In this Climate Showcase article, Gentian presents successful case studies for its product using high-resolution satellite imagery and AI to recognise and quantify habitat types over large areas in little time without compromising accuracy
Satellites are established as a source of climate data that is crucial for drawing the world’s attention to global warming and the urgent need for action. The same is now true for nature data. The most recent satellite images are of very high resolution meaning that for the first time, we can use satellite data to collect detailed information about nature. We know that to halt biodiversity loss and restore natural habitats, we first need to understand them. At Gentian, we do this by harnessing the power of high-resolution satellite imagery and training AI to recognise and quantify habitat types. With this level of detail, Gentian can gather data over large areas in very little time without compromising accuracy.
Application
Climate change and biodiversity loss are highly interconnected, requiring innovative solutions that tackle both crises at once. To correct this, we need to restore natural spaces. The starting point for making any change is having the right information to enable decisions about what to restore and where. This sounds simple, but finding the right data is one of the biggest problems that organisations face. Gentian solves the problem by filling this data gap with our innovative solution that provides information to help restore biodiversity.
To meet commitments to protect and restore biodiversity – such as the Global Biodiversity Framework and, in the UK, the newly mandated Biodiversity Net Gain policy – key challenges must be overcome. By using satellite data, Gentian addresses several problems: 1) Ecologists are in short supply, and 2) Traditional biodiversity and habitat assessments are expensive, time-consuming and subject to numerous limitations, including health and safety concerns, weather, access logistics, carbon emissions from travel and the subjectivity of surveyors, which can lead to widely different results. To compound the challenge, some organisations have operations and assets spanning the globe and require solutions that enable them to assess natural capital in geographically dispersed locations. Others need to map and monitor entire land regions and/or report in line with multiple frameworks. Leveraging space-based technologies enables Gentian to provide a standardised method for mapping, measuring, and monitoring habitats that can be applied on a global scale.
Case Studies
For one client, Gentian was able to assess four sites in Thailand, the United States, Japan and Mexico as part of their TNFD (Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures) reporting, another promising example of a new reporting framework encouraging all companies to disclose their impact on nature.
The data Gentian provides reveals an organisation’s current/historical impacts on nature, opportunities to implement nature-based solutions for biodiversity uplift, short-term/long-term outcomes of interventions in the environment and at-risk assets. Crucially, satellite imagery gives us access to insights into urban nature that are otherwise inaccessible. For the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, we provided maps of vegetation and pavement cover in and around private gardens, which are significant to an area’s biodiversity and urban climate resilience yet nearly impossible to access on a wide scale.
Similarly, we can access insights that are invisible from the ground. Green roofs are highly effective at mitigating flood risk, urban heat island effect, and improving urban living conditions, but local authorities cannot consistently maintain visibility over these important natural assets. Gentian can detect all the green roofs within an area of interest and successfully distinguish between artificial turf and vegetation. Additionally, we can identify the green roof type and condition and even find roofs with the potential to be retrofitted with a green roof.
As biodiversity takes on increasing importance for organisations around the world, closing the data gap is becoming equally urgent. That’s why making Gentian’s data services accessible by providing them faster and cheaper than manual surveys is important, ensuring all organisations can incorporate high-quality nature data into their decision-making.
UK Expertise
Gentian’s mission is to contribute to the protection, restoration and enhancement of biodiversity worldwide. We are committed to doing so by making high-quality, timely data more accessible and cost-effective.
With leading experts in ecology and biodiversity and a highly qualified team of AI, computer vision and geospatial experts, we are confident that Gentian can revolutionise the way nature data is generated worldwide: Dusty Gedge, Gentian co-founder, is considered Britain’s ‘green roof guru’ and has played an integral role in developing London’s green roof policy, which is a key part of London’s urban greening strategy and biodiversity restoration plan. Thomas Fenal, Gentian’s CTO, has extensive experience in the space industry and in carbon emissions calculations and reporting, and our COO, Karen Day, has developed and implemented systems for over 10 years that use satellite data for environmental protection, working within a framework of international compliance, for reporting and verifying on impacts to nature.
Our CEO, Dan White has a strong commercial and ecological background and we have a world-class technical team with doctorates in remote sensing and ecology. Ecology and the use of satellite data are two themes that run through our multi-skilled team.
Insight
“With an immediate global biodiversity crisis on our hands, there’s an urgent need to collect an enormous amount of ongoing nature data to understand what is happening on the ground. With only 20%-30% species known to science, manual surveying or site visits just won’t suffice. Remote Sensing, coupled with AI and computer vision allows us to scale ecological surveying across the world and address this problem quickly. Support from the UK Space Agency, through programmes such as Space4Climate, is essential to helping companies like Gentian to initiate and test our ideas and solutions” – Dan White, CEO, Gentian
“You can think of what we do as facial recognition for plants and the beauty of using satellite data is that we can do this on any scale and anywhere in the world. We’re really excited about this” – Karen Day, COO, Gentian
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