“You could send an army and a billion dollars into the field and not get data like this.”

That quote is attributable to Eric Krueger, Director of Science and Stewardship at The Nature Conservancy, and a user of Satelytics’ water quality geospatial analytics. Last week Eric sat down with Satelytics to discuss The Nature Conservancy (TNC), stewardship of water resources through Water Fund Networks, and the value he sees in Satelytics’ capabilities.

Founded to solve challenges in the water/wastewater industry, Satelytics serves up a completely unique data set to customers like Eric and his industry clients who seek a deeper understanding of the complex mechanisms at work in their watersheds, rivers, and reservoirs.

The Nature Conservancy is a non-profit organization founded in the early 1900s to acquire land and water areas for conservation. The group has gone through iterations in the past 100 years, and today has grown to include hundreds of chapters around the world, focused not only on real estate holdings, but conservation science as well.

Today a main strategy of TNC and its industry and private backers is to develop Water Fund Networks that, “work to advance source water protection around the world.” TNC science experts like Eric Krueger seek out backing from industrial water users and conservationists who together “own the responsibility” of maintaining a specific watershed area or solving a known problem related to the water source. In the case of the Satelytics-assisted project, the focus was the Pee Dee River through the Savannah River Clean Water Fund. Major stakeholders on the project included current Satelytics customer Duke Energy, International Paper, American Rivers, and numerous land trusts and conservationists in lower South Carolina and Georgia.

The project formed out of several round table discussions held amongst concerned water users and looked at the following challenge areas, which can be evaluated using Satelytics' algorithms.

• Emerging Contaminants: arsenic, barium, copper, calcium, chlorides, iron, manganese, PFAS, liquid hydrocarbons
• Nutrient Loading and Algal Toxins: phosphorous, cyanobacteria, chlorophylls
• Vegetation Health: subaquatic and land
• Water Conditions: sediment (turbidity), bathymetry, temperature

During the engagement meetings Mr. Krueger presented past Satelytics case studies because “the visual effect of the type of data that Satelytics provides cannot be overstated!”

The scientific details and specific learnings of the project will be discussed in next week's Satelytics newsletter. As a pre-cursor, the outcome for the water users was a focused study understanding manganese and turbidity, tied to hydrological events in the Pee Dee watershed district. And for TNC, a new tool in its science belt and new industrial partners committed to maintaining water resources that their companies and residents can rely on. The team at Satelytics was honored to assist in this important project!

Satelytics Inc., www.satelytics.com, is a cloud-based geospatial analytics software suite. Multispectral and hyperspectral imagery is gathered from satellites, UAV, planes, and fixed cameras, and processed to provide both alerts and qualitative results for our customers. Data can be gathered up to a daily basis, and results are sent to customers in hours. This includes the specific problem, location, magnitude, and even qualitative information, which minimizes cost, impact, and operational disruption for our clients.

For more information, contact David Dunham, ddunham@satelytics.com, (o) (419) 728 0060 extension #101, (c) (701) 213 0294.