During his PoPMed-SuSDeV secondment at IQS, Barcelona, Dr Aleš Marsetič from the Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies, ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana, Slovenia, held a seminar as part of the IQS SEEminar series. The seminar entitled “Prying Eyes in Space. Evolution of Earth observation satellites and their applications” took place on 7 May 2025 in Sala Blava 2 and presented the role that Earth observation satellites can fulfil in various interdisciplinary applications.

The aim of the lecture was to present the evolution of remote sensing from space and the applications in which this technology can be used. Firstly, the first Earth observation satellites were presented, then the latest developments in satellite technology and their functionality were discussed. The main part of the presentation focussed on the interdisciplinary applications in which remote sensing data, mainly from satellites, can be used. Satellite imagery and the resulting products (usually land cover classifications or object detection) are of great use for maritime surveillance (vessel detection), mapping informal settlements (e.g. slums), mapping of effects of major disasters (e.g. floods, forest fires), forest and drought monitoring, land use/land cover classification (e.g. agricultural land, invasive plants), urban heat island detection, archaeological site observation, etc. Finally, the speaker discussed a study on land cover classification using satellite imagery. In the study, PlanetScope images and deep learning techniques were used to classify an area in Slovenia into five classes (arable land, grassland, forest, urban and water). The speaker concluded that satellite images are very versatile and can also be included in various projects that are underway at IQS.