From the Firehose: Day-to-Day Turmoil in a Calais Refugee Camp
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Last week, stories of clashes between authorities and residents of France’s Calais ‘Jungle’ refugee camp populated the webpages of international news sites. After a break over the weekend, the confrontations resumed this morning.
Having heard the news of events in the refugee encampment, a Planet employee noticed an image of the area in our firehose and searched the Planet Platform for more imagery. Sure enough, the search returned compelling results: 5 passes over the camp in 10 days, and change clearly documented.
Below is a comparison of two images: One from March 2nd and another from March 4th, 2016.
Between the images we see a decrease in the number of structures (tents?) from March 2 to March 4. This correlates with news on the ground that authorities were removing residents and their shelters from the area.
In this instance, the imagery acts as an objective data source, confirming reports of activity on the ground. If there were conflicting reports on the event — for instance, that more people were removed than reported by officials — this imagery could act as a reference. Moreover, this imagery allows us to visualize and document important events from a new perspective.
With a pair of satellite images, or even a handful, it’s easy to document day-to-day changes. When that handful of images turns into an archive hundreds of images deep, analysts in any industry can identify long-term trends on a macro scale, and make more informed, sound decisions about the future of our planet.
See more of our imagery and stories at Planet.com. If you’re a developer, access our platform for free here: https://www.planet.com/open-california/.
