Bringing together AI expertise and scientific systems analysis to see the planet with new eyes.

Human behavior affects our Earth and the life that it sustains every day. As our society has evolved, our actions have given rise to climate change, economic disparities between nations, a decline in the biodiversity of the entire planet and more. We may see these as independent systems, while in fact they are deeply connected.

Teams at SAS and IIASA asked, “What if we could predict how change in one system might ultimately affect another?” With millions of new sources of digital images collected every day and the explosive growth of computational and computer vision capabilities, we can expand our understanding of the health of our planet in unprecedented ways.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Research

IIASA is an independent, international research institute that conducts policy-oriented applied systems analysis research into issues that are too large or complex to be solved by a single country or academic discipline – global change issues that affect our sustainability.

Approach

IIASA’s approach uses AI and crowdsourcing to make sense of large-scale, complex interactions in our rapidly changing world to identify unexpected links between earth system dynamics and human-induced transformations, such as pollution, climate change, diseases, poverty, land-use choices and deforestation.

Outcome

The findings provide governments, aid organizations and the private sector a continuous feed of timely, reliable intelligence to apply effective measures and policies against irreversible and transformative earth system disturbances.

Using AI for Good.
This is our chance to do more than humanly possible.

Millions of satellite images are providing data scientists with an opportunity to see the world from a new perspective. With artificial intelligence, scientists can rapidly review, process and interpret meaningful ecosystem changes, resulting in closer monitoring, better early warning systems and rapid responses on the ground.

Learn more about the approach

Would you like to continue to support scientists in developing technology to tracks the systems of our Earth? You can download IIASA’s crowdsourcing app, Picture Pile, to find even more fascinating projects.