Sentinel: Deforestation Detection
An automated system to flag illegal deforestation from satellite imagery.
Overview
Sentinel is an early-stage concept for an automated system that combats illegal deforestation using satellite imagery. The premise is simple: forests change slowly, illegal clearing does not, and that difference is visible from orbit if something is watching for it.
The intended approach is time-series change detection over satellite tiles, surfacing suspected clearing events for review rather than trying to prosecute them automatically.
Enchantments 2
- IChange detection across satellite imagery over time to surface likely illegal clearing.
- IIFramed as a monitoring-and-alerting pipeline, keeping a human in the loop for the final call.
Field notes
Why change detection
Classifying a single image as forest or not is the easy part; the signal that matters is the transition from forest to cleared between two dates. Anchoring on change rather than a static label is what turns raw imagery into an actionable alert.