All case studies
Case studyInsurance6 Oct 2026 · 2 min read

Three Italian assets, each read against its own history

A warehouse changes almost never, a vineyard changes every season. Read against their own previous three years, a warehouse, a solar farm and a vineyard all sat within their usual range, and a second read returned the same figures.

3 of 3assets read within their own quiet range, with the same figures on a repeat read
Assets
Warehouse, solar farm, vineyard
Places
Bologna, Montalto di Castro, Montalcino
Last looks
26 to 29 Sep 2026
Baseline
Each asset's own previous three years
Status
3 of 3 within range
Product
Asset status check

The problem

A portfolio team holding hundreds of assets needs to know which ones changed since the last look, so that site visits go where they are needed.

What we did

Each asset read from Sentinel-2 over a recent window and set against the same window in each of its own previous three years, with radar printed beside it.

The result

All three assets read within their own quiet range, a second read on another day gave the same figures, and none of them needs a visit this round.

01

Overview

Portfolios are mixed. An insurer's or a lender's book holds warehouses next to farmland next to energy sites, and each kind of ground behaves differently from one month to the next. A rule that works for a roof flags every vineyard at harvest, and a rule tuned for a vineyard misses a roof that has come off.

This case reads three assets in Italy with the asset status check: a warehouse near Bologna, a solar farm near Montalto di Castro and a vineyard near Montalcino. The footprints were drawn by us at real locations. It is one of our own test cases.

02

The challenge

A portfolio manager needs one question answered across the whole book: which assets changed beyond what is normal for them. The answer decides where the site visits and the follow-up calls go this quarter.

The difficulty is the word normal. A solar farm should read flat, a warehouse almost flat, a vineyard anything but. Judged by one threshold, the vineyard is either always flagged or the warehouse is never flagged.

03

What we did

Each asset was read from Copernicus Sentinel-2 over a recent window before and after the reading date. The share of its ground that moved was then compared with the same windows in each of the asset's own previous three years. That range is the asset's quiet range: how much this ground usually changes at this time of year.

An asset reads within its quiet range or above it. Sentinel-1 radar is printed beside each read as a second line that does not depend on cloud. The read was then repeated on a different day.

Three assets in northern and central Italy: a warehouse near Bologna, a vineyard near Montalcino and a solar farm near Montalto di Castro.
Three assets in northern and central Italy: a warehouse near Bologna, a vineyard near Montalcino and a solar farm near Montalto di Castro.
04

What the record showed

Asset Status Last clear look
Warehouse, Bologna Within its quiet range 29 September 2026
Solar farm, Montalto di Castro Within its quiet range 26 September 2026
Vineyard, Montalcino Within its quiet range 26 September 2026

All three assets read within their own quiet range. The repeat read on a different day returned the same three figures to four decimal places.

The vineyard is the useful one to look at. Late September is harvest in Montalcino, when the canopy is changing week by week. Read against its own Septembers, it sat where it usually sits.

05

What it means

For a portfolio team the record dates each look and states each asset's own range, so a status means the same thing on a roof and on a vine. These three can wait, and the visits go where something moved.

The same check reads up to 60 assets in one run, from a GeoJSON file, a shapefile, a KML or a CSV of points with your own references. Each asset keeps its history in the register, so the next run updates the same rows rather than starting again.

Run this on your own ground

Draw an area of interest, pick the dates, and the same analysis runs against the archive over your sites.

References

  1. Axine Labs (2026). Dated records for claims and portfolios. Three live runs, section 3.
  2. European Space Agency. Copernicus Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 missions. sentinels.copernicus.eu