The View From Way Up

Satellites are orbiting in record numbers. These are just some of the companies, government agencies, and NGOs putting them to use

 

1 World Bank

Monitoring high-risk urban development

Sierra Leone

In 2017 at least 400 people died in Freetown after torrential rains set off a mudslide. Using images from NASA’s Landsat and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite programs, overlaid with census and other data, World Bank researchers demonstrated how the city’s haphazard development bore some blame for the loss of life.

Almost two-fifths of Freetown’s expansion since 1990, they found, was in areas at medium to high risk of natural disasters, such as on steep hillsides or below sea level, despite laws designed to prevent just that. What’s more, from 1975 to 2015 just 3 percent of the city’s construction was within existing neighborhoods. The farther the city sprawls, the harder it is for public authorities to provide vital infrastructure and services, including sanitation and public transit.

While the World Bank has studied cities’ development since at least 2011, its work on urban fragmentation in Africa started around 2016. “For a while there was a perception within the World Bank that investments in geospatial skills, like remote sensing and satellite imagery, was more of a nice-to-have that didn’t really have widespread utility,” says Megha Mukim, a senior economist at the bank. “Most people now agree that this is a critical decision support capability.”

Researchers with the bank now use satellite data to create policy recommendations for clients such as officials from developing nations and urban planners. They plan to publish their findings on Freetown’s development later this summer.  —Andre Tartar

2 Ursa

Estimating oil stockpiles

China