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SCo2-API

What is SCo2-API

The Supply Chain CO2 API (SCo2-API) is an API designed to generate and manage environmental geospatial data for land-based supply chains (i.e. agriculture & forestry). It leverages multiple satellite collections (Sentinel-2, Sentinel-1, Landsat) as well as open data collections from third party sources to provide on-demand querying capabilities for spatially-explicit (i.e. plot or sourcing area level) and temporally-relevant (i.e. from a given baseline date) deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity metrics.

The API's core functionalities are articulated around the following categories:

  • Deforestation compliance: Deforestation and forest loss checks to ensure compliance with EUDR and other upcoming deforestation regulations.
  • Land Use Change (LUC) Emissions calculation: Plot-level emissions estimates from loss of above-ground biomass (i.e. loss of tree cover) or conversion from native ecosystems to managed agricultural systems. BBelow-ground biomass is also estimated through a root:shoot ratio applied to the derived above-ground biomass estimates
  • Land Management (non-LUC) Emissions calculation (TBC): Plot-level emissions estimates from agricultural practices (no/reduced-tillage, cover cropping, crop rotation, fallow and cropping intensity, etc)
  • Carbon Removals: Long-term monitoring of restoration efforts or other plot- and landscape-level interventions aiming to sequester carbon in the soil or biomass carbon pools. The benefits of Nature-Based Solutions. Contrary to LUC emissions, which are typically the result of sudden land use conversion, carbon removals require years or decades of monitoring, which this capability supports.
  • Landscape Biodiversity: Plot-level and supply-shed level assessment of canopy height heterogeneity and landscape connectivity as proxy for species diversity in the supply base.
  • Water Use (TBC): Plot-level and supply-shed level assessment of land surface temperature and evapotranspiration, as a proxy for water availability and use in agricultural systems.
  • Segmentation: Automated plot segmentation on the basis of point or polygon prompts for annual cropping parcels larger than a hectare.

For all API functionalities, the user can provide an input area of interest (AOI) in the form a geometry, a date, and gets the sustainability metrics back in seconds for individual plots, and in minutes/hours for larger batch processes.

Documentation Structure

This documentation is structured in the following categories: - Input Data: The input data leveraged by the API and their descriptions. Epoch has an open-source and open-data commitment to the provision of its Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) data, ensuring that all input data used are openly available in case the workflow requires reproducing and/or auditing.

  • API Overview: An explanation about the authentication process, the billing and subscription plans, the rate limiting, and error handling.

  • Core API: The Core API functionalities, which are the primitive operations that enable on-demand, near-real time production of sustainability metrics, are described in detail in this section, alongside examples and caveats to support use and interpretation of the API responses.

  • Batch API: The Batch API functionalities enable the user to leverage Core API functionalities for large plot collections and supply sheds. The Batch API also enables computing the sustainability metrics for a user-provided reference area (i.e. supply region boundaries) or against watersheds and/or administrative regions in which the provided plots are located. The API responses follow the definitions of statistical (sLUC) and direct (dLUC) LUC emissions from the GHG protocol. This is useful for statistical comparison between plot performance against their (representative) surrounding environment, to gauge whether interventions are additional in a given spatio-temporal context.

  • Fetch API: The Fetch API allows retrieving previous user-generated information stored on a centralized database managed by Epoch. In the future, the derived sustainability metrics will be pushed on blockchain for perennity and immutability, and accessible via API functionalities

  • Payments API (TBC): Payments API allow payments processing on the basis of generated sustainability metrics. The goal is to provide an embedded finance solution for Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, whereby sustainability payments can be frictionlessly disbursed to stakeholders on the basis of meeting specific sustainability targets.