In this monthly feature, we span the globe to examine Our Changing Landscape with time series of medium resolution RapidEye satellite imagery. The RapidEye archive dates back to late 2008 and already contains more than 5 billion square kilometers of data. This month, we look at the transformation of a mine site into a premier golf course.

The RapidEye Constellation

RapidEye is a constellation of five 5-meter medium resolution satellites each offering five spectral bands of information. The RapidEye constellation offers a daily revisit time to every location on the planet with a huge footprint that is 77-km wide. The data is priced competitively with a base price of $1.28 per square kilometer for all five spectral bands – academics do receive discounts. RapidEye adds a fifth band, the red edge, to the ‘traditional’ multispectral set of blue, green, red and near-infrared (NIR). The additional spectral data available in the red edge band allows users to extract more useful land ‘information’ than can be from traditional 4-band imagery sources. When RapidEye imagery is ordered as a Level 3A Orthorectified product, images from multiple dates are extremely well registered, making it the ideal data source for Our Changing Landscape.

Streamsong Resort, Florida

Click on the image above to see an animation of 5-meter natural color imagery collected over Streamsong Resort, Florida on December 30, 2009, October 9, 2010, April 22, 2011, September 2, 2012 and December 7, 2013. Once the construction of the course started, you can see how quickly it was finished up. (Images Courtesy: RapidEye)

The Mosaic Company is based in Plymouth, Minnesota but is one of the largest land owners in Florida. Their traditional business is the extraction and production of phosphate-based fertilizers but in mid-2010 they decided to enter the real estate market. Specifically, working with two groups of renowned architects, they put in place plans to build another premier golf course in the heart of Florida. Their new resort, Streamsong, was built on a 16,000-acre plot about 60-kilometers southeast of Tampa Bay which was previously a phosphate fertilizer mine. Work on the two new courses started in early 2011 and by June, many of the holes were already shaped and some had been seeded.

Streamsong Resort features two golf courses, Red and Blue. Streamsong Blue was designed by Tom Doak who has already helped build four Top 100 world golf courses. And Streamsong Red was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw who have five Top 100 US golf courses under their belts. Both links were opened on January 26, 2013 and are ranked as Top 100 resort golf courses. Red and Blue feature 419 Bermudagrass tees and fairways with MiniVerde Ultra Dwarf Bermudagrass greens. The main difference between the two courses are the greens and bunkers, with Blue featuring greens with more contour and sharper and deeper bunkers; while Red has longer, more gentle greens with larger bunkers. From the green tees, Blue plays 7,176 yards with the Par 3 Hole 5 the shortest at 157 yards; and then the Par 5 Hole 17 the longest at 590 yards. Red plays 7,148 yards with the Par 3 Hole 8 the shortest at 147 yards; and the Par 5 Hole 2 the longest at 555 yards. Both courses are a combined 72 Par.

More than 70% of Streamsong has been maintained as open space. Besides the two 18-hole courses, the resort features bass fishing lakes, a nature trail and bird watching locations. There is also a 216-room luxury lodge on site that opened January 14, 2014 with three restaurants, 18,000 square feet (sq ft) of meeting space and 40,000 sq ft of outdoor venues. Finally, there is a clubhouse with 12 guestrooms, a banquet space, a restaurant-bar and a pro shop. With all of these amenities and two world-class courses, Streamsong is truly one of the best winter golf destinations in the United States.

If you would like to find out more about using RapidEye for your academic studies, engineering projects or any landscape analysis, let us know at sales@apollomapping.com or (303) 993-3863.