Click on the image above to see an animation of 3-meter natural color PlanetScope image collected over Colombo, Sri Lanka on October 31, November 30, December 25, 2025. In this animation, you can see just how much water fell over Sri Lanka during Cyclone Ditwah as the Kelani River, which flows through the center of Colombo, changes from the typical dark blue to black color we expect for a river to a muddy tan color in the November 30th image. And then by December 25th you can see the river is back to normal; and that the destructive Cycle Ditwah brought a ‘green up’ to the city as green vegetation has sprung up all over Colombo. (Images Courtesy: © Planet 2026)In this monthly feature, we span the globe to examine Our Changing Landscape with a time series of medium-resolution PlanetScope satellite imagery. The PlanetScope constellation dates back to 2016 and collects hundreds of millions of square kilometers of four and eight-band 3-meter imagery daily! In May, we featured imagery of the January 2026 wildfire in Chile. For the June edition of this series, we are looking at Cyclone Ditwah in Colombo, Sri Lanka which caused widespread flooding.
The PlanetScope Microsat Constellation
PlanetScope is a constellation of more than 240 microsats referred to individually as Doves. Each Dove is able to collect up to 20,000 square kilometers (sq km) per day of 3-meter (m) 4-band multispectral (i.e. blue, green, red and near-infrared [NIR]) imagery; and newly launched SuperDoves collect 8-band multispectral adding in valuable red-edge spectral data. Across the constellation, PlanetScope is archiving more than 200 million sq km of medium-resolution imagery a day, making it the go to source for daily imagery over most locations. This massive archive dates back to 2016, offering the most complete and continuous record of spatial data on the planet since the start of the constellation’s ongoing launch schedule. Collecting 3-meter multispectral imagery is the equivalent of ‘high-resolution’ multispectral data imaged by a 75-centimer (cm) satellite (as this satellite would feature 75-cm panchromatic and 3-m multispectral), making PlanetScope an extremely competitively priced option at just $2.25 per sq km. With well registered images and nearly daily collections of most locations, PlanetScope is the ideal imagery source for this current-events focused series, Our Changing Landscape.
Destructive Cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka
Cyclone Ditwah made landfall along Sri Lanka’s eastern coast on November 28, 2025, producing heavy rainfall, widespread flooding, and numerous landslides. The cyclone impacted multiple regions across the country, many of which had already faced significant structural vulnerabilities.
According to the UNDP Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, more than half of the people in the flooded areas were already living in vulnerable households before Cyclone Ditwah arrived and complicated things further, dealing with issues that include unstable income, high debt, and a limited capacity to cope with disasters.
In all, 2.3 million people were affected by Cyclone Ditwah: 1.1 million hectares were flooded; 1,200 landslides were registered, primarily in Sri Lanka’s hilly interior; and 71,000 buildings were damaged, the UNDP reported. Agriculture employs almost 30% of Sri Lanka’s workforce, most of them in rice production. It is estimated that Cyclone Ditwah exposed more than 530,000 hectares of rice paddy lands to flooding across Sri Lanka.
If you would like to find out more about using 3-meter PlanetScope imagery for your academic studies, engineering projects or any landscape analysis, let us know at sales@apollomapping.com or (303) 993-3863.
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