Environmental impacts of earth observation data in the constellation and cloud computing era

R Wilkinson; M M Mleczko; R J W Brewin; K J Gaston; M Mueller; J D Shutler; X Yan; K Anderson

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168584

Environmental impacts of earth observation data in the constellation and cloud computing era

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Jan 20:909:168584. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168584. Epub 2023 Nov 17.

Authors

R Wilkinson¹, M M Mleczko¹, R J W Brewin², K J Gaston¹, M Mueller¹, J D Shutler², X Yan¹, K Anderson³

Affiliations

¹ Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Cornwall TR10 9FE, United Kingdom.
² Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Cornwall TR10 9FE, United Kingdom.
³ Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Cornwall TR10 9FE, United Kingdom. Electronic address: karen.anderson@exeter.ac.uk.

PMID: 37979853
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168584

Abstract

Numbers of Earth Observation (EO) satellites have increased exponentially over the past decade reaching the current population of 1193 (January 2023). Consequently, EO data volumes have mushroomed and data storage and processing have migrated to the cloud. Whilst attention has been given to the launch and in-orbit environmental impacts of satellites, EO data environmental footprints have been overlooked. These issues require urgent attention given data centre water and energy consumption, high carbon emissions for computer component manufacture, and difficulty of recycling computer components. Doing so is essential if the environmental good of EO is to withstand scrutiny. We provide the first assessment of the EO data life-cycle and estimate that the current size of the global EO data collection is ~807 PB, increasing by ~100 PB/year. Storage of this data volume generates annual CO₂ equivalent emissions of 4101 t. Major state-funded EO providers use 57 of their own data centres globally, and a further 178 private cloud services, with considerable duplication of datasets across repositories. We explore scenarios for the environmental cost of performing EO functions on the cloud compared to desktop machines. A simple band arithmetic function applied to a Landsat 9 scene using Google Earth Engine (GEE) generated CO₂ equivalent (e) emissions of 0.042-0.69 g CO₂e (locally) and 0.13-0.45 g CO₂e (European data centre; values multiply by nine for Australian data centre). Computation-based emissions scale rapidly for more intense processes and when testing code. When using cloud services such as GEE, users have no choice about the data centre used and we push for EO providers to be more transparent about the location-specific impacts of EO work, and to provide tools for measuring the environmental cost of cloud computation. The EO community as a whole needs to critically consider the broad suite of EO data life-cycle impacts.

Keywords: Carbon intensity; Cloud computing; Data centre; Environmental impacts; Satellite.