Nov 20, 2013 | Citizen Science, Environment, Food & Water
By Linda See, Research Scholar, IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program
Researchers estimate we spend 3 billion hours a week on game playing. CC Image courtesy TheErin on Flickr
On a recent rush hour train ride in London I looked around to see just about everybody absorbed in their mobile phone or tablet. This in itself is not that unusual. But when I snooped over a few shoulders, what really surprised me was that most of those people were playing games. I hope this bodes well for our new game, Cropland Capture, introduced last week.
Cropland Capture is a game version of our citizen science project Geo-Wiki, which has a growing network of interested experts and volunteers who regularly help us in validating land cover through our competitions. By turning the idea into a game, we hope to reach a much wider audience.
Playing Cropland Capture is simple: look at a satellite image and tell us if you see any evidence of cropland. This will help us build a better map of where cropland is globally, something that is surprisingly uncertain at the moment. This sort of data is crucial for global food security, identifying where the big gaps in crop yields are, and monitoring crops affected by droughts, amongst many other applications.
Gamification and citizen science
The idea of Cropland Capture is not entirely unique. There are an astonishingly large number of games available for high tech gaming consoles, PCs and increasingly, mobile devices. While the majority of these games are pure entertainment, some are part of an emerging genre known as ”serious games” or ”games with a purpose.” These are games that either have an educational element or through the process of playing them, you can help scientists in doing their research. One of the most successful examples is the game FoldIt, where teams of players work together to decode protein structures. This is not an easy task for a computer to do, but some people are exceptionally talented at seeing these patterns. The result has even led to new scientific discoveries that have been published in high level journals such as Nature.
Jane McGonigal, in her book Reality is Broken (Why Games Make us Better and How They Can Change the World), estimates that we spend 3 billion hours a week alone on game playing, and that the average young person spends more time gaming by the end of their school career than they have actually spent in school. Although these figures may seem alarming, McGonigal argues that there are many positive benefits associated with gaming, including the development of problem-solving skills, the ability to cope better with problems such as depression or chronic pain, and even the possibility that we might live ten years longer if we played games. If people spent just a fraction of this time on “serious games” like FoldIt and Cropland Capture, imagine how much could be achieved.
Since the game started last Friday, 185 players have validated 119,777 square kilometers of land (more than twice the land area of Denmark).
Cropland Capture is easy to play – simply swipe the picture left or right to say whether there is cropland or not.
Get in the game
You can play Cropland Capture on a tablet (iPad or Android) or mobile phone (iPhone or Android). Download the game from the Apple’s App Store or the Google Play Store. For those who prefer an online version, you can also play the game at: http://www.geo-wiki.org/games/croplandcapture/. For more information about the game, check out our videos at: http://www.geo-wiki.org/games/instructions-videos/. During the next six months, we will be providing regular updates on Twitter (@CropCapture) and Facebook.
The game is being played for six months, where the top scorer each week will be crowned the weekly winner. The 25 weekly winners will then be entered into a draw at the end of the competition to win three big prizes: an Amazon Kindle, a smartphone, and a tablet. The game was launched only last week so there is plenty of time to get involved and help scientific research.
Nov 14, 2013 | Environment, Science and Policy
By Aline Mosnier, IIASA Research Scholar
Aline Mosnier
Deforestation and forest degradation contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in developing countries. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) Initiative, launched in 2008 by the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aims to help developing countries prevent such deforestation and degradation. It creates a mechanism that would provide financial compensation to developing countries that make efforts to address these problems. Some funding has started to flow to build REDD+ readiness plans and forest monitoring capacity. However, many methodological issues stand in the way of reaching agreements and attracting enough funding for the initiative to succeed.
One of the core ideas of REDD+ is that payments should be based on results. But particularly in Congo Basin countries, where I recently spent three weeks meeting with stakeholders and policymakers on REDD+ plans and goals, determining results is not an easy task.
How do we measure performance? First, we must agree on a benchmark to which the future efforts can be compared. The simplest benchmark is perhaps just to compare current efforts to the past: using past data has the advantage of being based on facts and consequently less prone to inflation. But for this to work, one has to believe that the past is the best predictor of the future.
The Congo Basin countries have a problem: they have high forest cover and low historical deforestation rates… but fast-growing needs.
Yaounde, Cameron. Photo credit: Aline Mosnier.
The low historical deforestation rates in the Congo Basin countries result from several factors. Some argue that conflicts, unfavorable investment climate, lack of infrastructure, and low levels of economic development have led to a “passive protection” of the forests. But the context is changing. Presidents of the Congo Basin countries have big plans–they want to become emerging countries within the next two decades–and they are looking for new opportunities. Foreign investment projects in mining, oil, agro-industrial plantations, and large-scale agriculture are now flourishing in the Congo Basin, and protected areas are under threat. Local communities could be threatened by expropriation and pollution from large scale projects, but at the same time these communities are also eager to see new employment opportunities.
What does this situation tell us about REDD for the Congo Basin? First, payments for living forests are necessary to avoid deforestation because this is the only way to convince developing countries that forests are valuable. These payments have to benefit both local communities who are living next to the forest, and governments who are making the decisions about large-scale conversion of forests.
Second, if payments are conditional to reduction compared to past deforestation, we can’t expect much from REDD in the Congo Basin countries. If payments are delivered based on lower future deforestation rates and are not underestimated compared to what could be foreseen according to countries development needs, the international community has a chance to make a change.
But this needs trust. Trying to quantify future emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is challenging and undoubtedly involves large uncertainties. However, by engaging with stakeholders to understand the local context while having independent funding, by building the models under the necessary scrutiny and scientific rigor, and by clearly communicating the results to the international community, scientists could play an important role in finding a fair deal to fight against future deforestation.
At IIASA, we are contributing to this objective under our REDD-PAC project by combining land use and systems analysis tools from IIASA, regional expertise of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil and the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) in the Congo Basin, and the experience of UNEP-WCMC on the multiple benefits of REDD+.
Aline Mosnier contributed to work that will be presented at a special session organized by UNEP-WCMC and IIASA at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) at the COP 19th in Warsaw, highlighting the role of land use change models in supporting landscape-scale planning. She recently returned from travels through the Congo Basin, where she met with stakeholders and policymakers.
Nov 7, 2013 | Energy & Climate, Science and Policy
Peter Lemke, head of the Climate Sciences Research Division at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, is an expert on sea ice, a polar explorer, and the Chair of the IIASA Council. In this interview Lemke explains how climate change is affecting the Earth’s polar regions, and talks about a recent winter expedition to Antarctica.
On Monday, 11 November Lemke will give a public lecture on the topic at IIASA in Laxenburg.
Peter Lemke – Credit: Stephanie von Neuhoff (AWI)
How did you get interested in the cryosphere? What drew you to the poles?
When I was a young scientist, I was involved in climate modeling and especially the role of polar regions. For my PhD thesis I worked on sea ice extent data, trying to understand why we see changes.
That was in the late seventies, so it was not really climate change which was driving us, we just wanted to understand the climate system. Polar regions are an important part of the climate system. We tried to understand how they impact the other regions on the globe such as mid-latitudes and even the tropics.
When did you realize that climate change was affecting the polar regions?
Well the globe was already warming when I was starting my research in the mid-1970s. Sea ice was decreasing in extent, and ice was melting on the continents. Year by year, this trend became more significant. By the 1990s it was quite clear that there was a trend which was not just natural variation. The third IPCC report in 2001 just made it clear that man had an impact on the warming; at least a substantial part of it was due to increased greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
A helicopter that was used to measure sea ice during Lemke’s 2013 Antarctic expedition. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
What is happening now?
The changes we see now are even more dramatic than before, especially considering the Arctic sea ice. It hit a record low minimum in 2007 and we thought that this was the ultimate—as low as it would go. But then ice extent went even lower in 2012. While the ice extent this last summer was not quite so low, there is a strong trend in summer extent of sea ice. Our data indicate that it’s not just the extent but the thickness that’s changing. Measurements of sea ice thickness which our institute has performed over the last decade or so show a sharp thinning of the sea ice in the interior of the Arctic: The sea ice has thinned from an average of 2.5 to about 1 meter in only 10 years.
The other thing that is interesting is that the sea ice extent in the Antarctic is not decreasing at the same rate. On the contrary, it’s increasing in extent slightly. The question is of course is the ice mass also increasing, or is it just spreading out and thinning—like a dough that you roll out, getting wider but thinner?
How do you explain the growth in Antarctic sea ice, while Arctic sea ice is declining?
One explanation is that in the Southern Hemisphere the westerly winds are increasing, and through friction this drives the ice towards lower latitudes and the extent is getting a bit bigger. When the ice expands there is open water between ice floes, and it’s still cold enough in winter that ice freezes in the open patches.
There are other physical processes that may be involved, such as the heavy snow cover that blankets the Antarctic sea ice. Sometimes the heavy snow load submerges the ice floe underwater so that the interface of ice and snow is actually below sea level, and seawater drains into the snow and freezes. That may be one process, but there are others that are not really resolved yet.
We don’t yet have the answers to these questions, because there are very few measurements and you cannot deduce snow from satellite remote sensing data, yet. To find out, you have to go there and make measurements yourself. But winter expeditions are very rare. There are very few icebreakers that can actually go into the Antarctic winter into the sea ice. I have participated in four expeditions over the last 25 years: in 1989, 1992, 2006, and now 2013.
Working site during the 2013 Antarctic expedition. The wind chill was often between -50 and -60°C. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
What did you find on your latest expedition?
Most of the data have yet to be analyzed. But from our early results, it looks like that the sea ice mass around Antarctica has increased slightly. Our measurements showed that the sea ice was more extensive, thicker and more densely packed as compared to our 1992 expedition, which was on the same track during the same season.
We have also observed a continuous warming in the deep ocean, which indicates that the warming trend that we see over the last couple decades is continuing. This indicates that the ocean has taken up a large fraction of the heat due to the increased greenhouse effect.
Why should people care what happens in the Arctic or in Antarctica?
Both polar regions are pristine regions not affected by humans as much as lower latitudes. Still you see the effects of mankind there. Once the sea ice is gone in the Arctic, we have lost an entire ecosystem which is adapted to the sea ice. Sea ice is a porous medium, and in the small cavities, there is rich life—tiny algae, crabs, krill—and this ecosystem supports an entire food chain up to the polar bear, whales, penguins that you find depending on which pole you are looking at.
Do you think that IIASA has a role to play in polar research?
IIASA is currently considering a new Arctic initiative, which could involve not just the climate system and the ecosystem but also the human system. Changes in the Arctic are already affecting people living at the coastlines. This coastline is made up of sand and ice, which is thawing. And as the sea ice is retreating, the coastline is now exposed to the increasing waves in the open ocean. Already now villages are already eaten up by the sea. At the same time, hunting grounds are changing for Inuit and other indigenous people who rely on sea ice for hunting. I think that’s something that IIASA can actually look at from a holistic view: human system, ecosystem, climate system.
What is one thing you want people to know?
Well often the poles, especially the Arctic, seem so far away that people don’t think that it is important for their lives. But if you have a polar storm coming from Svalbard, within two days it reaches the German coast, and within 10 days the entire Northern Hemisphere may be affected. The Arctic is only a few days away from us, and conditions that are changing in the Arctic will affect the climate conditions also in our region.
Emperor penguins spotted during Lemke’s 2013 Antarctic expedition. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
Nov 5, 2013 | Alumni, Food & Water
In a new commentary (subscription required) in Nature Geoscience, IIASA researchers Michael Obersteiner, Marijn van der Velde, and colleagues write about the problems facing the world’s food supply as we exhaust our supplies of phosphorus. Projections show that phosphorus supplies could run out in the next 40 to 400 years. In this interview, Obersteiner and van der Velde give more background on the “phosphorus trilemma.”
Fertilizers containing phosphorus are vital for crop production – but phosphorus is limited in availability and growing scarcer.
Why is phosphorus so important?
MV: Phosphorus is essential for life on Earth. It is a key component of DNA and cell membranes, and vital for cellular energy processes. Crops need phosphorus to grow. And to maintain crop production, and to make sure that soils remain productive, we have to add extra nitrogen and phosphorus as fertilizer. This is one of the food security issues in Africa where soils are suffering from nutrient depletion without replenishment.
Where do we get phosphorus and why is that supply in danger?
MO: Phosphorus is ubiquitous in the Earth’s crust. However, most of it is strongly bound in the soil , where plants cannot access it. Modern agriculture (which made human population explode) essentially began when we found ways to extract nitrogen from the air and phosphorus from minerals to make fertilizers for agricultural purposes.
The problem is that minable phosphorus is geographically concentrated in very few places. For example 75% of known reserves are located in Morocco and these reserves are limited. If, for example, political turmoil restricted access to the mines of Morocco, we would be in danger of short-term shortages that could lead to rising food prices or food insecurity in poor countries.
What problems do you expect as phosphorus becomes even more limited?
MO: The biggest problem we face is limited or no access to phosphorus fertilizers by the poor and food insecure.
MV: At the same time, rich countries apply excess fertilizers causing eutrophication to their lakes and rivers, while the poor cannot afford fertilizers.
What can be done about these problems?
MV: More efficient fertilizer application would make fertilizers cheaper to poor farmers, and at the same time help address the environmental problems. But in the long run we need to figure out how to produce food in a way that recycles nutrients at minimum loss rates. (This also includes losses from human excrement!)
To better solve the issues around long-term phosphorus availability and equitable use we also need better data on how much phosphate rock is remaining in the world and where it is located. Countries will need to be persuaded to collaborate on both these issues to ensure equity.
How does IIASA research inform this debate?
MV: In a paper we published earlier this year in PLOS ONE we showed the importance of soil phosphorus and the significant increases in yields that could be achieved in Africa with balanced micro-dosed applications of nitrogen and phosphorus. Available phosphorus in soils is generally low, especially in older weathered soils in the tropics where a lot of the phosphorus can be locked up in iron and aluminum complexes. We are currently investigating what application rates of nitrogen and phosphorus would be optimal for a range of soils and climates. This can then lead to better soil and nutrient management.
MO: In addition researchers in the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases program have been very active in finding solutions to the problem. For example: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/resources/multimedia/Podcasts/Our-Nutrient-World—Wilfried-Winiwarter-on-Reality-.en.html
What should people to know about this issue?
MO: Many things in nature that we like or depend on for our livelihood are substitutable. But phosphorus is in everything we eat and cannot be substituted by any element. If we continue business as usual we will squander this resource and thereby potentially compromising the wellbeing of our daughters and sons.
Further Reading
M. Obersteiner, J. Peñuelas, P. Ciais, M. van der Velde, and I.A. Janssens, 2013. The phosphorus trilemma. Nature Geoscience, 6, 897-898, doi:10.1038/ngeo1990 [COMMENTARY].
M. van der Velde, L. See, L. You, J. Balkovič, S. Fritz, N. Khabarov, M. Obersteiner and S. Wood, 2013.Affordable nutrient solutions for improved food security as evidenced by crop trials. PLoS ONE 8(4): e60075. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060075 [OPEN ACCESS].
Marijn van der Velde is a Research Scholar with IIASA’s Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program
Michael Obersteiner is the leader of IIASA’s Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program.
Oct 29, 2013 | Energy & Climate, Science and Policy
This post was originally published on the recharge.green blog. IIASA is a partner in the new project, which focuses on the potential for renewable energy in the Alps.
When I think of an alpine forest, I think of the towering cedar trees that blanket the Cascade mountains near my native Seattle, with trunks so broad you can’t reach your arms around them. I think of the shadowy quiet that envelops me as I wander through a mountain forest in my new home in Austria. I think of the scent of pine needles and the bounce of my feet on a trail softened by forest litter. The value of a mature forest to people like me who love the outdoors—its recreational value—is impossible to put into numbers.
We can, however, calculate the effects of different styles of forest management on more quantifiable criteria. We can determine how much carbon dioxide is taken up from the atmosphere and stored by long-growing forests. And we can estimate how much bioenergy we can sustainably produce by managing forests for biomass harvesting.
This is exactly what IIASA scientists have done for their first efforts in the recharge.green project. IIASA’s role in the project is to use our modeling expertise to explore the various possibilities for renewable energy expansion in the Alps. We are also looking at the tradeoffs and benefits of the different possible scenarios and ecosystem services (ESS). As a first step, researchers Florian Kraxner, Sylvain Leduc , Sabine Fuss (now with MCC Berlin), Nicklas Forsell, and Georg Kindermann used the IIASA BeWhere and Global Forest (G4M) models look at the tradeoffs between bioenergy production or carbon storage in alpine forests.
These graphs show the first results for recharge.green from IIASA’s BeWhere and G4M models, optimizing the location of bioenergy plants to maximize either carbon sequestration (top) or bioenergy production (bottom). The gradiant of green colors shows the amount of carbon storage over the landscape, while the red boxes (and according gradient in red) show the harvesting intensity in different harvesting areas.
“Managing forests optimally for bioenergy requires more intensive management,” says Kraxner. That means shorter rotations where trees are cut more often. Such a forest is made up of smaller trees that may look more like “close-to-nature plantations” than an old-growth forest. In contrast, managing forests for carbon storage means letting the trees grow older, also good for biodiversity and environmental preservation.
In their analysis, Kraxner and the team compared two management strategies: restricting bioenergy production to a small land area, and managing it intensively, or spreading bioenergy over a large land area but managing less intensively over the whole area. They found that the same amount of bioenergy could be produced by managing a small amount of land area intensively for bioenergy production. This more intensive management on a small area of land would free up a larger land area for preservation and protection or other special dedication to ecosystem services.
“Both methods are sustainable,” says Kraxner, “but the optics are different. Intensification can be a good solution to provide renewable energy and at the same time preserve biodiversity and the more intangible values of mature forests.”
What do you think? What should our priorities be in managing Alpine forests?
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