Energy and Infrastructure

Developers of new installations need to understand long-term environmental trends and dynamics to design fitted managements plans. This information is also a precondition for deciding on best-scenario locations for installations, such as hydropower dams, wind farms, or new coastal infrastructures.

Often little to no data are available and in situ-measurements are costly. Satellite data can help avoid these blind spots. Remote sensing data deliver both actual and historical data – from the early 1980s onwards – worldwide. The spatial coverage can encompass areas on a catchment or even larger scale, identifying impacts both up-and downstream of hydropower installations.

Access eoapp HYPOS for hydropower users.
See the BLUE-X project for offshore renewables.

Satellite-derived data provide a reliable and cost-effective synoptic overview of the variability of the environmental conditions across both space and time.

By accessing image archives, satellite-based mapping services can deliver historical water quality and more environmental data. These data go back in time up to 40 years. This offers a considerable advantage when trying to understand variables such as sediment transport. Remote sensing data can also help assess the potential impacts on benthic communities, especially over large and/or dynamic areas.

Environmental conditions tend to be complex: For example, turbidity can be influenced by natural causes, such as river discharge, tidal currents, and waves or from anthropogenic activity such as dredging. Understanding the full spatial and temporal variability of such parameters can be costly if done with in-situ monitoring. Typically, in-situ monitoring – although generally more precise – will be limited both temporally and spatially. In addition, it requires mobilisation and maintenance of equipment.

Compared with in-situ measurements, satellite analytics offer significantly lower cost and risk for attaining site specific environmental intelligence: Localised water quality data is provided prior to, during and post installation, construction monitoring, and for emergency management.

Satellite-based information offers operational monitoring of construction sites, dredging activities, reservoirs and river systems in coastal and inland waters. It supports reporting and early warning to enable damage prevention and targeted management activities, or helps complying with regulations.