Google Earth was perhaps the start, but there is no doubt we live in an exciting time in history where there seems to be an almost unquenchable thirst for Earth Observation (EO) satellite data. 

What is EO? EO is the area of space that deals with satellites monitoring the earth - these satellites generate a massive amount of global data. I hear you – there is nothing new about this – scientists have been using satellite images of the Earth to study human activity and natural events for decades, but whilst crucial they have been a relatively “narrowly used tool”. 

Today, we are witnessing exponential growth in satellite missions with the number of satellites orbiting the earth hitting approximately 10,000 earlier this year  – not all of these are active, over 80% are in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and most relate to the SpaceX Starlink satellite constellation offering international broadband services. The boom is set to continue - we are far from reaching the peak, with exceptional growth in the number of satellites in orbit expected in the near future, with an increasing number used for EO. 

This is the age of big data, and with big data comes innovative ways of extracting and applying the information gathered by satellites. Increasingly, EO data is now being used in revolutionary and sometimes unexpected ways, to analyse information in order to tell meaningful and necessary stories.

Did you know, for example, that satellite or EO data can be used to: 

• calculate economic growth; 
• monitor changes in the earth over time;
• analyse consumer spending levels; 
• inform financial trading positions;
• predict and respond to natural disasters; 
• improve access to remote and distributed renewable energy systems; or 
• support worldwide efforts for both reporting on and tackling climate change. 

In the context of the fight against climate change, innovative use of satellite data is also being used to help transform one of the most ancient of human activities - agriculture. 

Agriculture and EO have a long history, and agriculture was one of the first industries to make use of satellite data, starting in 1972, when the USGS (the United States Geological Survey) Landsat first began returning regular images of the Earth. 

Over half a century later, there are numerous different use cases that could be talked about, but here in the UK, with changes in environmental legislation, there is going to be an increasing need for using accurate and reliable EO satellite data to monitor changes in land use.

The recent legislative (including secondary implementing legislation) changes relating to environmental protection in the UK has seen the creation of the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), and a range of ambitious targets and goals relating to improving environmental performance in areas such as air quality, water, nature and biodiversity, and waste.

Part of this regulatory shift aims at re-invigorating schemes such as “payment for environmental services”, or creating new “ecosystem services credits” (including under wider umbrella terms such as “net zero”, “natural capital”, or “biodiversity net gain” etc.)

A crucial aspect of any such credit or payment system, is to be able to measure, monitor and effectively evidence that the environmental benefit has actually occurred. Complicated issues such as “additionality”, “leakage” and “perverse incentives” need to be addressed, and the cost of monitoring can be high. This is where advances in the availability and quality of multiple EO satellite datasets can play an important role. 

The Government’s Earth Observation DataHub, being led by the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) in collaboration with other public sector organisations such as the Met Office, the Satellite Applications Catapult and the UK Space Agency, in partnership with industry partners such as Earth-i, Planet, Airbus, Telespazio, Sparkgeo, Spryosoft and Oxidian is an example of the type of innovation and collaboration that is needed to provide a standard set of services and APIs upon which new EO services and applications can be developed by the UK EO data community.

The question that lingers though, particularly when it relates to where EO satellite data is being used to underpin payments for environmental performance and the movement of finance between different stakeholders, is what if that EO satellite data is not accurate, or more to the point, not real?

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. The important thing to remember here is that images can be doctored, so what happens when meaningful and reliable satellite storytelling makes the dangerous step from fact to fiction? Making use of fake satellite imagery is not new, and we can probably hazard a guess that the number of examples we get to hear about is significantly less than is actually happening. 

To provide some colour, you may recall that in 2003, a satellite image apparently showing the northeast USA plunged into darkness during the 2003 blackout was published. It is a stunning image that happens to be completely fake. As fake news busters Snopes pointed out, the original picture of North America has been “manipulated with an editing program”. 

In 2012 there was the satellite image purportedly showing India at the time of Diwali -- a "festival of lights" that is celebrated by millions of Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists across India -- supposedly taken by NASA but actually a composite image used to show population growth – (Mashable has it covered in its archive if you’re interested to see the image and read about it). 

There are other examples and there will no doubt be more in the future -- the slightly frightening part is that with the emergence of AI technology, the speed and sophistication with which data can be intercepted, manipulated or falsified to create deep fake information -- on a near real-time basis -- is a fact that must not be taken lightly.

With these emerging forces, this article simply serves to highlight the view that for environmental finance mechanisms relying on EO satellite data to be unlocked at scale and to deliver the positive impact that is needed, there needs to be absolute certainty, at all times, that any such EO datasets are, in fact, real. If it makes one prediction it is that there is going to be a market need for independently validated and verified EO satellite data – how this is achieved in a world at risk of AI and misinformation – is another question and perhaps the subject of another article – watch this space!!

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Justin Barrow is a Senior Associate in the Technology and cross-practice Space and Satellite teams.  He has been the legal adviser for the Satellite Applications Catapult’s South-West Centre of Excellence SpaceTech Incubation Programme, backed by the UK Space Agency, and was also part of the team that helped advise Spaceport Cornwall and Cornwall Council on the regulatory and legal requirements for building, licensing and operating the UK’s first horizontal spaceport. 

Find out more about Burges Salmon's Space and Satellites team.