AI2Peat: All-Ireland, AI-enhanced Peatland Monitoring Platform
- Challenge:Future Digital Challenge
- Co-Funders:European Union
- Phase:Prize
- Team Lead:Dr Corrado Grappiolo, University College Dublin
- Team Co-Lead:Dr Eoghan Holohan, University College Dublin
- Societal Impact Champion:Dr Shane Regan, National Parks and Wildlife Service
Funders
Funded by: European Union & Government of Ireland
More than 20% of Ireland is covered by peatland, which is a critical store of carbon as well as supporting rich and highly biodiverse ecosystems. Whilst these have developed over thousands of years, in only the last couple of centuries they have experienced accelerated deterioration from a range of human impacts. Thankfully, there is now a renewed interest in preserving and restoring these landscapes. As peatlands are central to Ireland’s climate action goals, there is an urgent need for accurate, nationwide monitoring of these fragile environments.
Our solution will leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) along with domain expert knowledge from the field to assess and continually monitor Ireland’s peatlands in a structured manner. Currently, the extent of Irish peatlands and their inaccessibility have hampered efforts to map their health on a large scale. However, AI provides the opportunity to augment the efforts of human experts, through the use of complementary data sources (e.g. satellite imagery) combined with on-site measurements, as well as optimally guiding the efforts of data collection on the ground. The resulting monitoring platform will be available to everyone from stakeholders to government, industry partners and the general public.