Google’s REDD Initiatives

Rebecca Moore, Google.org

DaveDay
Forest Thau,
4, Google.org
December 5, 2010 1
June 20, 2011 Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011
 Google.com

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 Technology Driven Philanthropy
Global Challenges Google’s Strengths
Climate change Data management, processing,
Pandemic disease storage & delivery.
Poverty Making things simple, at scale.

3 Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

Three REDD-Related Initiatives

o Android + Open Data Kit for Data Collection

o Fusion Tables for Data Storage and Analysis

o Earth Engine for Deforestation Monitoring

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

Android and Open Data Kit

Web-integrated mobile
phones
for field data collection

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

National Forest Inventory Form

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 Paper: The Good
• Inexpensive
• Generally available
• Durable
• Low power
• High contrast
• Familiar
• Fun

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 Paper: The Bad
• Copying errors
• Validation not automatic
• Data languishes
• Bulky
• Slow
• Need extra devices for GPS, images, sound

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 Mobile Data Collection: The Basics
www.android.com and www.opendatakit.org

Eliminate paper forms Collect GPS position

Reduce errors from data Capture media: audio,

entry video, photo, barcode

Automatic validation Share your results

easily

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Android phones+OpenDataKit Training: Tanzania Village Forest Monitors,
TZ Forestry and Beekeeping Division, Jane Goodall Institute, Nov 2009
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Each point: GPS-tagged photo, tree info, plot info, more….
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 …more data collected for each in-situ sample point
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Fusion Tables for In-Situ Data Management
google.com/fusiontables

Something
Like
This
Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011
Mexico’s National Forest Inventory

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

Mexico’s National Forest Inventory

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

Data Access Control

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

Rebecca Moore, Google.org
Forest Day 4, December 5, 2010 1
Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011
 Forest Monitoring Challenges

Should every single country (and scientist) have to solve these on their own?

Satellite Imagery Data

Scientific algorithms

Data Processing

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Earth Engine is….
A platform for remote sensing data mining.

A data catalog and publishing platform

A rapid prototyping system for scientists and analysts

A global-scale algorithm processing center

Making it easy to make global land cover maps.

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011
 Mexico Forest Map

• Finest-scale Mexican Forest Map created to date

• 15,000 hours of computation over one thousand computers
• Elapsed time: less than one day
Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011
What's next?

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011
Data Catalog
Landsat: All 25 years of the
pan-tropics (over 1 million
scenes)

MODIS: Entirety of many

MODIS products

Slope, Elevation,
Atmospheric data

Processed data:
Annual Greenest Pixel Mosaic
NDVI
BAI

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

 earthengine.googlelabs.com

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

 Earth Engine Summary
Non-Goals
• Doing global monitoring ourselves
• Scientific algorithm research

Improve access and use of data and algorithms

• Make these readily available, easier to use, easier to develop

Enhance transparency and reproducibility of results

• Promote open science, public trust in outcomes

Provide Speed and Scale

• Make planet-sized operations easy

Google Earth Engine - earthengine-beta@google.com - June 20, 2011

 Google’s REDD Efforts Summary
• We’re working on REDD in many ways

• Collecting data: Android + Open data kit

• Data storing and processing: Fusion tables
• Developing monitoring systems: Earth Engine

Looking forward to collaborating!

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 Thanks for your attention

http://www.opendatakit.org/

http://google.com/fusiontables

http://earthengine.google.com/

earthengine-beta@google.com

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