illegal pollution
AI could monitor farms from space to look for illegal pollution
Artificial intelligence is using satellite images to observe farms. The technique is being tested in the US to detect farms that may be illegally polluting the waterways, and has been trialled across Europe to monitor and inspect farmland. In the US, facilities known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) comprise around 40 per cent of the country's livestock. These intensive farms often contain as many as 2500 pigs or 125,000 chickens per facility and generate around 335 million tonnes of waste per year. Manure forms a large proportion of this waste, which often makes its way into waterways untreated.