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Xiong'an New Area

A city being built from scratch 100 km south of Beijing.

3,155.7 hectares changed — vegetation cleared · Before: 1 Apr 2018 – 30 Jun 2018 · After: 1 Apr 2023 – 30 Jun 2023 · 38.997, 115.933

BEFORE 2018-06

AFTER 2023-06

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3,155.7 haarea changed

374areas flagged

8,118 haarea examined

2satellites used

What changed, by type

2,451.9 haVegetation cleared

614.6 haNew vegetation

72.3 haBurnt ground

15.3 haNew water / flooding

1.6 haWater disappeared

Land changes in both directions at once. SCOPE reports every type it measured, not only the one that makes the better headline.

What SCOPE found

Vegetation cleared — 1,037.6 ha
2.8 km south-east · between 12 Jun 2018 and 2 May 2023 · 89% sure

Vegetation cleared — 381.6 ha
2.1 km north · between 2 Jun 2018 and 12 Jun 2018 · 85% sure

Vegetation cleared — 201.7 ha
4.4 km north-east · between 28 May 2018 and 12 Jun 2018 · 79% sure

Vegetation cleared — 159.6 ha
3.8 km north · between 2 Jun 2018 and 12 Jun 2018 · 84% sure

Vegetation cleared — 95.6 ha
4.2 km north-east · between 2 Jun 2018 and 12 Jun 2018 · 84% sure

How sure is this?

The strongest area (#1) has 89% confidence. It appears in 6 of 6 later clear images, so it is not a one-day artefact. Radar confirmed some of these areas; the others rest on optical and seasonal evidence. Confidence measures how strong the evidence for real surface change is; it does not identify the cause or who did it.

How it was measured

SCOPE used Sentinel-2 optical imagery at 10 m, cloud-masked and combined over each period, Sentinel-1 radar as an independent check , and the same season in earlier years so normal seasonal change is not reported as real change. The analysis took 32 seconds.

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