I had to dig into this very topic for a previous product that I was managing.
Satellite photography/sensing vs Airplane based vs UAV based vs local vs point detection.
The higher the altitude of your sensor, the larger the swath of land you can sense, but with height comes tradeoffs... cost, weather, satellite availability, latency/how often the satellite is going to be over where you want to sense just to name a few.
Closer to or on the ground means you can get pinpoint accuracy but that comes with increasing cost of labor. Think cost of an airplane or UAV pilot vs an individual walking around with a methane sensor sniffing around flanges, valve stems, etc.
The different approaches are somewhat complimentary. Satellite can you tell you've got a problem area. You can then deploy people on the ground to "zoom in", but if you're operating a ton of sites, you wouldn't start on the ground.
Satellite photography/sensing vs Airplane based vs UAV based vs local vs point detection.
The higher the altitude of your sensor, the larger the swath of land you can sense, but with height comes tradeoffs... cost, weather, satellite availability, latency/how often the satellite is going to be over where you want to sense just to name a few.
Closer to or on the ground means you can get pinpoint accuracy but that comes with increasing cost of labor. Think cost of an airplane or UAV pilot vs an individual walking around with a methane sensor sniffing around flanges, valve stems, etc.
The different approaches are somewhat complimentary. Satellite can you tell you've got a problem area. You can then deploy people on the ground to "zoom in", but if you're operating a ton of sites, you wouldn't start on the ground.