EO·Atlas
Illegal construction
Illegal construction monitoring identifies new buildings, earthworks, roads, and land-cover conversion in areas where planning, cadastral, zoning, protected-area, or permit overlays define legal status.[1][2] Satellite change detection detects new buildings, demolished buildings, settlement expansion, and infrastructure change using SAR, optical, or fused observations.[3][2][1] SAR supports urban change monitoring under cloud and day-night conditions, while optical imagery provides interpretable visual evidence when cloud-free.[3][1] EO data detects construction-like or land-cover change, and illegality requires non-EO permit, planning, cadastral, zoning, or protected-area data.[1][2] Vegetation-index mapping can flag vegetation removal before construction in protected or floodplain areas, but vegetation loss alone is not construction or illegality.[2]
What's available today
2 services and 53 sensors. Start with the most-used; switch to Filter for the full catalogue.
- [1]Multitemporal change detection analysis in an urbanized environment based upon Sentinel-1 datapeer reviewed2022-02-182026-05-27
- [2]Temporal autocorrelation of Sentinel-1 SAR imagery for detecting settlement expansionpeer reviewed2023-09-012026-05-27
- [3]Maxar Change Monitoring overviewoperator datasheet-2026-05-27
How to cite this page
Plain text
Illegal construction. EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V., last reviewed 2026-05-27. https://eo-atlas.org/topics/illegal-construction (CC BY 4.0)
BibTeX
@misc{eoatlas:topics:illegal-construction,
title = {Illegal construction},
author = {{EO-Atlas}},
publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
year = {2026},
note = {Last reviewed 2026-05-27. CC BY 4.0},
url = {https://eo-atlas.org/topics/illegal-construction}
}