--- title: what earth observation data shows canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-earth-observation-data-shows markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-earth-observation-data-shows.md subtitle: "satellites can see the cover, the fire, and the water. they do not write the check" category: ecosystem-services --- # what earth observation data shows *satellites can see the cover, the fire, and the water. they do not write the check* A warehouse can sit in a floodplain for years before anyone colors the parcel. The floodplain was already there. Earth observation is the picture that makes the condition visible from above: cover, water, and heat. Active fire is a different feed. The pin is a plant, an intake, or a corridor. Location vendors use the picture. We read public layers of cover, water, and heat when we underwrite a place. We do not sell Earth observation, GIS, or a data feed. :::johnson **the file finds the place. it does not hold the place.** A frame can show a watershed, a forest, or a floodplain. Funding that place is a separate act. ::: ## what earth observation data shows **Earth observation data** is a picture of condition taken from above. It describes land cover, water, and heat. Canopy says how much of the ground is tree. In the United States that canopy layer covers the continental states, Hawaii, and the southeast Alaska panhandle. Anchorage sits outside it. A wetland inventory says where saturated ground is mapped. A flood layer says where hazard has been designated. A summer temperature normal says how hot the place has run across years. A street address names a door. Cover, water, and heat name the ground around it. A red overlay is exposure, not a loss and not a price. A watershed, a forest, or a floodplain exists whether or not a satellite frame includes it. Once that place is clear, funding is a separate question from the frame. [Ensurance](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide) funds that living system. ## cover, water, and heat **Cover** is what the ground does with rain and sun. Tree canopy and impervious surface answer it together. High canopy and low pavement usually mean the surface still intercepts water and shades the ground. Low canopy and high pavement usually mean fast runoff and stored heat. Two sites in one sector can sit at opposite ends of those percents. **Water** splits into storage and hazard. Wetlands store water in the landscape. A flood designation marks exposure for anything built inside it. A plant can sit beside a wetland and outside the mapped floodplain, or inside the floodplain on ground that is no longer wetland. Along a river, that answer can change in a short distance. **Heat**, in the layers we read, is a 2018–2022 summer normal. Air temperature is a NASA POWER reanalysis, on a grid of about 50 kilometers, as a daily maximum and a daily minimum. Land-surface temperature is MODIS, about 1 kilometer, an 8-day clear-sky composite, day and night kept apart. That is not a reading of whether one site cooled after sunset. **Fire** as active flame, a burn scar, a forest-loss alert, or soil moisture is not in the layers we read. Along a corridor the picture we use is canopy and slope. The forest around that corridor is the living system in the frame. A municipal intake and a bottling plant can share one river. The utility needs the basin to keep producing water. The company needs the basin to keep the plant running. Canopy on the slopes, wetlands in the valley, and the floodplain at the channel are the picture. We do not sell Earth observation, GIS, or a data feed. A capital provider can fund the watershed in the frame. That watershed is the asset. ## the public layers underneath the file Underwriting reads public layers. Canopy, impervious cover, and the temperature normal are satellite-derived. Flood, wetlands, protected areas, and critical habitat are published United States maps of water, habitat, and protection. Terrain, canopy, and impervious cover are United States datasets too. Ecoregions, watersheds, bioregions, and the Global Safety Net are wider maps. The temperature normal is the summers of 2018 through 2022 at the place being underwritten: air and land surface, day and night. | layer | what the reading is | | --- | --- | | FEMA flood | mapped flood hazard | | National Wetlands Inventory | mapped wetland cover | | PAD-US protected areas | designated protected land | | USFWS critical habitat | designated habitat | | Global Safety Net | mapped conservation priority | | RESOLVE ecoregions | the ecoregion under the site | | HydroBASINS level 7 | the watershed boundary at that level | | One Earth bioregions | the bioregion | | USGS 3DEP terrain | elevation, slope, aspect, contours, and hillshade | | NLCD tree canopy | percent tree cover | | NLCD impervious surface | percent paved or roofed cover | | summer temperature normal | 2018–2022 air and land-surface temperature, day and night | Air temperature in that normal comes from NASA POWER. Land-surface temperature comes from MODIS. Day and night stay separate. Live fire alerts, forest-loss alerts, and soil moisture are real Earth observation. This list leaves them out. We do not sell Earth observation, GIS, or a data feed. ## how to read the picture you already have A desk that already pays for a location file can use the one it has. 1. Separate the address from the condition. The street names the building. Canopy and pavement name the ground. 2. Read flood and wetlands as two layers. Storage and hazard are different facts. A parcel can carry one and miss the other. 3. Read canopy and impervious cover together. Either number alone flatters the site. 4. Treat one hot afternoon as weather. Condition is a run of summers: day and night, air and surface. 5. Write one sentence a non-specialist can repeat: this plant sits in this floodplain, or this intake sits in this watershed. Then ask who funds that system. Public agencies publish the layers. Location vendors put them in a map, a score, or an export. We read that public picture inside underwriting. The reading stays inside that work. ## the living system in the frame Follow the color back to a name. Red on a flood layer means the footprint intersects a mapped hazard. That intersection is exposure. The watershed, the stand, or the floodplain is what the exposure belongs to. If the plant depends on the floodplain, the floodplain is the asset. If the intake depends on the watershed, the watershed is the asset. If a corridor depends on the stand and the slope under it, the stand is the asset. The unit is that place. A company that already has the pin can fund the natural infrastructure the site depends on: the watershed, the forest, or the floodplain in the picture, accounted as the place itself. On the corporations page, that is protection for a facility and a supply chain. [Fund the place the picture already found →](https://ensurance.app/solutions/corporations?from=guide&topic=location-data) ## sources [FEMA flood map service center](https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home) — mapped flood hazard [National Wetlands Inventory](https://www.fws.gov/program/national-wetlands-inventory) — wetland cover [PAD-US 4.1](https://doi.org/10.5066/P96WBCHS) — protected areas of the United States [USFWS critical habitat](https://www.fws.gov/project/critical-habitat) — designated habitat [Global Safety Net](https://www.globalsafetynet.app/) — mapped conservation priority [RESOLVE ecoregions](https://ecoregions.appspot.com/) — ecoregions [HydroBASINS](https://www.hydrosheds.org/products/hydrobasins) — watershed boundaries [One Earth bioregions](https://www.oneearth.org/bioregions/) — bioregions [USGS National Map](https://apps.nationalmap.gov/downloader/) — 3DEP elevation [National Land Cover Database](https://www.mrlc.gov/) — tree canopy and impervious cover [NASA POWER](https://power.larc.nasa.gov/) — air temperature [MODIS land-surface temperature](https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mod11a2v061/) — MOD11A2 surface temperature ## the series - [what asset location data actually is](/guide/what-asset-location-data-actually-is?from=guide) - [who sells nature and climate location data](/guide/who-sells-nature-location-data?from=guide) - [what earth observation data shows](/guide/what-earth-observation-data-shows?from=guide) - [the place keeps the record](/guide/the-place-keeps-the-record?from=guide) - [hold the place the file already found](/guide/hold-the-place-the-file-already-found?from=guide)