Tag: remote sensing

Tom Hengl – We should reward the stewards of the land like we celebrate Olympic champions

A long-overdue check-in conversation with Tom Hengl, director at OpenGeoHub and one of the leading scientists in earth observation and remote sensing—one of the most cited in his field, belonging to the top 0.1% (based on Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers). We discuss the significant changes in the world of remote sensing, satellites, and the hype surrounding AI, machine learning, and large language models over the past three years. While the hype has brought some interesting advancements, it also distracts people from the real work that needs to be done.

We delve into the AI4SoilHealth European project we are part of, discussing how we can already monitor and observe most places on Earth from the sky at a resolution of 30 by 30 meters. Importantly, we can now look back nearly 25 years for almost all locations in Europe and analyse changes on a field-by-field basis. While we might not know the individual farmers, we can identify their fields, and we can train models to make predictions and provide actionable, relevant advice.
We explore the idea of celebrating farmers and land stewards who have successfully regenerated their plots of land over the past decades. But how do we shift a culture that celebrates sports over regenerative farming? Finally, we touch on the challenges holding back some of this work, including the need for reliable and affordable in situ in-field soil health analysis.

Ichsani Wheeler and Lenka Danilovic – How to make water our friend again thanks to hippies with satellites and indigenous water management

A conversation with Ichsani Wheeler and Lenka Danilovic. Ichsani is a scientist, co-founder of OpenGeoHub and EnvirometriX, while Lenka is an hydrologist and intern at OpenGeoHub. In this conversation, we talk about the world of remote sensing, and we unpack what the eyes in the sky can help us learn about indigenous land and water management.

Emma Fuller – Making soulless capital who doesn’t care about regenerative agriculture invest in it

A conversation with Emma Fuller, co-founder of Fractal, about the transition to regenerative practices or outcomes of the millions of acres of broad-acre row cropping, corn, soy, and wheat in the US, Brazil, Argentina. Fractal provides farmers with equity financing by investing alongside them in their farmland to fund their growth.

Johannes Scheibe on using carbon credits to transition from understocked and overgrazed to zero input grazing

A conversation with Johannes Scheibe, founder of Ruumi, a satellite grazing app, about financing land regeneration and how Ruumi works with farmers and companies to create the conditions for a better future.