We are developing a tool to research about possible conservation applications of the recent Google Solar API.

Solar API is a Google service to provide high resolution Insolation maps -for the moment only in USA and Europe- they achieve 25 cm/pixel in rural/natural areas and 10 cm/pixel in cities. The data is made from pictures by airplanes, so is not a projection of sun rays.

Our tool, is still a prototype, but can ask the Solar API and provide insolation maps and data for each month of the year, here various snapshoots:

Yearly, with the original output:

Yearly, with Low / Med / High visualization:

The immediate use case for conservation is to help in the deployment of technology in remote areas, to help in the strategic placement of solar panels when the canopy makes difficult the direct access to sunlight. Or to be sure that in a specific moment of the year, the photovoltaic panel will have enough sunlight.

Since my field of research is reforestation in arid landscapes in mediterranean climate, I'm using Solar API to the opposite: locate shadows where trees could survive the summer. I believe that this could improve the potential survival by only placing the trees in areas that have around 70% of sunlight in summer.

Here I share insolation maps of the same place in January and August, whre you can see the difference of the shadow projection of the trees:

I made a video showing the prototype, only in spanish for the moment, but you can use subtitles:

What kind of applications this maps could have? Help in the placement of camera traps? Habitat planification? Climate change monitoring?

I would like to know your opinions about that. Thanks!