Dr Rowan Fealy (left) and Prof Tim McCarthy conduct research on Lullymore Bog, Co Kildare

Terrain AI: Forging a new era for sustainable land use

A €5 million climate change project, Terrain AI aims to improve our understanding of the impact of human activity on land use and how it relates to climate change

The sun was shining down on the Great Bog of Allen as a research team led by Dr Rowan Fealy and Prof Tim McCarthy set to work on the cut-over bog of Lullymore in County Kildare.

The species-rich grasslands of Lullymore are one of the 27 test beds for Terrain AI, an innovative climate change project co-funded by Microsoft Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland (SIF), and led by Maynooth University.

The project aims to improve our understanding of the interactions between the land and human activities that lead to carbon emissions, and to share with other countries the insights and models developed to help reduce global carbon outputs.

It is also a significant example of collaboration to tackle a common challenge, with researchers joining forces from Teagasc, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, and University of Limerick.

Up to 50 researchers have come together to establish 27 national benchmark sites across the country which are strategically chosen to capture data and profile key habitats from all types of land - grasslands, croplands, forestry, wetlands, to peatlands and urban areas, to ensure a broad representation of land usage.

Data is being captured from satellites, airborne platforms, as well as through in-field instruments for the project.

Dr Rowan Fealy, Principal Investigator on the Terrain AI project, explained the scale and ambition of Terrain AI. “Research in this area to date has focused on individual land use types, or activities relating to a specific sector. This project will integrate insights and data from multiple land types and multiple sectors into a modelling framework that will inform more effective policies to reduce carbon emissions.

“It will also help to inform future land use practices that will achieve reduced carbon outputs, such as precision farming, carbon sequestration of grassland, and new approaches to public transport, or even tree planting in urban areas.”

This project will integrate insights and data from multiple land types and multiple sectors into a modelling framework that will inform more effective policies to reduce carbon emissions

Leveraging extensive existing data sets, along with using the latest multimodal sensing technologies, Internet of Things devices and the Microsoft Azure Cloud, artificial intelligence models will be developed that can inform more effective and sustainable management practices and significant carbon reduction.

While the project will initially focus on test sites in this country, the research aims to help reduce global carbon levels by sharing the insights and models developed with other countries.

With our global population projected to reach 10 billion by 2050, and the need to dramatically cut current global greenhouse gas emissions to meet our international obligations under the Paris Agreement, it’s clear that a collective global response is required, together with a need to safeguard vulnerable habitats and ecosystems.

Prof Tim McCarthy, Co-Principal Investigator, explains: “While the project is capturing data from land types in Ireland, the intention is to design a cloud platform that can use the insights from the Irish findings and be shared with other countries to help them explore land usage and carbon reduction in their own jurisdictions.”

Commenting on the progress the project has made to date, James O’Connor, Microsoft VP International Operations, noted: “A massive challenge for tackling climate change is the lack of accurate carbon measurement. Terrain AI is aiming to provide the most accurate estimates of how carbon is exchanged, as well as a deeper understanding of the effects of human activities on carbon storage and emissions, to enable decision makers to develop more effective climate policies and mitigation strategies.

“In addition, the best way to tackle a common challenge is for organisations across the public and private sectors to come together and harness the power of technology to develop solutions once thought impossible. Terrain AI is using an extensive partnership model, across public and private sector, local and global, academia and industry, to ensure that the project is scalable beyond Ireland in order to help other countries to develop effective climate change strategies, with the ambition of creating a more sustainable world.”

The 50-person interdisciplinary research team comprises computer scientists, agronomists, foresters, earth observation specialists, machine learning engineers, climate change scientists, mathematical modellers, electronic engineers, economists, social scientists and statisticians.