THE global race toward net-zero emissions has placed a significant spotlight on nature-based solutions. While terrestrial forests have long been the face of carbon sequestration, a more potent ally resides along our coastlines: Blue Carbon. Blue carbon refers to the carbon captured and stored by coastal and marine ecosystems, specifically mangroves, seagrasses, and tidal marshes. Despite their relatively small geographic footprint, these ecosystems sequester carbon at rates up to ten times greater than pristine tropical forests.
However, the primary barrier to scaling blue carbon projects has been the difficulty of measurement. Monitoring a remote mangrove swamp or a submerged seagrass meadow is logistically challenging, expensive, and often inaccurate. This is where Digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV) and specialised “Blue Carbon Satellites” enter the frame. By transitioning from manual, ground-based surveys to high-resolution, satellite-driven digital frameworks, the world can finally unlock the true economic and environmental value of the oceans.
The Convergence of dMRV and Marine Ecosystems
Traditional Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) processes are notoriously slow. In a standard carbon project, scientists must physically travel to a site, measure tree diameters, take soil core samples, and manually calculate biomass. This data is then audited by third-party verifiers in a process that can take years. For blue carbon, the “wet” nature of the environment makes this even harder; high tides, murky water, and impenetrable mud make manual auditing a nightmare.
dMRV represents a paradigm shift. It replaces intermittent manual checks with continuous digital oversight. By integrating satellite imagery, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), dMRV provides a “near real-time” view of an ecosystem’s health. In the context of blue carbon, dMRV allows project developers to track sequestration levels with unprecedented frequency. This transparency is vital for the integrity of carbon markets, ensuring that every carbon credit sold represents a verified, additional, and permanent ton of carbon removed from the atmosphere.
A New Era: The Geespace and TelePIX Breakthroughs
The year 2025 has marked a historic turning point for orbital marine science. While general-purpose satellites have been used for decades, they often lack the resolution or the specific spectral bands required to peer through coastal waters. To bridge this gap, dedicated “Blue Carbon Satellites” have finally reached orbit.
A primary leader in this space is Geespace, a subsidiary of the Geely Holding Group. In January 2025, Geespace successfully launched the Blue Cabon Satellite. It is its first high-precision satellite specifically optimized for blue carbon remote sensing. This mission is revolutionary because it integrates high-resolution imaging with the company’s massive IoT network (a LEO communications constellation planned to launch 72 satellites in total), allowing for a two-way data flow between submerged sensors (measuring ocean acidity or soil carbon) and the satellite overhead.
Simultaneously, the South Korean company TelePIX launched BlueBon in early 2025. Branded as the first satellite dedicated purely to blue carbon monitoring, BlueBon is equipped with a specialized multispectral camera and the “TetraPLEX” AI processor. These missions represent a shift away from multi-purpose observation toward “application-specific” satellites that treat the ocean floor and coastal mangroves as a distinct, measurable balance sheet for the planet.
Enhancing Monitoring and Real-Time Oversight
The most immediate benefit of a dedicated blue carbon satellite constellation like Geespace’s is the enhancement of monitoring capabilities. Coastal ecosystems are highly dynamic; they are subject to seasonal changes, tidal shifts, and sudden impacts from storms or illegal clearing.
With high-frequency satellite passes Geespace’s constellation can provide multiple daily updates dMRV systems can detect “leakage” or degradation almost immediately. For instance, if a patch of mangroves is illegally harvested, a satellite-linked dMRV platform can trigger an automated alert. This level of oversight was impossible when verification relied on a site visit once every five years.
Moreover, these satellites provide a historical baseline with modern precision. By combining Geespace’s high-precision positioning with TelePIX’s hyperspectral-like filtering, researchers can understand how a specific coastline has evolved, allowing them to predict future sequestration potential and identify the best areas for restoration.
Precision in Biomass Estimation and Carbon Stocks
The “holy grail” of blue carbon is the accurate estimation of biomass. Biomass the total mass of living organisms in a given area is the direct proxy for how much carbon is stored. In mangroves, carbon is stored both in the woody biomass above ground and in the carbon-rich soils below.
The 2025 generation of blue carbon satellites utilizes advanced sensors to solve the biomass equation. TelePIX’s BlueBon, for example, uses its “BlueSCOPE” software to analyse multispectral data specifically tuned to the chlorophyll signatures of seagrass and floating algae. When combined with the high-resolution imagery from Geespace’s sensors, AI algorithms can calculate the total volume of vegetation with centimeter-level precision.
Seagrasses present a different challenge because they are submerged. These new satellites utilize specific “water-penetrating” bands to map the extent of seagrass meadows in shallow waters. By measuring the density and colour of these meadows from space, scientists can estimate the biomass of the grass and by extension, the organic carbon buried in the sediment beneath them. This digital approach reduces the “margin of error” that currently plagues manual sampling, making blue carbon credits more valuable and “bankable”.
Streamlining Verification and Building Trust
The “Verification” stage of MRV has traditionally been the most expensive part of a carbon project, often creating a “high barrier to entry” for small-scale coastal communities. dMRV, powered by the Geespace and TelePIX constellations, automates much of this verification.
Because these satellites are equipped with onboard AI processors (edge computing), they don’t just take pictures; they process the data in orbit. This means they can transmit verified “carbon results” rather than raw, unorganised imagery. Because the data is digital and can be stored on decentralised ledgers (blockchain), it is tamper-proof.
This transparency is the antidote to “greenwashing”. When a corporation buys a blue carbon credit today, they can access a dashboard that shows live satellite telemetry of the specific mangroves they are protecting. This builds immense trust in the market, attracting the billions of dollars in private capital needed to protect global coastlines.
The Socio-Economic Benefits for Coastal Communities
The marriage of dMRV and satellite technology isn’t just about data; it’s about equity. Most of the world’s blue carbon ecosystems are located in the Global South, often managed by indigenous communities.
By lowering the cost of monitoring and verification, blue carbon satellites allow more of the carbon revenue to flow directly to the communities. When a dMRV system replaces an expensive international consultant, the “overhead” of the project drops significantly. Geespace’s low-cost satellite IoT services costing as little as 10 per cent of traditional satellite communications ensure that even small-scale restoration projects in Southeast Asia or Africa can afford to be part of the global carbon market.
Challenges and the Path Forward
While the 2025 launches have solved many problems, challenges remain. The “air-water interface” continues to be a technical hurdle. Glint from the sun or turbidity (muddiness) in the water can obscure data. However, the integration of Geespace’s IoT network helps solve this: ground-level sensors can “tell” the satellite when the water is clear enough for an accurate scan or provide the ground-truth data needed to calibrate the satellite’s findings.
Additionally, while we can measure above-ground biomass from space, measuring soil organic carbon which makes up most blue carbon stocks still requires some ground-level calibration. The future lies in a “hybrid” dMRV approach: satellites in the sky, sensors in the mud and AI in the middle.
The integration of dMRV and dedicated Blue Carbon Satellites like those from Geespace and TelePIX represents the next frontier in climate technology. By transforming the silent, submerged, and often overlooked coastal ecosystems into measurable, verifiable assets, we are providing the ocean with a voice in the global carbon economy.
These satellites are turning the tide against coastal degradation. They provide the monitoring required to protect what remains, the verification required to fund restoration, and the biomass estimation required to prove that the ocean is indeed our greatest ally in the fight against climate change. As these constellations reach full capacity by the end of 2025, blue carbon will transition from a niche interest to a cornerstone of the global green economy.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached khanwaseem@upm.edu.my.
