Monitoring illegal dumping
Protecting land from pollution and waste
The EPA of South Australia uses Nearmap to inform a powerful surveillance platform that uncovers illegal dumping operations.
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“Nearmap enables us to monitor unauthorised activities at a particular site, which, in the past, would have been a vague blur. Its high resolution images allow us to identify the type and extent of the activity, and provide the evidence needed to support further investigation.”
Shellie HumphriesSenior Environment Protection Officer, Illegal Dumping Unit)
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) of South Australia is a government organisation dedicated to protecting land from the adverse impacts of pollution and waste, ensuring the water quality of surface, ground, coastal and marine waters, and monitoring for atmospheric pollutants that impact on air quality.
The Challenge at a glance
Monitor Potential Environmental Risk
The task of delivering a better environment, protected for all South Australians, requires the EPA to be constantly seeking to improve monitoring, operations and support. EPA needed to deploy higher resolution aerial-survey imagery, and provide an integrated technology platform that would enable ready access to a range of detailed geophysical information. In short, its team needed to see more, at higher resolution, with current and historic captures.
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The Solution at a glance
Surveillance Targets Illegal Dumping
EPA integrates Nearmap imagery into its geospatial systems, including Google Maps, Google Earth and Enviro-Map. “Being able to view the street map and property boundaries in real-world detail is tremendously helpful, especially for rural sites, which are often less clearly marked” said Shellie Humphries, Senior Environment Protection Officer with the IDU. “It helps us to work out that it is, in fact the right property we’re looking at, who owns it, what the dimensions are, and even whether the property has been extended without authorisation.”
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Business Impact at a glance
Clarity from Current and Past Imagery
EPA can now focus on specific industries — such as construction and demolition — and target known illegal dumping hotspots, from a desktop or mobile browser, in high-resolution detail. With access to historical imagery captures from Nearmap, EPA can monitor potential environmental risks from particular sites. The IDU can identify when activity, such as the importation of waste soils or the stockpiling of construction waste, started on a particular site.
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Nearmap Oblique
View reality from multiple directional perspectives, with advanced tools for remote measurement and analysis.