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Welcome to In-Orbit, the fortnightly podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world.
[00:00:00] Dallas Campbell: Hello, welcome to Outer Orbit. In these short bonus episodes, we're going to be continuing the conversation from our big main episode, focusing in on a particular topic or point of view or person, and guess what? Today, we're going to be talking with Sarah Cheesborough from the Satellite Applications Catapult to further explore Environmental Monitoring, and to shine a light on data accessibility. It's such a massive subject, this, like where do you even start talking about how to improve agriculture? Because it is so widely complex and interdependent on so many different things, it's quite hard to get a kind of handle on it, really.
[00:00:43] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, so I think what I'm wanting to focus on in this session is kind of those scales of data and how you use different data at different scales and how that has drastically changed in the last five or ten years in terms of data access.
[00:00:54] Dallas Campbell: Before we get into scales and data and stuff, just remind our listeners, what do you do at the Satellite Applications Catapult?
[00:01:01] Sarah Cheesbrough: So I'm a Earth Observation Consultant at the Cassavolt. So what I do is work with satellite data which is being collected, mostly imagery. So the satellites are orbiting Earth, taking pictures of the Earth all the time and through my role we ensure that data is being used in suitable scenarios and quite a large proportion of that is environmental scenarios.
[00:01:23] Dallas Campbell: Well, let's start, you mentioned scale, you want to talk about scale. So let's start with the big scale. Let's start on a kind of global scale and you know, just specifically in terms of agriculture and supply chains and that kind of stuff on a global scale, how does the technology fit in?
[00:01:37] Sarah Cheesbrough: So the satellites that we use are orbiting Earth, so they're not over the same point in Earth all the time, certainly the ones which are at resolutions where you can see the differences in forestry and crops, etc. So, but these satellites are taking pictures around the Earth, in the same way all over the Earth. So it means that there are models on global scales where we can see where forests are, where they're not, where they were, where they've been cut down for agriculture, as well as looking at types of crops and are the crops the same as they were last year across the globe? Is there something happening in some part of the world which means that certain crops are down, whether it be weather related or conflict related? So what we can do is, watch how agriculture is moving around the world and that's obviously really important for food security, as well as for markets and market prices. So all of this goes into forecasting kind of how those markets forecast in these, big centres.
[00:02:29] Dallas Campbell: And presumably things like climate change as well, or, you know, obviously we can monitor climate change on some agriculture perspective, that's going to be big scale global thing that we can look at.
[00:02:41] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, absolutely and we've had these satellites, I think about the Landsat series, which is the longest going series, it's been collecting data all over the world, 30 meter spatial resolution. So 30 meters means you can see what's happening to crops, you can see what's happening in forestry and it's been collecting data since the 1980s all over the world. That's become more consistent recently, so we're getting that data more regularly, but what it means is we can model that change in these environments over time. So we can see the impacts that climate is having and obviously for some regions, the warming climate means that you can grow things that you couldn't previously grow, but in other regions, it's seeing that drought happen, seeing the differences that happen in those kind of El Nino years when the climate's shifting and what's the impact on that for food security.
[00:03:26] Dallas Campbell: So big scale stuff, you know, we can sort of step back from the canvas if you like and get a good sense of what's going on. What about more regional, sort of national things? Because obviously, you know, nations are divided by their politics and ways of doing things and different cultural things. So how does different nations use all this data? How can farmers use it in particular areas, for example? How can politicians make decisions about how agriculture is going to work?
[00:03:50] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, absolutely. So ensuring that there's an understanding of, how the environment's looking within, a nation and that might be due to, in somewhere such as Australia, big sort of fires one year versus kind of in the UK, it's okay, some policies were put in, which has changed the way agriculture is happening, how's that impacting the environment? People like DEFRA are constantly monitoring what's happening at farm level, at habitat level and that's the same for kind of within agriculture as well as within habitats. If, there's been a lot of money put into a peatland restoration, how's that going? Is it having its desired effect? Is there more implementation that needs to happen? And it's really interesting organisations in the UK who are addressing different things. There's some who are consultancies who look at lots of different environmental aspects, there's some who are specific on, peatlands, some who specifically look at grasslands and from the Catapult, we have really good engagement with those types of companies.
[00:04:43] Dallas Campbell: And how involved is the Catapult with kind of politics? Because presumably the politicians have a say in how things work and making political decisions. Does the Catapult get involved in those discussions?
[00:04:54] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, definitely. So there's certainly people in the Catapult who are involved in quite sort of advisory roles. From kind of our team's perspective, we're engagement with, so a lot of parts of government have specific Earth Observation teams and Geospatial teams. So we quite often engage with them to find out where their current challenges are, the potential organisations who could support in addressing that, if we have relationships with a data provider, for example, we'll go to government and say, look this data provider potentially has data which could be of interest to you, do you want to try it out? And sort of making sure that those relationships between industry and government and academia are flowing.
[00:05:32] Dallas Campbell: That's the relationship. Government, industry, academia. That's the trinity.
[00:05:36] Sarah Cheesbrough: That's the Trinity.
[00:05:38] Dallas Campbell: That we hear so much about and okay, let's really zoom in on a kind of local level. Let's say I'm a farmer or a gardener or I'm growing something. How can, on an individual level perhaps or an individual farm, how can they use satellite data to help what they do?
[00:05:54] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, so that we can look at what's happening within kind of a field boundary and then there's different levels to this, and it's constantly that level is being pushed of, can we see plant levels with kind of grapevines? There are organisations who are looking at, can you see what's happening within individual grapevines? Where it's being used quite commonly is, as sort of discussed in the earlier episode, the way in which we are using precision farming, a lot of it comes from satellites. So getting a regular update of how a field is performing and if there's variability within a field, as well as between fields, how can that be supported through management practices, whether that being fertiliser applied or some kind of other implementation at field level. So it's being used at the field level and within the field level very commonly and then this is where you start getting that overlap with your drone operators and when you're talking really high value crops, specifically your fruits and those kind of crops that are largely being addressed by the drone market currently, but is there a space for the satellites there in the future, potentially?
[00:06:53] Dallas Campbell: I like that term precision farming. I suppose that's what technology is giving us. It's quite, you know, it's almost magic when you walk into a supermarket and it's filled with all kinds of things and we don't even think about it anymore, we just take it for granted, but it comes down to this idea of precision farming. How precise is farming going to get? Are we going to be talking individual plants or individual animals, individual trees that we can look at?
[00:07:14] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, absolutely. So again, it's that balance of kind of cost benefit. So there's certain crops where every strawberry kind of counts because of the value of that strawberry and the nature around picking it, et cetera. So that's why they've got this sort of explosion of robots within that area and AI and cameras on there, that's kind of that really high value space and then you look at the dairy industry and the margins are so tight there that efficiency is really important. So each individual cow has an ID and it gets scanned and this is how much food it gets for how much milk it had out and that kind of thing. So it's really precise in some aspects and less precise in others and there's satellites are not your answer to all your satellites almost are a way of helping narrow down where closer attention is needed. So it's really interesting that respect in satellites, that's where that scale of implementation is really important.
[00:08:04] Dallas Campbell: Do you think this technology is going to help us culturally in terms of the way that we interact with our food? You know, we're so used to going to supermarkets and getting what we want. We realise that's not necessarily the best thing for all kinds of reasons, environmental reasons. Do you think that this technology is going to change our relationship with producers?
[00:08:24] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really big question and it's where you could almost argue that technology was taking away that relationship, kind of farmers who would previously crop walk and check every single strawberry, well is this changing it? And I mean, I guess it's that sort of debate of labour cost versus technology cost. But I think the way that agriculture is going to keep changing is really interesting. Whether technology will support in that relationship change. I mean, technology is everywhere. I think it's got to, whether it could be technology in the way of almost providing tracking as to where that food came from so people can associate to it more and that's probably possibly more on your SATCOMS type side than your Earth Observation side, but you could potentially have a product associated with a food item which shows you how that crop's changed over time, what was applied to it to enable that product to grow to the quality it is today, and that kind of traceability. There's obviously an ask within those bigger food supply chains if everyone wants a little green tick on it saying that it's certified to this level of environmental standard, but how far will that keep going? It'd be interesting to see and it's going to come over the next few years as well.
[00:09:31] Dallas Campbell: That's really interesting. I suppose, you know, as well as sort of efficiency, this idea of being environmental being seen and being able to prove your environmental credentials, I kind of think it's more than just greenwashing if it actually works, if technology can actually help us become more environmentally friendly or in all the different ways, that's got to be the main reason why this is good.
[00:09:49] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, so satellites can only help with that greenwashing type picture because if you're saying, Oh, I'm offsetting these emissions with this carbon credits here. If you can, as someone who sat in an office in London, look at the data from that forestry, which has been planted to provide carbon credits and see that one, that forestry exists, two, that it's not being double booked or double sold. How's it being maintained? So it's like to provide that data in a way that no other system can in terms of it's impartial in that you can look at it and look at that data from its raw source and look at it the same anywhere on earth. It's really valuable.
[00:10:25] Dallas Campbell: Honestly, I think you've got Earth's most interesting job.
[00:10:28] Sarah Cheesbrough: It has it's boring days.
[00:10:29] Dallas Campbell: Do you not turn up work every day and go, Oh my God, look at this stuff is amazing.
[00:10:33] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, definitely one of the more interesting kind of data roles is the fact we get to look at imagery and look at, literally look at the world changing and sometimes you see some really interesting things that you're not expecting at all in the imagery and it opens up a whole new can of worms. So it's a really interesting role, certainly and there are spreadsheets involved, but less spreadsheets than other data roles, that's for sure.
[00:10:53] Dallas Campbell: Hey, listen, thank you so much for staying on off the episode and doing this. It's nice to just sort of chat one to one about this. Are you sort of optimistic about, particularly with environmental things where we find ourselves in a real problem, a real scrape and technology is certainly a tool that can help us get out of that and I'm just wondering where you're sitting. Are you an optimist generally about all that?
[00:11:12] Sarah Cheesbrough: Yeah, I'd say so. Certainly an optimist and so what satellites are providing within this space is a way to monitor what's happened historically so we can learn from it and make the changes that are needed and then also watch, once those changes are made what's that impact and it's the way that the changes will impact so many different areas so you've got kind of moving ocean currents and all of these different things which it's not just about the forest being cut down is about how that influences carbon dioxide levels in the air, which we can look at those types of things through satellites. It's about looking at how that changes the weather patterns and it's all this whole circular system, which you need that view from outside of Earth to be able to see what's happening on Earth. But what satellites can't do is make those changes. It can provide all the evidence, but it's obviously up to policymakers. So I think the Earth observation industry's really got to support policymakers in understanding what has happened and what they can do and obviously huge amounts of research already gone into this, but I think it's really starting to be appreciated and on the agenda in terms of policymakers understanding scientists.
[00:12:14] Dallas Campbell: Humans, that's where it gets messy. Humans. As soon as you put a human in the equation, everything falls apart. Hey, listen, Sarah, thank you very much for chatting, it's been a pleasure.
[00:12:22] Sarah Cheesbrough: Great. Thank you very much.
[00:12:24] Dallas Campbell: Thank you.