New satellite data analysis linked to eco insight
A new project backed by Horizon 2020 is translating satellite data streams into novel ‘essential biodiversity variables’ by integrating ground-based observations.
The ‘BACI’ transdisciplinary project is expected to offer new insights into the functioning and state of ecosystems and biodiversity, enabling the user community to detect abrupt and transient changes of ecosystems and quantify the implications for regional biodiversity. Other key elements are attributing ecosystem transformations to societal transformations and developing a prototype early warning system for detecting disturbances at the interface of land ecosystems and atmosphere.
The project sees the integration of space and ground data to unravel new and fundamental relationships between space observations and ecosystem status. Modern machine-learning tools will be key to this effort, allowing for an effective exploitation of European data and deriving new essential ecosystem variables – in particular, novel essential biodiversity variables. These variables will in turn enable users to more easily interpret observed ecosystem and biodiversity changes.
A second component of BACI consists of building a system that automatically detects critical transitions in ecosystems and attributes these to transitions in the societal system. One of the goals is identifying hotspots of change within selected key regions in Europe and Africa, all of which are undergoing different societal-ecological transformations that might themselves be attributable to environmental change.
The BACI project brings together ten leading research and data processing institutions with the intention of contributing to international efforts to advance the monitoring of key properties required for an improved understanding of biodiversity patterns and transformations, as well as ecosystem functional properties. The project is co-ordinated by the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Germany.
