SkyTruth is a nonprofit environmental watchdog that uses satellite imagery and remote sensing data to identify and monitor threats to the planet's natural resources. Its stated mission is to "share the view from space to promote conservation for people and the planet." Areas of focus range from issues such as offshore drilling, oil spills,

hydraulic fracturing Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...

mountaintop removal mining Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. Thi ...

illegal fishing Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an issue around the world. Fishing industry observers believe IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries. Illegal fishing takes pl ...

an
habitat change detection
SkyTruth releases all of its imagery and data to researchers and the public for free with the goal of greater transparency to hold industries and governments accountable for environmental harm].

History

SkyTruth was founded in 2001 by John Amos, a geologist working in the private sector who became concerned with humankind's growing impact on the planet. Amos spoke with advocates in various environmental groups to discuss their communication needs and resource limitations and found a niche in providing analysis of satellite and aerial imagery to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), environmental advocates, academic researchers, and government resource managers. Early SkyTruth projects included mapping the landscape impact of natural gas drilling in the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

, revealing commercial fishing vessel activity on the outskirts of marine protected areas, and showing the growing environmental impact of strip mining for coal and other minerals throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Deepwater Horizon disaster

In April 2010, the offshore oil drilling rig ''

Deepwater Horizon ''Deepwater Horizon'' was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion on ...

'', operated by BP P.L.C., exploded in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

and triggered the largest accidental oil spill in history. In cooperation with

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

, SkyTruth estimated the amount of oil flow from the damaged well using satellite imagery and determined, based on conservative estimates using the visible surface slick, that the flow of oil was between 5 and 25 times greater than BP reported. SkyTruth was the first organization to challenge BP's claims, and continued to monitor and document flow from the well until it was successfully sealed.

Selected Projects

FrackFinder

SkyTruth's FrackFinder project utilizes public crowd sourcing to map fracking operations on the Marcellus and

Utica Shale The Utica Shale is a stratigraphical unit of Upper Ordovician age in the Appalachian Basin. It underlies much of the northeastern United States and adjacent parts of Canada. It takes the name from the city of Utica, New York, as it was first de ...

formations. SkyTruth has mapped out fracking well pads and retainment ponds in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, and

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, with further plans to quantify the total impact halos of fracking operations underway. FrackFinder data is publicly available through GitHub. Researchers at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

used SkyTruth's FrackFinder data to link hydraulic fracturing activity to premature birth, high risk pregnancies, migraines, fatigue, and chronic nasal and sinus symptoms.

Global Fishing Watch

On September 16, 2015, SkyTruth in partnership with

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

and marine conservation organization, Oceana, launched

Global Fishing Watch ''Global Fishing Watch'' is a website launched in September 2016 by Google in partnership with Oceana and SkyTruth "to provide the world’s first global view of commercial fishing activities." At any moment, 200,000 vessels are publicizing thei ...

at the Our Ocean Conference hosted by then-US Secretary of State

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

. Global Fishing Watch continuously publicizes the locations of hundreds of thousands of vessels via their onboard Automatic Identification Systems so that users can individually track vessels through exclusive economic zones, marine protected areas, and other features. SkyTruth and it partners launche
Global Fishing Watch
as an independent nonprofit in 2017. It has been used by governments, such as that of

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

in 2016, to crack down on illegal fishing and fishing in protected waters.

Mountaintop Removal Mining

SkyTruth collected data for their initial mountain top removal survey in a partnership with Appalachian Voices, to map the location and growth of mountain top removal (MTR) mines over a 30-year period. It updates data on the extent of mountaintop mining in Central Appalachia annually, and is now monitorin
reclamation and revegetation of mined sites
as well as coordinating with partners to document th
environmental and public health impacts
of mountaintop mining.

Oil Spill Monitoring

SkyTruth continuously monitors oil spill activity, investigating

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

National Response Center reports and calculating estimates of spill volume from confirmed surface slicks. SkyTruth monitors the chronic leak from Taylor Energy site 23501.

Oil Pollution from Vessels: Cerulean

SkyTruth has developed a machine learning model that scans thousands of satellite images a day to identify oil slicks at sea and link slicks with vessel traffic to identify likely polluters. These slicks typically result from illegal bilge dumping, in which vessels release oily bilge water into marine waters offshore. Calle
Cerulean
this model will soon allow law enforcement, local communities, and others to hold polluters accountable for this routine, but illegal activity.

Conservation Vision

More broadly, SkyTruth is working to apply machine learning and cloud compute technology to a range of environmental challenges, taking advantage of the exponential growth in satellite data now available and new technologies allow rapid analysis of large datasets. They call this initiativ
Conservation Vision.
For a summary of SkyTruth's impacts over its 20 year history se
Twenty Years of SkyTruth Success

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.skytruth.org/ Environmental organizations based in the United States