Upstream Tech

Today is National Dam Safety Day. The U.S. has over 90,000 dams, many built in the mid-20th century during the peak of U.S. dam construction. Ensuring dam safety means modernizing and repairing aging infrastructure and investing advanced forecasting technology that gives operators more foresight and protects communities downstream. Learn more about how National Hydropower Association is advocating for safer dams: https://lnkd.in/eSEAgSe8 #NationalDamSafetyDay

Remote monitoring is finally delivering on one of the West's biggest challenges. 🌾 Cheatgrass has blanketed hundreds of millions of acres of Western rangeland, fueling an accelerated fire cycle and crowding out the native plants that wildlife like sage grouse depend on. With such a prolific invasive species, managing and mitigating it is a problem of scale. Field crews can't walk every acre. And until recently, remote sensing tools promised more than they delivered — too few or the wrong data sources, missed detection windows, no way to track whether treatments were actually working. Our team has been listening to Western land managers struggle with this problem for years, and we've incorporated data and fine-tuned tools in the platform to actually make remote monitoring work this challenge. By combining public and commercial satellite imagery with dedicated USGS cheatgrass datasets, land managers can use Lens to catch early-season green-up patterns, quantify coverage across millions of acres, track at-scale how treatments are holding — without redeploying field crews — and monitor post-fire reinvasion. While field expertise remains critical in managing these landscapes, Lens is helping to focus field visits where they're most urgent, saving teams time and improving oversight. Read the full blog to see how it works in practice. → https://lnkd.in/ekdGcVpe (Photo: Jennifer Strickland, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / usgs.gov)

Have you tried CTrees' Tree Canopy Height dataset in Lens yet? 🌲 🔎 Their 60 cm resolution canopy height data is live in the Lens Library — it's the highest spatial resolution forest data we've ever made available! At 60 cm, you can see forest structure in remarkable detail: mature stands, early-stage regeneration, stressed or thinning areas, and more. And since canopy height is one of the best proxies for aboveground biomass, it's directly relevant for carbon accounting too. Use cases include: → Tracking reforestation and tree planting progress → Baseline assessments for carbon and conservation programs → Pre/post disaster impact quantification → Utility vegetation management Read more about the data in our latest blog post: https://lnkd.in/e3_ZMDEb (Image: © CTrees 2022, © USDA NAIP 2022 via Upstream Tech Lens)

I’m thrilled to share that I’ve joined the team at Upstream Tech! I’m incredibly grateful for the 11 years I spent in the solar industry. During that time, I learned a lot, built friendships and professional relationships that I’ll always value. As I begin this new chapter, I’m excited to meet new people, explore new markets, and continue growing along the way. Looking forward to what’s ahead!

This snow season in the Western U.S. is wrapping up as one of the driest in recent memory. Less snowpack means less runoff, tighter water budgets, and tougher decisions ahead for the hydropower operators, utilities, and water agencies who depend on it. As snow season winds down in the West, the Southern Hemisphere gears up. Early signals point to a highly variable snow season and patterns that will shape water-supply decisions for months to come. Here's what experts are saying is in store: 1. Australia: Early outlooks point to below-average alpine snow as lingering El Niño warmth suppresses storm activity. 2. New Zealand: The Southern Alps are trending toward a warmer, low-accumulation start to the season, raising early concern for mid-winter recharge. 3. Peru: A warmer, drier autumn and winter is expected, pushing the snowline to higher elevations and reducing snow coverage at lower altitudes. 4. Chile: Post-El Niño patterns may bring delayed snowfall and warmer storms across the Andes, pressuring reservoir recovery. From California to New Zealand, water managers are navigating their own version of the same uncertainty: volatile snowpack, tighter margins, and tough decisions. If you're trying to get ahead of it, we put together resources for managing water in snow-driven basins and how improved forecasting changes what you can confidently plan for. → hydroforecast.com/snow

Lens has been a fantastic partner to work with! From faster access to imagery to more streamlined monitoring, analysis, and reporting, Lens has helped simplify several of our core workflows and improve how we manage projects across our portfolio. These efficiencies allow our team to spend less time navigating processes and more time focusing on stewardship, data-driven decision-making, and delivering consistent, high-quality restoration across the country. Their team has been highly collaborative, responsive, and committed to helping us succeed, and we look forward to continuing to build on this partnership.

What does it take to monitor thousands of acres of restored wetlands, streams, and forests without an army of people on the ground? For Westervelt Ecological Services, the answer lies in smarter remote monitoring. Before Lens, imagery from contracted aerial flights could take weeks or even months to receive. Now, they can pull the imagery they need the same day it's requested. This means consistent oversight of their restoration projects, ensuring their commitments are met. Accessible satellite imagery is only part of the story. With portfolio-wide analysis in Lens, Westervelt's sustainability team can easily analyze high-quality carbon data that validates their strong standing as a carbon-positive company. Sam Blumenfeld, Sustainability & Policy Analyst, shared, "Westervelt is in the strong minority of companies that can claim they are carbon positive, and Lens provides the data to make that claim." Read the full story to see how Westervelt is scaling their stewardship with Lens 👇 https://lnkd.in/efum9NGG

With record-breaking heat predicted in Europe this weekend, hydropower operators face challenging conditions in managing flows, low power demand, and risks related to assets and flooding. Does your organization have the right forecast for these conditions? HydroForecast can assist in navigating the full snow lifecycle with confidence. https://lnkd.in/ezYi3rHH

Only 8% of rivers and streams in California have a stream gauge. No gauge means no historical data. Traditionally, that also meant no forecast. Our Solutions Strategy Lead, Alex Truby, will be joining the California Water Data Consortium's Data for Lunch series to dig into how machine learning is filling the blind spots in ungauged basins, generating reliable streamflow forecasts even where monitoring infrastructure doesn't exist. 📅 Wednesday, June 17 | 12:00–1:30 PM PDT 💻 Free & Online If gaps in water data affect your work — whether in hydropower, water resource management, or hydrology — this session will speak directly to those challenges, in California and beyond. 👉 Register now: https://lnkd.in/eB__pDnd

If you've ever tried to manually review a 10,000-acre easement or a 200-mile transmission corridor, you know how easy it is to miss something. The new grid review tool in Lens is built to give you confident coverage over large areas. Instead of tackling a large, linear, or complex site all at once, or losing your place while manually zooming, you can now turn on a grid overlay and work through your property cell by cell. Choose a fine, medium, or coarse grid size depending on the detail you need. Navigate strategically. Mark sections as reviewed and see your progress as you go. This means a more streamlined monitoring process for: • Large or irregularly shaped conservation easements • Utility corridors or transmission lines • Railroad and transportation corridors • Carbon projects across large areas • Rivers, shorelines, or other linear landscapes By adding structure to the review process, grid review helps make monitoring feel more systematic, repeatable, and complete. Learn more about the features & tools in Lens → https://lnkd.in/e4wMHgrf