A dated vegetation record for every parcel, ahead of the bond review.

Revegetation Monitor reads vegetation return on your closed or closing mine parcels once a year and sets it against the milestones in the reclamation plan, so the release file holds more than the operator's own report.

Start a projectWhat comes back
GSD
10–30 m (Wide)
Cadence
Annual
Platform
Wide-swath satellite
Spectral
Multispectral
Reported by
Parcel
Thin grass and moss coming back over crushed stone on a quarry floor, below a pale limestone face
Fig. 1. Grass and moss coming back over crushed stone below a limestone face.

How a release request gets judged now

The operator files its annual reclamation report: acres graded, acres seeded, a set of photo points, a line saying cover is on track. The agency's inspector drives out to some of the parcels, often in one trip late in the season, and compares what stands on the ground with the success criteria in the reclamation plan. Release is staged, so the same parcels come up again and again over several years. If there's a surety behind the bond, its underwriter mostly sees the operator's report, plus whatever the agency chooses to share.

The gap is the parcels nobody visited. Photo points show the spot the operator picked. An inspector sees a parcel on one day, and that day may be a dry August. Nobody holds a consistent, dated record of the whole disturbed area, so a parcel that stalled three seasons ago tends to surface when the operator files for release, with the file thin on the years in between.

Revegetation Monitor adds that record. Each year every parcel the pixel can resolve1 gets a vegetation index from the same kind of imagery, on its own row, against its own milestone. The inspector still visits and the operator's report still gets read. Both now sit next to a reading taken the same way every season.

What comes back each year

One delivery per annual pass, in files your GIS and bond ledger already open.

ParcelIndex read against milestoneStatus
P-01-AAhead
P-01-BOn
P-02-ABehind
P-03-COn
P-04-AFlagged
Fig. 3. Schematic of the milestone-vs-actual comparison. Parcel IDs and bar lengths are illustrative, not readings from any site.

  1. Per-parcel vegetation index

    GeoPackage / Shapefile

    Your own parcels, keyed to your parcel IDs, each carrying that year's vegetation index. Opens in ArcGIS or QGIS.1

  2. Milestone-vs-actual comparison

    CSV

    One row per parcel: the plan's milestone for the year, the index read, and whether the parcel is ahead of it, on it or behind. Pastes into the bond ledger.2

  3. Year-on-year trend record

    CSV

    The same parcels, year after year, on one row each. From the second annual pass on, a stalled parcel shows as a flat line in the record, ahead of the release request.

  4. Ledger export for the bond file

    PDF / CSV

    The parcel register in a form that goes into the bond file next to the operator's report and the inspection report, with the acquisition date of each image.

  5. Low-confidence flags

    List

    Parcels that are too small for the pixel, or where cloud, snow or haze spoiled the pass, get a flag and a reason. They go on the inspector's list instead of getting a number.

How it works

  1. Parcels and milestones in

    Send your parcel polygons with their IDs, and the plan's milestone for each parcel and year. If the milestones live in the plan as text, we enter them with you and you confirm the table.

  2. Annual pass

    We pick the clearest wide-swath multispectral pass of the growing season over your parcels.3

  3. Index per parcel

    The vegetation index is computed for each parcel and set against its milestone. Parcels the pixel can't resolve, or the pass can't see, are flagged.

  4. Delivery

    The parcel layer, the comparison, the trend record and the ledger export. We set the date against your bond review calendar at the start and walk you through the parcels that sit behind their milestones.4

Where it fits in your workflow

Ahead of the bond review date

Read it before the file goes up for review. Parcels ahead of their milestone are the ones to look at first for release. Parcels behind go on the inspector's list for a visit, with the trend in hand. A surety underwriter can read the same ledger at renewal and see which parcels have moved since last year and which haven't.

It sits alongside the operator's report. Where the two disagree, that is the question for the operator, or the reason to send an inspector out before anyone decides.5

Limits

  1. Wide pixels

    At 10–30 m a pixel covers anywhere from about a thousand square feet to nearly a quarter acre. A large, uniform parcel gets a steady reading. A small parcel, a narrow strip along a haul road or patchy revegetation reads coarsely, and the smallest are flagged instead of scored.

  2. An index is not a success criterion

    The vegetation index tracks how green the ground is from above. It doesn't count stems, identify species, measure woody cover or tell seeded grass from weeds. If your plan's criteria are written in those terms, the index is a screen for where to look, and the field measurement still decides.

  3. Clear-sky window

    Optical imagery needs a clear day in the growing season. A cloudy year can push the pass later or leave a parcel with no usable read until the next one.

  4. Once a year

    One pass a year, timed to your review. A parcel that greens up or dies back in between shows up next year. Year one has no trend to show.

  5. Not a compliance ruling

    Nothing here certifies reclamation, issues a closure certificate or rules on a release. It is a record that goes in the file. It doesn't guarantee that a bond is released, held or reduced.

Who it's for

For

  • State and federal mining regulators who decide phased bond release and want a record beyond the operator's report.
  • Surety underwriters and claims analysts with mining bonds on the book.
  • The reclamation inspectors and bond analysts who assemble the release file.

Not for

  • Operators who want to show their own progress on their own bond.
  • Buyers after a compliance determination, a closure certificate or a legal finding.
  • Parcels or narrow strips too small for a 10–30 m pixel.
  • Species, stem density or woody cover counts.

Questions before a project

Does this certify that a parcel is reclaimed?

No. It tracks a vegetation index against the plan's milestones. The agency decides whether the plan's success criteria are met, and FlyPix doesn't issue a certificate or a ruling.

Can it replace the inspector's visit?

No. It helps decide which parcels the inspector goes to first, and it gives the visit a trend to compare with. Where the rules require a ground inspection, the inspection still happens.

How do we check it against what our inspectors see?

Pick a few parcels your inspectors know well and compare the index with their notes once the delivery lands. Decide from that whether the record is good enough to keep in the file.

How small a parcel can it read?

The pixel is 10–30 m, so small parcels and narrow strips read coarsely or come back flagged. Send us your parcel sizes and we'll tell you straight which ones the imagery can resolve.

What if the operator's report says something different?

Then you have a question for the operator and a reason to visit. The record is a second source, and it isn't evidence against anyone.

Will it load into our GIS and bond ledger?

It comes as a GeoPackage or Shapefile plus a CSV keyed to your parcel IDs, so anything that reads a GIS layer or a spreadsheet can take it. We don't write into your systems directly.

What if the season is cloudy?

The pass can move later in the season, and a parcel with no clear image gets a flag instead of a guess.

Who owns the results and the imagery?

Ownership and licence terms for the deliverables and the underlying imagery go into the project agreement before anything is ordered. If your counsel needs to review them, ask early.

How is a project bought and priced?

The quote depends on the number and size of parcels and the imagery source. Tell us how your agency or underwriting team buys services and we'll scope the project to fit.

Get your parcels on record before the next review.

Tell us how many parcels you track and when the bond review is due. We'll say whether the imagery calendar can meet it.

Start a project