Road & Building Change Detection

Keeping up to date with human development is a daunting task, especially when scanning across enormous country-wide areas. Government agencies throughout the world are challenged to ensure protected areas remain untouched and that development only takes place when it is properly permitted. But even with the growth of satellite observations, identifying new activity in massive archives of data is costly and time-intensive.

Planet’s Road & Building Change Detection products point users to where development is taking place across country-wide areas on a weekly basis, helping them understand exactly how and where the places they care most about are evolving. Drawing on Planet’s daily scan of the Earth, analysts can look at activities as they unfold without the burden of sifting through huge volumes of imagery.

Permit Enforcement

New road construction in southeastern New Mexico detected in the Analytics Feed Viewer.

The New Mexico State Land Office compares Road Change Detections with permit applications to determine if development has taken place prior to permit approval. They were able to generate an estimated $1M in revenue from permit violations discovered using Road Change Detection.

Monitoring Protected Areas

New road construction in the Misiones Province of eastern Argentina detected in the Analytics Feed Viewer.

Policia Federal of Brazil leverages Road & Building Change Detections to draw their attention to where and when development is taking place within protected forested areas.

API Information

API	Available	Notes
Data API	❌	Road & Building Change Detection runs on a weekly or monthly cadence, providing weekly or monthly visual mosaics alongside change detections. The Data API supports querying scene information only.
Orders API	✅	Road & Building Change Detection runs on a weekly or monthly cadence, providing weekly or monthly visual mosaics alongside change detections. The Orders API supports ordering mosaic quads.
Subscriptions API	❌	Road & Building Change Detection runs on a weekly or monthly cadence, providing weekly or monthly visual mosaics alongside change detections. The Subscriptions API does not currently support subscriptions for mosaic quads.
Analytics API	✅	The Analytics API is used to query Road & Building Change Detection results.
Basemaps API	✅	Road & Building Change Detection runs on a weekly or monthly cadence, providing weekly or monthly visual mosaics alongside change detections. The Basemaps API supports querying and delivering mosaic quads.