Satellite imagery continues to grow in importance as a primary source of intelligence for decision making across many industries. V1 Magazine editor Jeff Thurston interviewed Rob Lees, Managing Director for Spot Image Australia (left) and Hugues Pavie, Managing Director for Spot Image in China (right) in Toulouse, France recently. Both regions are experiencing considerable growth in their respective markets and account for significant levels of overall Spot Image revenue. Applications are largely related to the land base and take advantage of the archived and new imagery derived through Spot Image satellites.
V1 Magazine: How long ago did SPOT Image begin operations in China and what types of applications are the Chinese involved in mainly?
Hugues Pavie: I’ve been in China for 3 years but SPOT Image began working in China in 1998. During that time applications in the south west area of the country have been a main priority since many of those areas were not mapped to high resolution.
Applications involve the creation of digital elevation models (DEM) of high resolution, land use change and general mapping of the land. Fast mapping of land cover change is becoming increasingly important as the economy grows and expands.
Land change detection is playing a growing role in development of policies. In places like Shanghai we are imaging the city and region 3-4 times a year. Overall, we are involved in the imaging needs of over 160 cities. We have about 800 customers and are also in markets such as agriculture, forestry, mining, oil & gas, environment, construction, telecom and advanced education for research.
V1 Magazine: What do you see as the major challenges for Spot Image when you began as compared to now?
Hugues Pavie: The initial challenges were primarily oriented to educating users and other interested parties in China about our products. There were many existing applications (mapping, change detection, DEM generation,…) but we had to demonstrate that our products could meet the requirements. This meant a great deal of time was spent to build capacity, and resources were used to train and educate. To some extend, this remains a need whenever we introduce a new sensor to the market. For instance, we are currently providing training on high-resolution SAR products from TerraSAR-X.
But today, we can consider that the Chinese remote sensing market is very mature and that the new challenge is to develop inovative applications and services to address new types of end-users.
V1 Magazine: What are the current interests of Chinese customer’s today and have their expectations changed?
Hugues Pavie: Over the years, the projects have become larger and more complex. User needs are continuing to expand and there is a realisation that increased frequency of data is needed. Users are asking for more near real-time data, but still of high quality. SPOT 5 has proven to be the most effective resource for these high needs. Beijing Spot Image can also count on its wide portfolio of sensors, in optical and SAR domains. No doubt that the coming Pleiades, SPOT 6, SPOT 7 and TanDEM-X satellites will bring valuable new capacities to answer the growing demand for accurate data.
V1 Magazine: Is TerraSAR-X in demand in China? Does that information serve any unique applications for Chinese needs?
Hugues Pavie: We are finding that since the earthquakes recently and the growing number of floods that there is a high demand for satellite imagery to meet emergency related needs. TerraSAR-X can certainly play a pivotal role here, especially since the areas are often cloud covered. We have provided many training and expertise on the use of TerraSAR-X, and ultimately, Infoterra has opened an office in China to work with us on the promotion efforts and on the development of applications. We can now see the interest and the demand for TerraSAR-X data growing. The high quality of TerraSAR-X data also allows us to generate new type of products, such as subsidence information.
V1 Magazine: Can you explain what Spot Image Australia is?
Rob Lees: Spot Image – Australia covers Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific Islands. We are 100% Spot Image owned and operate a ground station in Australia together with the University of Adelaide. The Ground Station in Adelaide allows us to perform direct reception of SPOT imagery acquired over Australia. All of our information is processed and archived in Canberra.
V1 Magazine: What types of applications are users involved in with Spot Image data?
Rob Lees: Our main markets are national and state governments. The main applications are land use mapping and change detection. We have significant growth with SPOT Maps in the agricultural related industries. Agronomists use our information for site selection, precision farming and farm management purposes. We also have a significant amount of information going to the rail infrastructure industry for pipeline and railroad routing.
V1 Magazine: How is the infrastructure industry using this information?
Rob Lees: The infrastructure industry is interested to use the information for determining optimal pipeline and rail route locations over distances up to 1000kms. The key point here is that environmental site selection is critical to determining the most suitable routes. This includes demonstrating to the government environmental agencies that all efforts have been made to identify alternate routes that avoid sensitive environment areas (eg wetlands and native vegetation) while minimizing the impact on agricultural lands. Our 2.5 meter resolution imagery also provides a means to determine preliminary engineering work that may be involved.
V1 Magazine: The agriculture industry is large in Australia. How are advanced applications proceeding through the use of your imagery.
Rob Lees: That’s correct, there are many large agricultural producers involved in advanced solutions. These involve monitoring plant growth in the fields using our imagery and some involve the use of water availability and soil moisture stress models. We also have had historical problems with salinity and satellite imagery clearly shows these impacted areas.
V1 Magazine: GPS is also connected to agriculture. Does that tie in to your products?
Rob Lees: The accuracy of GPS has increased dramatically over the last few years. New applications involving virtual reference stations are also now available. In addition, as you may know, Australia has strength in the teaching and research of GPS and this is leading to the development of new applications. The integration of satellite imagery with GPS is a powerful combination that is supplying modern farm practices with effective information for decision making and optimal production.
V1 Magazine: What other applications are using Spot Image imagery?
Rob Lees: There is a considerable amount of effort placed on protecting the environment in Australia and other areas this office serves. The illegal clearing of land is a major issue and satellite imagery is helping to identify and mitigate this activity.
V1 Magazine: What are some of the applications involving web services in your area?
Rob Lees: A number government clients now use web services to make their geospatial datasets available to users. This includes both image data (satellite and aerials) and vector data (cadastral, vegetation maps, land use maps etc). Some of these datasets are available for free viewing by the general public and others are available for commercial sale.
V1 Magazine: Where do you see your geographic areas in terms of satellite imagery use in 5 years? Where are the users heading?
Hugues Pavie: China will probably remain one of the countries with the highest demand for data capacity. With the on-going economic growth the country will continue its rapid development, especially in the provinces. The need for data to map land cover changes will probably expand, all over the country. At the same time, GIS technology will play a growing role in all of the administrations, at central and local levels. Recent and accurate GIS-ready data from satellite shall be widely used in the near future.
Rob Lees: Users of satellite imagery products are looking for vendors who can offer stability of supply and provide value for money geospatial datasets. 15 years ago most satellite imagery users were academics. Today more imagery is used in mainstream GIS applications. Today’s users are looking for high resolution “GIS-ready” solutions that can be purchased by the sq km. This means users want ortho-rectified natural colour imagery products than can be ingested into their GIS systems with minimal technical interaction.
The commitment by Astrium to build the SPOT 6 & 7 satellites as the follow-on from SPOT 5 means that customers looking for large area high resolution imagery (2m – 10m) are guaranteed data supply for the next 10 years. This is very important to clients investing in staff, software and hardware systems to generate their geoinformation data products.
