Predicting and Preventing Peatland Fires: Aalto University Develops Groundbreaking Neural Network Model ‘FireCNN’

August 27, 2023 / activist360

Military might. Army officers try to extinguish fires in peat land areas, outside Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan. Photo by Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR.

Aalto University researchers have developed a neural network model that can predict peatland fires in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The model performs consistently well, with ranges about the medium values of 95% for accuracy, and 78% for precision.

FireCNN, First-Ever Model Capable of Predicting Future Fire Locations

The researchers developed ‘FireCNN’, the first-ever model that can accurately predict the locations of future fires. FireCNN uses a type of machine learning algorithm called CNN (convolutional neural network) to analyze various factors that can predict fire occurrences (e.g., weather conditions, land use) before the start of fire season. The model allows researchers to test how different land management and restoration strategies, such as blocking canals, reforestation, and converting land to plantations, might impact the number of fires in the future without any bias. Researchers also simulated the effects of ongoing deforestation, converting swamp forests into degraded scrublands and plantations, to understand its potential impact on future fires.

The Focus of the Research

Indonesian peatlands face recurrent fires due to human-induced degradation, increasing recurrent fires since the late 1990s. These fires release CO2, equivalent to 30% of global fossil fuel emissions in 2020, and negatively impact the environment, economy, public health, agriculture, and social structure. In 2015, this resulted in a loss of over $16 billion to the Indonesian economy. Despite prohibitions, most ignitions are anthropogenic, started for agricultural expansion.

The investigation focused on the ex-Mega Rice Project (EMRP) area in central Kalimantan, Borneo, which has the highest density of peatland fires in Southeast Asia, recurring since 1997 due to logging, oil palm plantation development, and a failed rice cultivation scheme. This scheme inadvertently transformed swamp forests into degraded peatlands by digging 4000 km of drainage canals and clearing 1 million hectares of swamp forest. The area has distinct dry and wet seasons but a consistent mean monthly temperature of 28°C. Fire season hotspots peak around 11,000 but vary significantly yearly.

Study area map. Land cover map showing the whole study area (edge of map) circa 2015 as well as the ex-Mega Rice Project (EMRP) area (black outline). Inset map of Borneo provided by OpenStreetMap. Horton, A.J., Lehtinen, J. & Kummu, M. Targeted land management strategies could halve peatland fire occurrences in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Commun Earth Environ 3, 204 (2022).

Researchers found that converting degraded swamp shrubland to swamp forest or plantations could reduce fire occurrences by 40-55%. Blocking most canals could reduce fire occurrences by 70%. Effective strategies can reduce carbon emissions and enable sustainable ecosystem management.

Reducing peatland fires is essential for global carbon emission reduction, economic productivity, biodiversity safeguarding, and protecting vulnerable communities. However, efforts in Central Kalimantan have been unsuccessful due to corruption, poor governance, and lack of accountability. Previous studies lacked clear links between restoration efforts and future fire reductions.

Hope for the Development of an Early-Warning System

The findings demonstrate the potential impacts of future peatland restoration efforts, providing much-needed evidence for the potential success of these strategies, which may benefit similar projects currently underway. Postdoctoral researcher Alexander Horton noted that while the methodology could apply to other contexts, the model would need retraining on new data. Researchers hope to improve the model’s performance to serve as an early-warning system.

We tried to quantify how the different strategies would work. It’s more about informing policy-makers than providing direct solutions.
—Professor Matti Kummu, study team’s leader

University of Central Florida Researchers Unveil Breakthrough in Greenhouse Gas Recycling

August 13, 2023 / activist360

UCF researchers Richard Blair (left) and Laurene Tetard (right) are long-time collaborators and have developed new methods to produce energy and materials from the harmful greenhouse gas, methane.

In a significant step toward sustainable energy, researchers from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have innovated methods to convert the potent greenhouse gas, methane, into green energy and advanced materials.

Methane, with an impact 28 times greater than carbon dioxide over a century, is a notable contributor to global warming. Its emissions predominantly arise from energy sectors, agriculture, and landfills. Now, UCF’s groundbreaking methods might turn this environmental challenge into an opportunity, as they utilize methane for producing green energy and crafting high-performance materials for smart devices, solar cells, and biotech applications.

Behind these inventions are UFC researchers, nanotechnologist Laurene Tetard and catalysis specialist Richard Blair. Tetard is an associate professor and associate chair of UCF’s Department of Physics. He is also a researcher with the NanoScience Technology Center. Blair is a research professor at UCF’s Florida Space Institute. The two have been collaborating on research projects for the past decade.

Their pioneering technique produces hydrogen from methane without carbon gas emission. Utilizing visible light sources, like lasers or solar energy, and defect-engineered boron-rich photocatalysts, the process emphasizes the advanced potential of nanoscale materials.

Blair highlights the dual benefits: You get green hydrogen, and you remove — not really sequester — methane. You’re processing methane into just hydrogen and pure carbon that can be used for things like batteries.” Traditional methods, Blair notes, produce CO2 along with hydrogen. Their innovation not only tackles methane emissions but also transforms it into valuable hydrogen and carbon. Market applications include possible large-scale hydrogen production in solar farms and methane capture and conversion.

“Our process takes a greenhouse gas, methane and converts it into something that’s not a greenhouse gas and two things that are valuable products, hydrogen and carbon. And we’ve removed methane from the cycle.”
—Richard Blair, research professor at UCF’s Florida Space Institute

Additionally, this technology from Tetard and Blair offers the ability to manufacture carbon structures at nano and micro scales using light and a defect-engineered photocatalyst. Envisioning it as a “carbon 3D printer,” Blair notes the dream is to make high-performance carbon materials from methane.

“It took a while to get some really exciting results,” Tetard says. “In the beginning, a lot of the characterization that we tried to do was not working the way we wanted. We sat down to discuss puzzling observations so many times.”

Countries lacking significant power sources could potentially benefit, requiring only methane and sunlight to leverage the innovation. As Blair summarizes, the process takes a greenhouse menace and turns it into precious, non-polluting commodities.

Asset Managers’ Climate Pledges: Bold Promises or Mere Rhetoric?

August 6, 2023 / activist360

InfluenceMap Asset Managers and Climate Change Report: Climate analysis of the sector’s portfolios, stewardship, and policy influence, August 2023.

Despite the wave of global commitments towards achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, the recent study InfluenceMap Asset Managers and Climate Change Report: Climate analysis of the sector’s portfolios, stewardship, and policy influence by FinanceMap paints another picture. The world’s largest asset managers, controlling an astounding $72 trillion, are falling dramatically short of their ambitious climate pledges.

FinanceMap’s analysis scrutinized the strategies of 45 titan asset management firms. Their threefold criteria encompassed portfolio alignment with climate objectives, effective stewardship of their invested companies, and genuine engagement with sustainable finance policies. The results are concerning: a staggering 95% of portfolios failed to align with the imperative IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario.

The research also revealed that these financial behemoths are holding nearly three times the equity value in fossil fuel enterprises compared to their ‘green’ investments. The definition of ‘green’ here leans on the EU Taxonomy and Bloomberg data. Equally alarming is the 45% dip in top-tier Stewardship asset managers since 2021, those once hailed for their groundbreaking climate stewardship practices.

Though European asset managers, such as Legal & General Investment Management, BNP Paribas, and UBS, demonstrate commendable engagement with their investee companies, their American counterparts present a grim scenario. US firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity Investments have shown declining or consistently low stewardship scores, hinting at a worrying trend in the US’s approach to environmental, social, and governance factors.

Even as these revelations come to light, the irony lies in the fact that 86% of these asset managers are members of at least one industry group that actively oppose the very sustainable finance policies needed for global decarbonization.

Daan Van Acker, FinanceMap’s Program Manager, summarizes the situation aptly: “While they may talk the talk, most asset managers are not walking the walk.”

For access to the report, readers can visit FinanceMap.org.