Utilizing Virtual Observatory Technology to Improve the Frequency and Coverage of Tropical Forest Monitoring (ASTROTROP)

There is still great uncertainty about the extent and rate of change of key terrestrial phenomena such as forest change, biodiversity loss and desertification. For even though Earth observation satellites have collected data continually at global scale since 1972, the promise of Earth observation has not been realized, since science has not found a way to convert the data contained in large numbers of satellite images into global information that can be analysed by scientists.

One reason for this problem is that global environmental phenomena comprise multiple attributes, e.g. area, carbon density and species richness etc., each studied by a different scientific discipline. The disciplines rarely collaborate and lack technologies to combine their digital information sets operationally even if they wanted to cooperate. Astronomy faced a similar challenge in the 1990s when combining data collected at different wavelengths, e.g. in optical and radio bands, was difficult if not impossible. To tackle the problem it developed the concept of a Virtual Observatory (VO) - a technology layer that sits between the user and astronomy data archives and provides homogeneous access regardless of data type or storage, thus enabling comprehensive and highly focused research that was previously impossible. The UK has played a leading role in developing the VO through AstroGrid technology funded by STFC.

In recent years there have been calls to establish a family of global environmental observatories to continuously monitor forest change, biodiversity loss and desertification. This project will evaluate the feasibility of using or adapting Astrogrid and later VO technology, developed by a consortium led by the University of Edinburgh, for use in global environmental observatories. Since much of the design of VO technology is generic there is a high probability that it can be used for this purpose. The project will focus on mechanisms needed for a pan-tropical forest observatory, and bring together the Astrogrid community with a 54 member network of UK tropical forest researchers (TROPGLOBE), coordinated by the University of Leeds, who need the information that such an observatory will provide.

This project will begin with a detailed six months study, scoped by an opening conference. The evaluation report will be discussed at a workshop and in the second year of the project there will be trials of prototype software deemed suitable. The project will also allow scientists from different disciplines to collaborate in overlaying their own sets of information on particular forest attributes with regional forest area maps. In the first year information layers will be exchanged via the internet, but in the second year the layers will be superimposed virtually, using adapted AstroGrid software. Astronomers and global change scientists in the same university will also establish joint groups to engage in dialogue and joint trials of software.

This unique collaboration between the UK astronomical and global change communities will address the CLASP challenge areas of automated ecosystem monitoring and monitoring carbon emission sources and sinks, and the CLASP technology gaps of Earth observation and networks of sensors and data systems. It will lead to a quantum leap in Earth observation technology because it will enable scientists to greatly improve their estimates of the global extent and rate of change of tropical forest carbon and biodiversity stocks, and other terrestrial phenomena, and thereby provide a more robust basis for policy making.

This project will have a major impact in the challenge area of automated ecosystem monitoring, by demonstrating how global environmental observatories, using Virtual Observatory technology, could convert the automated collection of data by satellite sensors, and automated and manual measurement of ground data, into a continuous flow of information that can be used for scientific analysis, and the production of global environmental knowledge that can inform policy-making. This will enable the UK to play a leading role in establishing global environmental observatories, just as the University of Manchester and University of Cambridge led the way in pioneering radio astronomy after World War II. The prototype pan-tropical forest observatory whose functions are simulated here will, if made operational, tackle the other challenge area of monitoring carbon emission sources and sinks.

To maximize impact the project will link major beneficiaries, the TROPGLOBE network of UK tropical forest researchers, who need better global information on tropical forests and can contribute their own data to ensure this, directly to members of the UK astronomical community, whose Virtual Observatory technology can facilitate this. Besides having substantial experience in very large area monitoring, astronomers developed this technology to tackle similar constraints to those currently limiting global change research, including lack of cooperation between scientists from different disciplines and insufficient integration of data collected by different sensors.

However, tropical forest researchers will only benefit in the long-term if an organization can provide the computer facility to host the virtual pan-tropical forest observatory and so we see STFC as a primary beneficiary of this project. It could host the pan-tropical forest observatory, e.g. on its new CEMS computer cluster. Interested colleagues from a number of STFC facilities are members of the TROPGLOBE network. The great improvement in the accuracy of scientific knowledge on tropical forests will then indirectly benefit government departments and conservation bodies who are also involved as stakeholders.

The project is also engaging with the commercial sector, including Delta T Devices, DMCI International, Ecometrica, and Skye Instruments, in order to develop spin-offs from the adapted global environmental observatory technology for use in national forest monitoring in the UNFCCC REDD+ scheme, and develop new ground sensors to integrate with global monitoring.

Other indirect benefits of this project could be extremely high, because global environmental observatories will remove a critical obstacle in the chain from satellite data to information on policy makers' desks, and greatly increase the value added to investment in the world satellite industry owing to the much greater use of satellite images.

Indirect beneficiaries include the international scientific networks in which members of the TROPGLOBE network participate, e.g., AfriTRON; British Ecological Society Tropical Ecology Group; Centre for Tropical Forest Science; East Asia and Pacific Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network; GEM: Group on Earth Observations Forest Carbon Tracking Project; International LTER Network; IUCN Species Survival Commission; NERC SAFE project: RAINFOR; TRY (Global Plant Traits Network); UK Global Forest Monitoring Consortium; and the World Forest Observatory network. AstroGrid was a founder member of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance. The budget allows 1-2 overseas scientists to attend each meeting. Also benefiting will be policy makers in the UK Government, and in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and UN Convention on Biological Diversity, who need better knowledge on the state of the global environment. Policymakers will be invited to the opening and closing conferences.