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UN flexes tech muscle to fight climate change

by Thomson Reuters Foundation | @magdalenamis1 | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Friday, 22 July 2016 16:50 GMT

Aerial view of a forest fire burning near the village of Bokor, Meranti Islands regency, Riau province, Indonesia March 15, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. REUTERS/Rony Muharrman/Antara

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New software speeds up making of high-resolution satellite images to monitor changes in land use and forest cover

By Magdalena Mis

ROME, July 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - New Google-powered software will help the world tackle problems related to climate change, deforestation and food production, a United Nations agency said on Friday, as it presented its revamped online platform.

Open Foris, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) software, uses high-resolution satellite images to monitor the environment and changes in land use and forest cover.

"We make maps that used to take three years in a week," Erik Lindquist, forestry officer at FAO, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"Rather than preparing data to analyse we can spend time probing the data for answers. We're getting to answers much more quickly," he said on the sidelines of a global forest conference in Rome.

Lindquist said the software was free to use by anyone, from citizens who want to monitor misuse of natural resources to scientists or governments wanting to assess the carbon storage capacity of an area.

"There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the total forest area in the word, how much forest is being lost and gained, how is the land use changing and what are the effects on carbon emissions," Lindquist said.

"The more we use these tools the more we're going to be sure of whether the situation is improving or getting worse."

The software can also be deployed to inspect water resources and even evaluate locations for refugee camps based on availability of firewood for cooking, he said.

Earlier this month, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres launched the MapSwipe app, which also uses satellite images and allows users to map remote, rural regions vulnerable to humanitarian crises.

(Reporting by Magdalena Mis; Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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