The Importance of Remote Sensing During a Global Pandemic
By Garrett White • 12/15/2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has made traveling harder and more dangerous than in recent memory.
New protocols have been established to slow down the pandemic, which has forced nearly every industry to adapt. The extractive industry, along with its major stakeholders, is no exception. And although effective vaccines are now becoming available, many large corporations and market analysts suggest it still will be some time before business travel returns to normal.
In the past, inspecting an extractive or industrial site, or even a landfill, usually required boots on the ground to walk the location with the hopes of having enough time to see everything of relevance and importance. Long before the pandemic, SIAS Global recognized this as an inefficient way of maintaining current information on the status of sites around the country and added information from remote sensing technology into its suite of services with the objective of evaluating them much more holistically and efficiently. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, remote sensing also became a more effective way for analyzing and monitoring sites by significantly reducing the need for underwriters and engineers to visit them. This not only saves time and money, but also keeps employees safer during these unprecedented times.
Remote sensing uses imagery from special cameras, typically from satellite or aircraft, to detect and monitor the physical characteristics of an area by measuring its reflected and emitted radiation. This technology allows SIAS Global to analyze ground features and activities without having to be there physically. SIAS Global uses information from a variety of remote sensing satellites with up to nine different sensors to evaluate particular features of a site such as overall disturbance, vegetative health, moisture content, certain heavy metals, and climate and other environmental conditions, as well as to monitor site activities over time, such as construction, expansion, reclamation, and waste and water management. Remote sensing information is entered into a Geographic Information System (GIS), which brings all relevant data that are associated with a geographic location into a single comprehensive dataset. This provides SIAS Global with up-to-date information to analyze a site at any particular time, as well as over time, with great accuracy and precision. Using different statistical analyses and artificial intelligence, SIAS Global processes large amounts of data in their respective and joint spatial, temporal, and thematic contexts to extract information and rapidly provide insights on a site's overall conditions, regulatory compliance, financial exposure, and ongoing activities.
SIAS Global's suite of services can help ease the transition to safer methods of monitoring and evaluating a variety of extractive and industrial sites, as well as other large surface disturbances. Using remote sensing, information collected from numerous Federal and State agencies, GIS, and its proprietary technology, SIAS Global provides clients a breadth of knowledge from their desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. It is not only a safe and efficient monitoring method, but also a highly cost-effective one.
Site evaluations using information from remote sensing imagery are just one part of a suite of services that SIAS Global offers. SIAS Global's Kairos Database™ is an innovative one-stop shopis an intuitive one-stop shop for all regulatory information on extractive sites all over the United States. Information on permits, bonds, and violations is available for any organization at a low-cost subscription. And SIAS Global's Advanced Analytics™ services use proprietary technology to analyze and monitor extractive and other industrial sites with incredible accuracy, using information from images that vividly capture a site's past and present condition. Please contact us to see how our suite of services can help you in these challenging times.