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Language: en
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hi everyone and welcome back to this
series on how to do open-source
investigations from home I'm Ben and
this is part 25 so let's get started
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in this session we are looking at a
super useful update for all of you
online researchers and investigators
basically Google Earth is introduced a
major new feature the historical
satellite imagery function is now
available directly in the browser and
the mobile app this is huge for open
source work because you don't need to
rely upon Google Earth Pro anymore so
let's take a look at what this means and
explore some real world case studies so
here's the new feature it's up in the
top browser section of the Google Earth
viewer in your browser whichever one you
use basically you click activate
historical imagery now there's two types
of function here there is the time-lapse
mode uh which allows you to see a
timelapse playthrough of satellite
imagery over time this is quite useful
to look at and we'll see some of these
in the case studies that we look at and
then there's the historical imagery and
it shows the relevant dates for imagery
it allows you to select a specific year
and then you can scroll through those as
well we're also going to look in this
section at how the annotations that you
make on the satellite imagery are easily
sharable which is super super useful
when sharing any markings that you make
or anything like that so let's take a
look at the first case study we're going
to look at the Amazon rainforest and
specifically cases of
deforestation now I'm going to go to a
town called Yuri maguas I apologize for
the horrible pronunciation there uh but
it is one that's located within the
northeastern Peruvian Amazon this is an
area that has had a fair bit of
deforestation around it and a fair bit
of reporting around the deforestation of
the Amazon
rainforest specifically the area that
we're going to look at is just south of
here and it's a large Plantation that
you can see here using this time lapse
feature what we're able to do is to have
look at how that area has changed over
time so you can see it scroll through
from the
1990s right forward to the 2000 2010s
and now
2020s and what you can see is the
deforestation that's happened there and
subsequent change into what is actually
a plantation now now this gives us an
overview of the scale but what we can do
after we see that area is we can
actually pause that switch to historical
satellite imagery and zoom in on the
area to take us from a macro View to a
bit more of a micro view so I'm going to
zoom in on one of these areas for
example here and we can really get quite
close and have a look at the most recent
satellite imagery of that which is from
2023 now this is quite useful because if
we go back in time we can start to see
what this area look like before and what
it looks like now and the change in that
area over time so we can see when this
used to be an actual rainforest or uh
quite a thick tropical area or thick
covered area and then we can see that
was in 2004 then we can see in 2009 the
trees are just dead on the ground after
they've all been uh uh chopped down and
then we can see that area basically less
of the trees there and then this more of
a kind of farming Plantation style area
which it has since become that kind of
Plantation and you can see that across
the board and if we go back to that
image that we had previously where you
could see those trees on the ground we
can actually see that systematically
throughout this area and this really
helps us because we can do that zoom in
and zoom out frequently to see what that
area actually looks look like in really
good high resolution satellite imagery
and that really gives us that micro view
of what the rest of the area looked like
when we were doing that time lapse that
that indication over time so you can see
how useful this is for example in
creating that before and after effect as
well as that time lapse and it really
gives a visually compelling look but
also a bit of an investigative look
closer into the details
as to what's happening on the ground
we're going to look at a second case
study now which takes us to Syria and
specifically we're going to have a look
at the city of Aleppo in Syria this is
an important case and we're going to
look at some of the areas in and around
Aleppo I'm going to switch to my
historical imagery and I'm going to give
us a clean canvas here with no names on
here so we can just purely look at the
satellite imagery without the
distraction of names or anything like
that I'm going to go to my most recent
satellite image which is from the 27th
of June
20124 and we're going to have a look at
some past satellite imagery specifically
around the destruction caused during the
Syrian Civil War the first area we're
going to look at is this little area
that seems to be around an industrial
area right here it's just in the
Southeastern side of Aleppo there
because we we have this historical
satellite imagery available I'm now
looking at a view from 2012 we're going
to go forward into February
2013 and what we can see here is smoke
emanating from some of these buildings
where there's been some destruction
caused and then we're going to go
forward again this takes us into May
2013 where you can see some of that
destruction uh evident over there and
then forward again and you can see that
a number of the building surrounding
here have actually been destroyed even
some of these areas over here if we go
backwards and forwards we can see that
change in those buildings along there in
another area in a village just east of
Aleppo we're able to see a similar type
of occurrence specifically through
almost the entire Village this is an
image a very clear image from
2016 we can actually go back to 2015
and see the indications of change there
as well by comparing the satellite
images from
2010 and later up until
2016 it gives us a clear picture of how
conflict has impacted this area and
small towns like for example this one
that we're seeing here and that's why
it's an essential tool for verifying
news reports or researching things like
human rights violations uh within
conflicts the next case case study we're
going to look at is the site of
Fukushima and specifically where there
was a natural disaster so we're going to
look at that change over time of that
natural disaster after the 2011
earthquake and tsunami where there was
some devastating damage with this
satellite imagery tool we can really go
back in time and we can see what it
looked like before the event but then
also the subsequent destruction of some
of these areas over here this kind of
comparison for before and after is
really incredibly useful for Disaster
Recovery researchers and journalists
covering say for example long-term
effects of natural disasters one of the
additional features I really like of
using the Google Earth online browser is
that we can make really helpful
annotations um so you can add Place
markers for
example I'm going to add a place marker
to this building I'm actually going to
save it as a drive project which is
really helpful if you want to work on
collaborative projects and that'll save
what I can also do is add for example
polygons to this so this was one of the
areas where there was immense
destruction I might flag this area out
which might be a potential uh part for
research I'll save that to my project I
might actually give it a fill as well
just to show it in red um and I'll save
that as uh for sure damage now the
reason why I've done that isn't just for
myself but it's also because what I can
do is I can actually share that with
colleagues um and and they can open this
up and see those those annotations and
those markings but I can also make a
slideshow with each individual Point
that's been mentioned there so you can
see I first mentioned the the building
that was destroyed and the work that's
been done there on that specific date
and then it'll go through and identify
the next one of the view shed that I've
saved which is the uh foreshore damage
there as well and it's got that table of
contents there so you can keep going to
each one and that's a really useful way
to navigate between the sites but also
to share that with with colleagues for
example and make a quick presentation
just based upon uh the findings or the
annotations that you've made there so
there you have it that's Google Earth's
new historical imagery feature uh and
collaboration features within the
browser version of Google Earth and it's
really useful for open-source research
uh I hope you found this video helpful
if you did give it a like hit subscribe
and stay tuned for more open-source tool
tutorials thanks for watching and I'll
see you in the next session
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