Space to Policy: Scalable Brick Kiln Detection and Automatic Compliance Monitoring with Geospatial Data
This work addresses air pollution monitoring for policymakers in India by providing a scalable alternative to labor-intensive surveys, though it is incremental as it builds on existing object detection methods.
The researchers tackled the problem of monitoring brick kiln emissions for air pollution control by developing a scalable machine-learning pipeline that detected and classified 30,638 brick kilns across five states using free satellite imagery, with detections showing high correlation with on-ground surveys and enabling automated compliance analysis.
Air pollution kills 7 million people annually. The brick kiln sector significantly contributes to economic development but also accounts for 8-14\% of air pollution in India. Policymakers have implemented compliance measures to regulate brick kilns. Emission inventories are critical for air quality modeling and source apportionment studies. However, the largely unorganized nature of the brick kiln sector necessitates labor-intensive survey efforts for monitoring. Recent efforts by air quality researchers have relied on manual annotation of brick kilns using satellite imagery to build emission inventories, but this approach lacks scalability. Machine-learning-based object detection methods have shown promise for detecting brick kilns; however, previous studies often rely on costly high-resolution imagery and fail to integrate with governmental policies. In this work, we developed a scalable machine-learning pipeline that detected and classified 30638 brick kilns across five states in the Indo-Gangetic Plain using free, moderate-resolution satellite imagery from Planet Labs. Our detections have a high correlation with on-ground surveys. We performed automated compliance analysis based on government policies. In the Delhi airshed, stricter policy enforcement has led to the adoption of efficient brick kiln technologies. This study highlights the need for inclusive policies that balance environmental sustainability with the livelihoods of workers.