Using police seizure data and hyperspectral imagery to estimate the size of an outdoor cannabis industry.

In this paper, we take advantage of aerial police detection data and compare them to an analysis of airborne hyperspectral imagery to estimate the size of outdoor cannabis production in a high density cultivation area located in British Columbia, Canada. The results suggest that law enforcement missed at least 75% of the existing cultivation sites during the operation. Based on this ratio, the total number of cultivation sites in the island/coastal region is estimated at 1772 sites, for a total of 9563–14,663 kg of marketable product. Conservative estimates of street value easily put cannabis as the number‐one cash crop in the region under study. Implications for law enforcement agencies interested about the efficiency of their eradication programs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]