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Risk Assessment

The risk assessment is the key step in the EUDR compliance process. The risk assessment includes a set of criteria defined in Article 10 of the regulation. Open Atlas Vantage-X product performs an assessment for the following criteria:

  • (b) the presence of forests in the country of production or parts thereof;
  • (c)(d)(e) information about Indigenous peoples;
  • (f) prevalence of deforestation or forest degradation in the country of production or parts thereof;
  • (a)(g) and other location-specific information to support that products are deforestation-free and produced in accordance with the relevant legislation in the country of production (e.g. presence of protected areas).

Vantage-X returns detailed information about each of the criteria and a general assessment of the registered plot of land.

Risk Assessment on Vantage-X API​

Risk assessment can be run for one or many previously registered plots of land. To do that, you need to create a job using the POST /jobs/make_job endpoint. In a single job, you can add up to 10000 plots. Each plot can appear only once per job, but you can reuse the same plot across multiple jobs to test different harvest dates or commodity values. The process is asynchronous and the job has multiple statuses:

  • creating - the job has been registered.
  • pending - the job has been successfully created; the risk assessment is in progress.
  • done - the job has been successfully finished, and the risk assessment has been run for all plots.
  • incomplete - the risk assessment is in progress; some of the plots in the job failed to complete the risk assessment.
  • done-with-errors - the job has been finished; some of the plots in the job failed to complete the risk assessment.

The following diagram represents the job status flow:

Information

Please note that if a job is incomplete, any tokens reserved for plots that did not complete the analysis will be reimbursed.

Job Information​

To check the status of the job, the POST /jobs/retrieve_job endpoint should be used. Once the job is done, the job object provides the following information:

  • General information about the job.
  • The analysis information, that includes:
    • Plot and analysis summary
    • Risk level summary
    • Deforestation assessment
    • Protected areas assessment
  • Risk assessment visualisation

The following is an example of the job response:

{
    "username": "Your username",
    "notes": "Optional notes to add",
    "job_id": "b39a190a-cc19-47c8-a545-13be67c79dd9",
    "job_name": "Name of the job",
    "plot_ids": [
        "6d6c9e9d-d06a-43fe-9eb9-c4e4793b9d61"
    ],
    "created_at": "2024-10-28T14:09:14",
    "updated_at": "2024-10-28T14:10:23",
    "company_id": "Name of the company",
    "additional_info": {...},
    "token_cost": 4,
    "harvest_date": "2024-08-31",
    "status": "done",
    "plots": [...],
    "job_visualization_url": [
        "https://..."
    ]
}

General Information about the Job​

The following represents a set of parameters describing the job.

  • username - the username who created the plot.
  • notes - optional notes added to describe the job.
  • job_id - the unique identifier of the job.
  • job_name - the given name of the job.
  • created_at - information about when the job was created.
  • updated_at - information about when the job was updated the last time.
  • company_id - the unique identifier of the company.
  • token_cost - the reserved number of analysis tokens for this job. Token usage always rounds up, so fractional plot areas (for example, 1.5 hectares) reserve 2 tokens.
  • harvest_date - commodity production date inherited from the job payload or the plot.
  • plots - a list of plots the analysis was run. It provides detailed information about the plot and the risk assessment associated with the plot that is described in the analysis object.

Analysis Information​

The information about each assessment criterion is returned in the analysis object for each plot in the form of calculated values.

The following is an example of the JSON response:

{
    "analysisEnd": "2024-08-01",
    "risk_level": "Low",
    "forest_percentage_2020": 78.60163445145147,
    "logging_area": 0.0,
    "forest_area_2020": 2.1427187627696838,
    "risk_reason": "Low deforestation, low forest area",
    "areaHa": 2.726048609196721,
    "deforestation": {
        "total_yearly": {
            "2023": 0.10713593813848418
        },
        "total_yearly_jrc": {
            "2023": 0.04869815369931099
        },
        "total": 0.10713593813848418,
        "total_jrc": 0.10713593813848418
    },
    "deforestation_percentage": 3.9300817225725737
}

Plot and Analysis Summary​

The following fields describe the timeframe of the analysis was run for (starting 31st of December 2020) and the total area of the plot:

  • analysisEnd - the date of the end of the analysis.
  • areaHa - plot area, in hectares.

Risk Level Summary​

Values in risk_level and risk_reason provide a general assessment score for the plot of land. Vantage-X attributes one of three risk ratings to plots through its analysis of their deforestation status:

  • High - total deforestation area detected covers more than 15% of plot area or more than 1 hectare.
  • Medium - total deforestation area detected covers more than 10% and less or equal to 15% of plot area or more than 1 hectare.
  • Low - total deforestation area detected covers less than 10% of plot area or less than 0.5 hectare.

Deforestation Assessment​

Our deforestation detection system combines real-time, high-resolution data with other well-known, publicly vetted deforestation methodologies. Our multi-layered approach allows to detect forest disturbances and degradation with high precision.

Information

More details on the methods used can be found in our white paper.

Once the risk assessment is run for a provided plot of land, the API response provides a summary of forest coverage and deforestation:

  • forest_area_2020 - the area within a plot covered in forests dated 31st of December 2020, in hectares.
  • forest_percentage_2020 - the percentage of the plot area covered in forests dated 31st of December 2020.
  • logging_area - the area with logging detected, in hectares.
  • deforestation_percentage - the percentage of the plot with the detected deforestation.

In addition, a detailed information about deforestation is returned:

  • total_yearly - total area with detected deforestation broken out into years, in hectares.
  • total_yearly_jrc - total area with detected deforestation based on the JRC forest layer broken out into years, in hectares.
  • total - total area with detected deforestation, in hectares.
  • total_jrc - total area with detected deforestation based on the JRC forest layer broken out into years, in hectares.

Protected Areas and Indigenous Peoples Intersection​

Vantage-X Risk Assessment provides detailed spatial checks to assess whether a plot overlaps with protected areas and Indigenous Peoples’ lands — two key compliance requirements under the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

Information

Information about protected areas and Indigenous Peoples’ lands does not currently affect the overall plot risk score. It is provided for informational and transparency purposes only, supporting users in fulfilling broader due diligence obligations under the EUDR.

Protected Area Assessment​

The analysis determines whether the plot intersects with protected areas. OpenAtlas has built an internal proprietary database of protected areas that is regularly updated and is the most complete in the areas of coverage. The service returns detailed information about the plot's proximity to the protected area. It includes detailed information about each intersecting protected area, and the summary:

  • area_name - canonical name of the protected area.
  • local_name - local-language label when it differs from the canonical entry.
  • iucn_category - type according to the IUCN protected area categories.
  • type - classification supplied by the authoritative dataset (e.g. National Park, Área de Proteção Ambiental).
  • overlap_area_ha - overlapping area in hectares.
  • extractive_activity_legality - indicates whether extractive activity is prohibited, limited, permitted, or unknown.
  • extractive_activity_conditions - optional guidance describing the restrictions that apply whenever legality is limited.
  • regulation_names - referenced regulations or decrees supporting the restriction.
  • regulation_urls - URLs for those regulations so compliance teams can review the source text.
  • source_name - authoritative data provider cited directly on each protected area feature. The summary returns information about the total area and the percentage of the plot's area overlapping with all protected areas. It now also exposes most_restrictive_extractive_activity_legality inside protected_area_overlap_summary, allowing you to quickly understand the strictest rule that applies across every overlapping protected area.

In addition, to ensure that the information is conclusive and verifiable, the source metadata is included in the analysis: name of the data producer and the data creation date / data_version for each dataset snapshot. All extractive-activity attributes are validated against the authoritative regulation entries before they are surfaced in the API.

Information

Please note, that the coverage is not yet global. The team is expanding the coverage rapidly, and the delivery of the relevant to the EUDR data coverage is within the regulation enforcement timeline.

Indigenous Peoples Assessment​

The assessment also checks if the plot intersects with territories of Indigenous Peoples. This supports EUDR Articles 10(c), (d), and (e), ensuring plots are not located on land with unresolved or unacknowledged Indigenous rights. For each intersecting territory, the service returns:

  • name - name of the Indigenous group or community.
  • government_acknowledged - a boolean indicating whether the territory is officially recognized by the national government (true or false).
  • land_status - the legal or customary classification of the territory (e.g. community).
  • overlap_area_ha - overlap area in hectares.

As with the protected areas, a summary is provided for the total overlapping area and percentage of the plot that intersects with Indigenous territories.

Source metadata is included for transparency and traceability:

  • Name of the data producer.
  • Date of data creation.

Analysis Runs​

Every job produces an analysis_run record per plot, capturing the configuration (harvest_date, commodity, and check type) used for that specific execution. This enables running the same plot multiple times and tracking historical results.

  • List runs for a plot with GET /analysis-runs?plot_id={{plot_id}}. The plot_id query parameter is required.
  • Retrieve a specific run with GET /analysis-runs/{{analysis_run_id}}. The identifier combines the run UUID, plot ID, and check type.

These endpoints allow you to audit previous assessments, compare outcomes between configuration changes, and confirm that each plot has only one run per job.