Decreased cost of monitoring natural resources - Brendan Moroso

Description:

Information about the natural resources of earth was historically gathered in expensive one-off missions. However, in 1972, the first Landsat satellite was launched, facilitating far easier information gathering. Since then, costs have only come down with Planet and other private sector actors now managing fleets of satellites, gathering information about the entirety of the earth’s surface every day.

Enablers:

Cost of satellites Cost of computer processing Cost of data storage Cost of rocket payloads Innovation in cameras and on satellite sensors Innovation in networked computer systems

Inhibitors:

Clouds Data size Connectivity speeds

Paradigms:

Old: Accurate information on environmental events occurring in remote or distributed areas is expensive, time consuming, or impossible to collect. New: With clear weather, accurate information about natural resources can be gathered on an almost daily basis.