Databroker is proud to announce the addition of Sentinel Hub to our global community of data providers. 

Sentinel Hub is a cloud API for satellite imagery. It enables people to retrieve satellite data for their area of interest and specific time range from the hub’s massive archives in a matter of seconds. 

Sentinel Hub makes data available from a variety of satellite constellations, both public and commercial. The key public data is from the Copernicus Sentinel missions (which inspired the name Sentinel Hub) and the United States Geological Survey Landsat missions. Sentinel Hub aggregates the data and, in some cases, enhances it by performing, for example, atmospheric correction. Commercial data from the Airbus Pléiades and SPOT missions, as well as PlanetScope data from earth imaging company Planet Labs are also available through Sentinel Hub. The availability of commercial data means users have access to more frequently updated and higher spatial resolution imagery. 

Sentinel Hub’s data assets can be applied towards applications in agriculture, disaster management, insurance, journalism & media, and more. 

“We are excited to offer these data assets on the platform as the use cases are wide ranging and there are important applications for both business and the public sector, including driving sustainability. By facilitating secure data exchange and monetisation, Databroker can help to speed up and diversify the application and utility of Sentinel Hub’s data assets.” 

-Matthew Van Niekerk, Databroker Co-founder and CEO 

To give an idea of the potential area applications, let’s look in some detail at a few specific use cases: 

1. Agriculture 

Satellite imagery makes it possible for farmers and public authorities to vastly improve their land monitoring capability. The applications include predicting harvests, monitoring seasonal changes, and assisting in implementing policies for sustainable development. 

For example, data from the Sentinel-2 satellite makes it possible to view anywhere on Earth in 12 spectral bands with 10-20 m spatial resolution and a 5-day revisit frequency. With filters on

the imagery, it becomes possible to monitor soil properties, crop conditions, and tillage activity in detail over large regions, over specific time periods, and in near real time. 

An example image from the Sentinel 2 satellite “agriculture visualisation” which, by using short-wave and near-infrared, is optimised to monitor the health of crops. Dense vegetation appears as dark green: 

(image source: https://gisgeography.com/sentinel-2-bands-combinations/) 

2. Insurance 

Satellite imagery is valuable to insurance companies for risk and damage assessment. It has the potential to save money, improve outcomes, speed up processes, and make the insurance industry more efficient. Consider the example of assessing floods. 

Using satellite data, it is possible to quickly assess the situation prior to the flood event, immediately after the event, and ongoing for weeks or months in the aftermath. For example, here are three images showing a flood’s progression and regression over a two week period: 

(image source: sentinel-hub.com) 

Further, insurance providers can use filters like the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to assess the damage to crops over the observed time period. By looking at the state of the crops before and after the event, it becomes possible to determine, with a high degree of accuracy and without relying on multiple costly field visits, how much damage was caused by the event and what the appropriate insurance payout should be. 

Sentinel Hub is developed by Sinergise, a Slovenian geographic information system (GIS) company that builds geo-spatial systems in the fields of cloud GIS, agriculture, and real-estate administration.

“For us, Databroker provides a secure and convenient channel for monetising our satellite imagery data assets. We are excited to see the data being used by as many people as possible.”  - Grega Milcinski, CEO at Sinergise

Data sets listed on the Databroker marketplace are, in many cases, just a sliver of what can be made available upon request. Book an appointment with our DataMatch advisor, who will work with Sentinel Hub to ensure you get exactly the data sets you need. 

About the Databroker.global Marketplace 

Databroker is the first global marketplace for data to allow the exchange and monetization of any type of data (IoT sensor data, files, APIs, data streams, and more). Data buyers and sellers can connect via the Databroker platform and exchange data securely on a peer-to-peer basis. 

Alternatively, data-rich companies can, if they wish, leverage our white-labeled Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution to operate their own data exchange platforms. 

Databroker manages all financial transactions, acts as escrow, and applies blockchain-based smart contracts to enable the sharing of data safely between both parties.