How Satellite Imagery Can Empower Smart Government
In Johnston County, North Carolina, there’s an area called Clayton where new homes are popping up all the time. Until recently, though, Sheila Garner didn’t have a good sense of how quickly that part of the county had grown. She’s the county tax administrator, responsible for a team of three assessors who set property taxes on homes and businesses, and the only aerial imagery she had was 8 years old, shot by a small plane that the county hired at a cost of $260,000 to fly above its 800 square miles. As the imagery ages, she says, “You’re just not able to use it.”
County officials across America have long settled for infrequent snapshots of their land, simply because many don’t have the budgets for more regular flights and there hasn’t been another way. (Drones fly too low to image an area as large as a county; the average square mileage of a U.S. county ranges from 200 in Rhode Island to 7,500 in Arizona.) But a new crop of satellite imagery providers, foremost among them Planet Labs, have solved the frequency problem. Now, for the first time ever, municipalities can access high-resolution imagery that’s “always on,” giving officials a new toolkit for looking at environmental health and safety, resource development, emergency response, and revenue generation in their communities.
The Taxman
Tax assessment is an obvious example of how imagery from a provider like Planet Labs can empower local governments. America is a land of 3,007 counties, and each county has to track commercial and residential real estate and set the taxes on the land that’s used; when new buildings go up, assessors have to capture that information, traditionally by inspecting properties on foot. But this is a time-consuming and potentially even dangerous task, says Paige Parker, a Planet Labs Account Executive who works with both state and local officials in several states. “I have spent time with several tax assessors who have shared stories of their time spent in the field going to homes for tax assessment purposes. From guns to dog attacks, assessors face danger each time they go to a property.”
To reduce hassle, counties have hired Cessnas to generate aerial imagery they can analyze from the convenience of their offices. It works well, but it’s pricey. You pay for the flight time. You pay for the gas. You pay for the production crews to generate the data. Depending on budget, a county might have to wait three, five, or even eight years between flights.
Satellites change the equation. The images they produce have a lower resolution than aerial photos from planes, but because satellites operate from orbit, they can take pictures of large areas on a constant basis, and five-meter-resolution satellite imagery is sharp enough resolve buildings, roads, and fields.
Officials can now subscribe to a feed of imagery and track what’s really changing over time, and then pay for plane flights over those smaller, fast-growing areas. “It makes more sense to get imagery over the area you need, instead of one flight every five years,” says Parker. A typical county might save $100,000 to $200,000 over five years by subscribing to satellite imagery instead of paying for a single flight.
Johnston County recently started using satellite imagery to visualize the burst of new development in Clayton, and according to Sheila Garner, it was an exciting, eye-popping moment when she analyzed the first sets of before-and-after pictures: “We knew the growth was there, but to see it on a map is what is astounding, because it shows the impact.” After exploring the imagery, she realized she could also use it to check if residents who get tax reductions for farming their land really have the land in production. “You can tell if it’s being tended. You can tell if it’s been planted for timber. With the flights, you don’t have the ability to do that.” Garner says this new way of looking at the county has saved her and her staff a lot of driving, and she anticipates sharing the imagery with other county departments so they can think about ways it might help them.
Empowering Local Governments
Beyond tax assessment, communities can use satellite imagery to keep their citizens safe and protect their piece of the Earth. State and local governments can use Planet’s 3–5 meter-resolution imagery to monitor the severity of drought in their region to understand impacts on lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. Satellites can also provide an early warning of industrial pollution. Says Parker, “By having frequently updated imagery, government officials can now monitor changes including those around factory and energy plants. For example, if the water turns pink outside a plant chances are it needs to be checked for EPA compliance.”
There are also applications for business development and resource management: If a county in a forested area wants to assist its timber industry, for instance, it can monitor where timber tracks are being built, and share data on how the vegetation changes over time.
By the end of 2016, Planet will offer a product to help municipalities plan for emergencies. It’s an issue close to Parker’s heart. She grew up in north Alabama, and in April 2011, when powerful tornadoes tore through the state, including one that passed through her parents’ farm, the chaos and devastation was overwhelming. Satellite imagery can help officials quickly visualize the damage and get resources to where they’re needed most. “We can really be a resource for local county governments so they can be prepared when or if a disaster strikes.”
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