SCOPE › Prove when someone built on your land
Prove when someone built on your land
If you own land you cannot visit often, the first you hear of a problem is usually too late. SCOPE watches the plot from orbit, measures what changed, and brackets the dates it happened between — which is what a dispute actually turns on.
A real example
Xiong'an New Area, China
Between spring 2018 and spring 2023, SCOPE measured 2,559 hectares of change where a new city is being built — the same measurement applied to a single plot.
Who uses this
How SCOPE measures it
- Sentinel-2 optical imagery at 10 m. Every usable image in each period is cloud-masked and combined, so one bad day cannot create a false result.
- Sentinel-1 radar as an independent check. Radar is unaffected by cloud, so a change confirmed by both sensors is far more trustworthy than one seen in a single optical image.
- The same season in earlier years. Before anything is called unusual, SCOPE checks what that place normally does at that time of year.
- A confidence and a date bracket per area, plus a PDF, GeoJSON and CSV you can take to a surveyor, an insurer or a court.
What it will not do
SCOPE measures change; it does not confirm who caused it. Areas under a hectare are below what 10 m pixels can resolve. Persistent cloud limits the optical view, and the report says when that happened rather than hiding it. On its own published benchmark it found the change at 39 of 41 recorded events, raised no false alarms across 27 desert and undisturbed-forest control sites, and did flag change at city-centre controls — because cities genuinely change.
Questions
Is a SCOPE report accepted as legal evidence?
SCOPE is an automated screening service, not a legal survey. It gives you dated, sourced imagery and measurements that a surveyor or lawyer can build on — it does not replace them.
What is the smallest plot this works on?
About one hectare (2.5 acres). Smaller plots can still be watched as part of the surrounding area, but the change cannot be attributed to the plot itself.
Can I be told automatically when something changes?
Yes. Add the site to your watch list and SCOPE re-scans it on a schedule and emails you when something passes the change tests.
Try it on a place you already know
If SCOPE is right about somewhere you know well, you can trust it somewhere you do not. 5 scans a day, free, no card.