How thermal intelligence will shape the future of global biodiversity

In our age of rapid technological progress, our planet's biodiversity is under threat like never before. Estimates suggest that Earth is home to anywhere from 5.3 million to one trillion species, yet this vast array of life is dwindling at an alarming rate. Studies indicate that species are disappearing up to 1,000 times faster than they did before humans emerged some 6 million years ago.

At the heart of this crisis lies our global food system, which serves as a primary driver behind the ongoing loss of biodiversity. With this being said, studies show that agriculture alone poses a threat to 86% of the 28,000 species currently at risk of extinction. This sobering reality is reflected in the stark fact that the rate of species extinction today surpasses the average rate observed over the past 10 million years. As stewards of this planet, we must confront the root causes of this ecological crisis to protect the rich tapestry of life on Earth. Research over the past decades shows a strong link between global economic growth and biodiversity loss. Specifically, as countries' GDP grows, it often leads to changes in land use, more intense natural resource exploitation, and city expansion.  

Goal 15 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals focuses on protecting, restoring, and promoting the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems. This includes halting biodiversity loss, combating desertification, and ending deforestation. Forests are essential for biodiversity, carbon storage, and maintaining water and air quality. However, they are under threat from agriculture, livestock grazing, and illegal logging, with an estimated 10 million hectares lost in 2020. Big cooperations have biodiversity programs in place, aiming to enhance biodiversity both above and below the ground, promoting a richer variety of animal life, better soil health, and overall productivity. These programs require accurate monitoring to establish their real impact on the natural environment and validate their transition towards more sustainable activities. This monitoring often relies on the development of suitable technologies like satellite thermal based remote sensing.

What exactly is biodiversity?

Biodiversity describes the enormous variety of life on Earth. It refers to humans and all species of living organisms in one region or ecosystem including micro-organisms, plants, and animals. Unfortunately, Earth’s biodiversity is threatened as human activities become increasingly disruptive of the natural ecosystems and have caused an unprecedented rise in the rate of species extinction.  

Deforestation as a threat to biodiversity

Forests host some of the planet's highest concentrations of biodiversity. The forests of the Brazilian Amazon, for example, provide crucial ecosystem services, such as oxygen supply and carbon sink, playing a vital role in global warming prevention, and recycling water for rainfall in Brazil and neighboring countries. They also support local human populations and cultures. However, deforestation in this region has fluctuated with economic cycles, peaking in 2004 at 27,772 km²/year, decreasing to 4,571 km²/year by 2012, and then rising again to 7,989 km²/year in 2016.

Deforestation in the Amazon basin is driven by various factors, including agricultural and ranching activities, land speculation, securing land titles, government incentives, logging, mining, and infrastructure projects. The main replacements for forest are soybeans and cattle ranching, boosted by export markets. Converting forests to cattle pastures offers often little benefit to rural populations, is unsustainable, and sacrifices the forest's valuable resources – at the highest cost: that of biodiversity ecosystem services.

Deforestation in rainforests has major negative effects on ecosystem health. It reduces the plant surface’s ability to dissipate heat and absorb sunlight, which forests do better than exposed soil or agricultural fields. Additionally, deforestation hinders the canopy's role in moving water from the land to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration (ET), which cools the canopy and helps form clouds and precipitation. As a result, deforestation disrupts the water cycle, leading to soil drying and degradation, increased heat transfer, and reduced atmospheric moisture from ET, reinforcing this harmful cycle.

However, big cooperations are committing to more sustainable supply chains and practices to help preserve the forest's valuable resources, including its biodiversity and ecosystem services. Many companies are aiming for "net zero" deforestation by tracing their supply chains to understand the sources of their commodities.

Case Study

Having a closer look at the Brazilian Amazon Forest, deforestation, forest degradation and changes in land use, especially for agriculture, have collectively contributed for 23% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally from 2007 to 2016.  

In the case study below showing Cujubin, LST level is presented to illustrate the warming related to deforested areas as contrasting from a biodiverse forest, through the impact it has on the water cycle. Specifically, the image below shows that where rainforests have been cleared, the LST is significantly higher than in the nearby biodiverse rainforests. The various years exhibited a similar rainforest temperature in July, while the temperature of deforested area varied greatly.

Restoration requires new approaches, and thermal data is key

Restoration projects mainly aim to establish diverse native vegetation. Yet, such projects face various monitoring challenges, especially when located in remote areas. In-situ sampling, commonly used for monitoring, becomes impractical as projects grow in size and complexity. Remote sensing offers a cost-effective alternative, with satellite imagery aiding in assessing overall ecosystem dynamic and vegetation cover. Thermal imaging specifically has potential for monitoring key ecosystem traits like canopy temperature and water stress, offering valuable insights for restoration efforts.

Land surface temperature (LST), derived from infrared satellite imagery, plays a key role in monitoring restoration efforts and evaluation ecosystem health and changes.

How can we achieve monitoring biodiversity globally? constellr's LST helps predict biodiversity patterns more accurately.

The goal of constellrs data is to enable and support sustainable resource management by providing remote sensing LST data to monitor biodiversity, water use, cropping systems, and collective landscape actions. In summary, these applications aim to create a remote sensing-based monitoring system that protects the health of forests and their surrounding ecosystems, protecting natural capital of planet Earth.  

As biodiversity loss is one of the most critical planetary boundaries that we have already exceeded, time is of the essence. We must start valuing natural capital appropriately to transition to a more sustainable economic model which recognises nature’s importance to the economy and our well-being. This will require the system to change, ensuring that businesses account for their environmental impact, promoting practices that preserve biodiversity and support long-term sustainability.

Satellite-based LST provides global surface temperature data allowing us to monitor millions of hectares in a single day. These insights cover highly monitored areas as well as remote regions with low accessibility. This method delivers reliable, continuous data without the need for field sensor installation and maintenance, supporting effective environmental monitoring at scale.

For more information about our products and to book a demo, please visit https://www.constellr.com/

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