How governments are using near-daily ground data to better manage grant disbursements

Monitor changes and check eligibility with extensive management.

Governments need accurate and timely data to track the effectiveness of policies. But many data sources paint an incomplete picture, particularly when policies impact large areas and irregular plots.

Free public satellite images often don't show changes in enough detail to be meaningful. High-resolution aerial data may be too expensive to scale. And harmonizing data from numerous sources into an efficient system can become the most difficult part of the process. All of these factors can make it difficult for policymakers to demonstrate success and ensure continued grant disbursement.

Broader sector management allows governments to manage grant disbursement more effectively and efficiently. A large area management approach involves monitoring, measuring and reporting changes to natural and man-made assets over large areas and multiple time scales.

For governments, this means continually observing fields of all shapes and sizes – and reporting deviations more quickly.

Support grant disbursement with extensive management

Earth observation (EO) data makes management of a large area possible because it provides a unique view of the Earth's landmass. And as EO data becomes more available and affordable, more governments are able to access and leverage it to analyze Earth's changing conditions.

Planet's near-daily ground data provides governments with a wide range of opportunities to manage grant disbursements by enabling them to:

• Report discrepancies faster: Use automated change detection to identify irregularities, on an ongoing basis.
• Expand their reach: Use PlanetScope and Analysis Ready Data to access remote fields and plots of all shapes and sizes.
• Improve transparency: Use area monitoring to document compliance with grant criteria.

Spotlight on European national paying agencies

Under the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), farmers who adopt certain “greening” practices may be eligible for income support in the form of direct payments. Some CAP payments are area-based and require on-the-spot checks, which can impose an administrative burden on member countries.

When the European Union (EU) began allowing governments to use remote sensing to check eligibility for direct payments, the Slovenian National Payment Agency (ARSKTRP) launched an Area Monitoring System (AMS) to nationally to help streamline the process of determining grant payments. eligibility.

However, they quickly discovered that Sentinel data was an incomplete solution. Nearly a quarter of the fields in Slovenia were too narrow for Sentinel-2 to produce reliable time series data. Additionally, Sentinel-2 was not detailed enough to monitor changes in permanent meadows and orchards, nor frequent enough to check when certain events like mowing occurred. It was impossible for ARSKTRP to monitor all declared plots using Sentinel-2 data alone.

The data quality problem was not the only one. Harmonizing remote sensing, manual monitoring, farmer declarations and other data sources into this system is a process and a financial burden for the paying agency. Inaccurate results could result in decreased grant allocations for the next budget period.

Looking for another solution, the team turned to Planet Fusion, which produces a consistent daily stream of precise radiometric data showing changes in vegetative health. Today, ARSKTRP combines Sentinel-2 with Planet Fusion data to verify grant payments. They first use the Sentinel data to assess whether it is sufficient. When Sentinel-2 is inconclusive, they use Planet Fusion. Signals from Fusion feed into machine learning (ML)-based models in Planet's Area Monitoring solution to calculate markers such as mowing and harvesting events, crop and land cover type, and overall similarity to neighboring plots of the same type.

Planet Fusion reduced the number of inconclusive plots from 246,000 to 66,000 and reduced the cost of monitoring activities by over one million euros. Reducing the requirement for farmers to submit additional evidence of certain activities has also improved public opinion. ARSKTRP found that Planet Fusion data is the best data offering for Sentinel-2 with its EU-wide daily coverage and increased spatial resolution to 3m per pixel.

Additionally, Planet Area Monitoring helped ARKSTRP identify markers and validate information against compliance requirements, as well as detect compliant and non-compliant parcels and report results. The system reduced their operational costs, improved processes and contributed to more transparency for stakeholders.

^{Planet Fusion shows detailed changes in the vegetative health of fields, helping the Slovenian national paying agency save time and money when checking eligibility for direct payments to farmers.}

Do more with the Planet Insights platform

As a leader in the EO industry, Planet already helps agencies that manage grant disbursement see changes in unprecedented detail. Now our data is increasingly accessible to them through Planet Insights Platform, a powerful set of APIs that give governments the ability to see wider, look back, look closer, and look deep.

By combining Planet's analytics-ready data and analytics tools with existing data required by compliance policymakers, analysts can access targeted insights that help plan and distribute grant payments to farmers.

Want to know more ? Find out how Planet can help governments improve compliance. You can also download our eBook, Driving Program and Policy Effectiveness with Planet.