA-20)Sentinel-2 MSI
The canopy stays green. The skid trail does not.Selective illegal logging detection in closed-canopy forest
Selective logging removes individual trees while leaving surrounding canopy intact, defeating coarse deforestation alerts. Sub-hectare gap analysis from Sentinel-1 SAR and high-resolution optical imagery can find the trails and gaps that give it away.
Sentinel-1 C-band SAR (ESA)ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 L-band SAR (JAXA)Planet SuperDove (PlanetScope)
Grass dies slowly. Bare soil confesses everything.Grassland degradation and bare-soil exposure mapping
Spectral unmixing of Sentinel-2 and Landsat imagery quantifies bare-soil fraction in grasslands, separating chronic overgrazing from seasonal senescence. Soil colour variability across geologies demands regional calibration before results can be trusted.
Sentinel-2 MSILandsat 8/9 OLIMODIS MOD13 (Terra/Aqua)
The forest edge is not a line. It is a gradient that eats inward.Forest edge-effect gradient and interior-habitat quantification
Deforestation does not stop at the clearcut boundary. Edge effects penetrate tens to hundreds of metres into remaining forest, shrinking interior habitat far beyond what canopy-loss maps alone reveal. This page explains how to measure that gradient with satellite data and where the method breaks down.
Sentinel-2 MSILandsat 8/9 OLIGlobal Forest Watch Hansen Global Forest Change layers
Clear water reveals what grows beneath. Turbidity does not forgive.Freshwater lake aquatic macrophyte mapping and change detection
Satellite multispectral imagery can map emergent, floating and submerged macrophyte communities in inland lakes at 10 m resolution, but submerged vegetation becomes undetectable once turbidity exceeds roughly 5 NTU. This page explains what the physics allows, where it fails, and how to build a defensible change-detection record.
Sentinel-2 MSILandsat 8/9 OLIPlanet SuperDove
Cities grow inward. Green corridors shrink patch by patch.Urban green-corridor fragmentation and ecological permeability
Satellite-derived canopy and impervious-surface maps, combined with graph-theoretic connectivity models, reveal where urban green corridors have been severed and where least-cost paths for wildlife still exist.
Sentinel-2 MSIMaxar WorldView-3Planet SuperDove
Mangroves can die in weeks. Cloud cover can hide it for months.Mangrove dieback and large-scale mortality event detection
Episodic mangrove die-off from cyclones, hypersalinity or extreme low tides leaves a spectral signature that collapses within days. Catching it requires near-real-time multispectral imagery and a clear-eyed understanding of when cloud cover makes that impossible.
Sentinel-2 MSIPlanet SuperDoveLandsat 8/9 OLI
The model sees potential habitat. Only field records confirm the animal is there.Multi-temporal NDVI covariate stacking for species distribution models
Satellite-derived NDVI phenology, land-surface temperature and seasonal vegetation statistics form the environmental covariate layers that feed species distribution models. Choosing the wrong temporal window or spatial grain quietly degrades transferability and inflates apparent accuracy.
MODIS MOD13Q1 (Terra/Aqua)MODIS MOD11A2 Land Surface TemperatureLandsat OLI (Landsat 8 and 9)
Peat burns underground. Radar sees what smoke hides.Peatland burn-scar mapping and combustion-depth estimation
Peat fires consume organic soil metres below the surface, leaving scars that optical imagery underestimates and conventional fire-detection algorithms miss entirely. Sentinel-1 InSAR coherence loss and surface subsidence, combined with Sentinel-2 burn-severity indices, offer the most tractable remote-sensing path to combustion-depth estimation, though field calibration remains non-negotiable.
Sentinel-1 SAR (C-band, ESA)Sentinel-2 MSI (ESA)ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (JAXA)
Sand moves overnight. Succession takes decades. Satellites track both.Coastal dune vegetation succession and stabilisation monitoring
Coastal dune systems shift between bare mobile sand, pioneer swards and fixed grassland on timescales from days to centuries. Multispectral time-series from Sentinel-2 and commercial VHR imagery resolve these succession stages and flag where stabilisation is failing.
Sentinel-2 MSIPlanet SuperDoveMaxar WorldView-3
Clouds hide the canopy. Harmonic regression finds it anyway.Tropical forest phenology and deciduousness mapping
Tropical forests are not uniformly green year-round. Distinguishing evergreen, semi-deciduous and deciduous canopy types from multi-year EVI and NIR time series reveals forest function, drought sensitivity and land-use history that a single image cannot.
MODIS MOD13Q1 / MYD13Q1VIIRS VNP13A1Sentinel-2 MSI
Animals cannot move water points. Satellites can watch them disappear.Wildlife water-source mapping and drying trends in drylands
In arid landscapes, water points are the hinge on which wildlife survival turns. Sentinel-1 SAR backscatter, Sentinel-2 multispectral imagery and GPM IMERG precipitation data together reveal which pans are drying, how fast, and why.
Sentinel-1 SAR (C-band, ESA)Sentinel-2 MSI (ESA)Planet SuperDove
Dense forest absorbs the signal before the signal tells you anything useful.Above-ground forest biomass and carbon-density mapping
Estimating above-ground biomass at landscape scale requires combining L-band SAR, spaceborne lidar and optical indices, because no single sensor avoids saturation in high-biomass tropical forest. Uncertainty is real and must be quantified, not hidden.
ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (JAXA)GEDI (NASA/GSFC)Sentinel-2 MSI (ESA/Copernicus)
Poachers need light. Satellites can see it.Nocturnal artificial-light mapping as a poaching-pressure proxy in protected areas
Persistent or anomalous artificial light inside protected-area boundaries can betray illegal camps, bush-meat processing, and night vehicle movements. VIIRS Day/Night Band time series, backed by DMSP-OLS archive depth, make those signals legible, with honest caveats about what a 375-metre pixel cannot see.
VIIRS Day/Night Band (Suomi NPP / NOAA-20)DMSP-OLS archiveSentinel-1 SAR (C-band, IW mode)
You cannot see a dugong from orbit. You can see everywhere it cannot survive.Dugong and manatee critical-habitat mapping from thermal and water-quality composites
Satellite thermal, turbidity, and bathymetric data from Sentinel-3, MODIS, and ICESat-2 delineate the shallow warm-water seagrass zones that sirenians depend on, tracking seasonal habitat contraction without ever resolving an individual animal.
Sentinel-3 OLCIMODIS Terra / AquaICESat-2 ATL03 / ATL08
The ledge exists. The question is whether the satellite can see it.Cliff-face and escarpment habitat mapping for cliff-nesting raptor conservation
Large raptors need exposed rock faces of specific geometry and aspect. Freely available elevation data can map cliff extent across entire mountain ranges; confirming individual nest ledges requires sub-metre commercial imagery.
TanDEM-XCopernicus DEM GLO-30Sentinel-2 MSI
A weir three metres tall can sever five hundred kilometres of spawning habitat.Freshwater longitudinal connectivity and barrier mapping for migratory fish habitat
Dams, weirs, and culverts fragment river networks in ways that compound across the catchment graph. Satellite-derived DEMs and multispectral imagery can map that graph and flag artificial barriers; they cannot, alone, tell you whether a fish can pass.
TanDEM-XFABDEM (Forest-and-Building-Removed DEM)Sentinel-2 MSI
Dry grass and lichen look identical at 10 metres. At 6 nm they do not.Lichen and cryptogamic crust cover mapping in Arctic and sub-Arctic tundra
Lichens and biological soil crusts underpin Arctic food webs and carbon cycling, yet their spectral signature is narrow and easily swamped by broadband sensors. Hyperspectral data from PRISMA and DESIS can isolate lichen-specific absorption near 1020 nm; Sentinel-2 composites then scale the result across landscapes.
PRISMA (ASI)DESIS (DLR/Teledyne on ISS)Sentinel-2 MSI (ESA)
Roads stay fixed. Mortality risk along them does not.Road-crossing mortality risk mapping for wildlife corridor design
Satellite imagery and nighttime-light data can locate where roads bisect ecological corridors and rank crossing-risk hotspots before a single carcass is recorded. The output guides where underpasses or overpasses deliver the greatest connectivity gain.
Sentinel-2 MSIVIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB)Maxar WorldView series
Woody plants are climbing mountains. The archive proves how fast.Subalpine treeline advance and shrubification monitoring under climate warming
Landsat's 50-year archive and Sentinel-2's 10 m resolution, combined with GEDI and ICESat-2 canopy-height profiles, let analysts track where alpine grassland ends and woody cover begins, and how that boundary has shifted across decades.
Landsat 5/7/8/9 (TM / ETM+ / OLI)Sentinel-2 MSI (A and B combined)GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation)
Propagules drift where tides say. Satellites can read the tides.Mangrove recruitment and propagule-dispersal zone mapping from tidal hydrodynamics
Natural mangrove recovery depends on where tidal currents carry propagules and whether pioneer patches can establish. Sentinel-1 SAR and Sentinel-2 spectral indices, combined with tidal hydrodynamic modelling, map the zones most likely to recruit, and track whether they actually do.
Sentinel-1 SAR (C-band, ESA)Sentinel-2 MSI (ESA)ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (JAXA, L-band)
The cave entrance is intact. The food web above it is not.Karst surface-vegetation mapping as a biodiversity proxy for cave and subterranean ecosystems
Cave-adapted fauna depend on leaf litter and dissolved organic matter falling through karst from surface vegetation. Mapping that surface layer with Sentinel-2, GEDI and terrain roughness indices tells conservationists where subterranean ecosystems are most at risk before a single speleologist descends.
Sentinel-2 MSIGEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation)SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission)
Bees cannot wait for the next cloud-free pass.Pollinator habitat quality mapping from satellite-derived floral-resource phenology
Gaps in bloom succession starve pollinator populations before anyone notices. Dense Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope time series reconstruct sub-seasonal flowering phenology across landscapes, exposing the temporal bottlenecks that patch-area maps miss entirely.
Sentinel-2 MSIPlanetScopeLandsat 8/9 OLI