Remote observation is defined by distance, not by orbit. Some of the most practical assessments draw on data that is already public: maps, street-level imagery and property records, read together at scale.
Working with the Government of Alberta’s Environment and Parks flood control team, the group studied flood damage assessment for the Canmore region. The method fuses several public layers for each property:
- Location. GPS coordinates and address, resolved to a specific parcel.
- Imagery. Satellite map view for the footprint and surroundings, plus street-level photography for ground context.
- Records. Property class and building attributes, including whether a garage is attached or separate and how living area compares to total building area.
Taken together, these layers estimate exposure and likely damage across a whole region far faster than a parcel-by-parcel field survey, and they refresh whenever the underlying public data does.
The imagery and map data in this study come from Google Maps and Street View; the flood-control context and property records come from the Government of Alberta. The contribution is the analysis: turning open, distributed data into a single assessment, which is remote observation in its broadest sense.