The environmental organisation SkyTruth uses satellite images to monitor mining, drilling, logging and pollution – here is some of what it’s seen.
Read more: SkyTruth founder: Remote sensing for the people
High-intensity agriculture
This photograph shows the effect of beef production in California’s Central valley in 2003: the dark brown areas are the animal pens and waste lagoons.
(Image: Skytruth/Google)
Urban sprawl in Las Vegas
The population of the Nevada city has quadrupled since 1980. The left-hand picture is Vegas in 1984, the right was taken last year.
(Image: Skytruth/NASA)
Sludge overload
This picture shows the aftermath of a dyke failure at a Tennessee power plant in 2008, when around 4 billion litres of coal ash slurry gushed into nearby rivers.
(Image: courtesy of Tennessee Valley Authority)
Drilling for gas in a wilderness
The upper Green river valley in Wyoming is part of the same ecosystem as Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, but is also rich in oil and natural gas. This picture shows the effect of natural gas drilling: the white areas are sites prepared for drilling, covering about 1.5 hectares, and the black spots within them are open pits of waste drilling fluid.
(Image: Skytruth/CNES)
