Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and
insights about Earth, today shared that Justdiggit, a Dutch
non-profit organization dedicated to supporting land restoration in
sub-Saharan Africa, is leveraging Planet’s high-resolution SkySat
satellite tasking capabilities, their near-daily PlanetScope
satellite imagery, and the Planetary Variables data feeds to
quantify, evaluate, and scale their regreening projects. By
leveraging this cutting-edge technology, these two organizations
are lending scientific credibility and concrete metrics to
nature-based solutions.
Planet offers unique remotely-sensed insights and satellite
tasking capabilities through their subscription-based satellite
data platform, enabling customers like Justdiggit to gain an
advanced awareness of the changing world we live in. Aptly named,
Justdiggit supports local farmers and pastoralists in Tanzania and
Kenya to use accessible tools, like shovels, to dig
bunds—semi-circular shaped pits that help the soil capture
rainwater. In regions impacted by drought and loss of natural
vegetation, the top layer of soil can harden and act as a seal, but
by digging through the dry layer, rain water can trickle down and
hydrate the parched land. This ancient regenerative practice cools
down the temperature of the region by allowing native grasses and
trees to grow back, and this landscape change can be captured by
Planet’s satellite imagery. Justdiggit uses mobile technology,
data, and communication to scale up their impact on the African
continent and to create awareness around nature-based solutions
world-wide.
"Building the futures that we want will require us to live not
only sustainably, but restoratively,” said Andrew Zolli, Chief
Impact Officer at Planet. “The surest path to doing so is to
support culturally relevant and ecologically proven practices with
new tools, and that’s exactly what’s happening here. We couldn’t be
prouder to see our data, products and services used in this
way."
With 300,000 hectares under regreening, Justdiggit and their
partners have already brought back over 10 million trees in
sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last year, Planet, the European Space
Agency (ESA), the University of Leicester, and Justdiggit launched
the Restore-IT project, focused on evaluating and quantifying the
success of their regreening initiatives. In this project,
Justdiggit leveraged Planet’s PlanetScope and Planetary Variables
products to measure the impact of their restoration sites in
Tanzania and Kenya.
Through PlanetScope’s imagery scan, captured at 3 meter
resolution, Justdiggit received high temporal resolution data of
their sites, helping to evaluate discrete change over time. The
Planetary Variables metrics quantified soil water content and land
surface temperature, enabling Justdiggit to evaluate how many
liters of water were retained by the soil, how many degrees the
surface cooled down, and how much vegetation increased since the
bunds were dug. Beyond this project, Justdiggit is also tasking
Planet’s high-resolution SkySat satellites, allowing Justdiggit to
view the scale of their regreening efforts overtime, visualizing
the landscape change at 50 cm resolution.
“The key is in showing the impact long term and at the landscape
level,” said Sander de Haas, Chief Technical Officer and Regreening
Expert at Justdiggit, explaining that Planet data was used
throughout the restoration process — from planning to evaluation —
and provided valuable data for reporting comprehensive metrics to
donors and partners.
“I focus on site selection, trying to identify from a remote
sensing analysis which sites are suitable for our types of
interventions. By having access to SkySat data, we are able to task
imagery of the site. If indeed, this is an interesting site, we
then send out a team to check on the situation on the ground, take
samples, and talk to the community,” continued de Haas. After
building long-term relationships and partnerships in the region,
Justdiggit spearheads landscape restoration efforts and community
education.
On the ground, pastoralists live with their livestock while
wildlife, like zebras and gazelles, graze on the newly sprouting
grasses from the bunds. Planet’s SkySat imagery captures the scale
of the landscape regreening over months, while their Planetary
Variables datasets help evaluate where regions are having success -
lending scientific insights for the improvement of future
projects.
“While the impact of our projects is obvious if you walk through
the tall grasses in an area which was barren before, it is hard to
capture that impact into quantifiable impact metrics that people
can relate to. Using Planetary Variables, we are able to do exactly
that: show the impact of our projects in tangible numbers such as
‘liters of water retained’, ‘degrees cooling’ and changes in
biomass. This adds another dimension to our impact monitoring.”
With this information, Justdiggit is able to further scale this
restoration work through a grassroots movement. As one farming
community is able to see the impact of their work, they then become
leaders and teachers for the next community, spreading educational
roots through the region and growing new programs. “Thanks to the
generated income through regreening, I can now bring my kids to
school,” said Mpachacha Isayta, a pastoralist living in Kuku, Kenya
working with Justdiggit.
These datasets and satellite images show the tangible progress
that these initiatives are having on the landscape of Kenya and
Tanzania, and this is just the beginning. As Justdiggit aims to
scale their program to millions of farmers, they and their partners
are making significant strides to regreen Africa, support
sustainable livelihoods, and combat the climate crisis. Working
together, these organizations show that solutions do exist, and you
can even see them changing the world from space.
About Planet
Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery
and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image
the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and
actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet
designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet
of imaging satellites, capturing over 30 TB of data per day. Planet
provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software
solutions to over 800 customers, comprising the world’s leading
agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance
companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and
effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery. Planet is a
public benefit corporation trading on the New York Stock Exchange
as PL. To learn more visit www.planet.com and follow us on
Twitter.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221110005807/en/
Planet Press Claire Bentley Dale comms@planet.com Planet
Investor Relations Chris Genualdi, Cleo Palmer-Poroner
ir@planet.com
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