Vibrant Planet at the Planet’s Largest Meeting of Earth Scientists

Each December, like migrating geese, researchers from around the world attend the globe’s largest meeting of earth and space scientists– the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Convening ~27,000 attendees, AGU covers a dizzying array of current hot science topics, ranging from processes governing earth’s systems to planetary and deep space science. And this year, Vibrant Planet scientists joined the flock to present our own cutting-edge research. At the event, our machine learning team presented our ground-breaking new machine learning (ML) model for vegetation structure, VibrantVS. Meanwhile, our applied scientists debuted science showing the impacts of fire and forest management on key hydrologic processes that impact humans, including debris flow and sedimentation. And finally, we debuted a lifecycle assessment to more comprehensively calculate embodied carbon in forests.

Presentation 1: VibrantVS leads the industry in accurate canopy height predictions

Our vegetation structure model, VibrantVS, represents a major improvement for canopy height models (CHMs) in forests in the western US. VibrantVS predicts key forest attributes that matter for forest management. It predicts canopy height with greater accuracy than other comparable models across all eco-regions in the western US, including Landfire, Meta, and ETH Zurich. VibrantVS’s accuracy also improves how our platform segments landscapes, like the Wildfire Crisis Landscape and others we work with, into management-relevant ecological units. With this industry-leading canopy prediction accuracy, the model allows for more realistic estimates of biomass and other forest structure metrics, and enables feasible forest treatments to reduce fire risk in our planning platform, shortening the time to decision, implementation, and delivering high-impact wildfire risk mitigation projects. See our AGU poster on VibrantVS here, and read the pre-print white-paper (in preparation for peer review) here.

Presentation 2 and 3: How land management decisions can benefit forests and drinking water alike

On the water front, Vibrant Planet’s applied scientists are making big advances in understanding the hydrologic consequences of megafires. Additionally, they have released science that helps predict which forest treatments can mitigate water-related risks. Our teams shared both of these advances at AGU. 

One key impact from megafires to water resources is the risk of erosion and sedimentation to high-value waterbodies such as public drinking water sources. The team presented a process to map areas at high risk of post-fire erosion that are likely to deliver sediment to high-value waterbodies, and prioritize these areas for treatments in our platform (see AGU poster here). 

The team also presented work that quantified the effectiveness of forest treatments on reducing the likelihood and size of debris flows. Before and after treatments, they predicted the probability and volume of debris flow derived from the USGS’s landslide hazards program equations (see AGU poster here).

Together, this work will strengthen Vibrant Planet’s platform, helping land managers optimize how many acres within a watershed, and where, to prioritize treatment. For example, this research, embedded into our platform, can help land managers plan a prescribed burn or thinning in a forest near a stream that provides drinking water, and see the increases in that area’s resilience to a future megafire. The risk of sedimentation reduces, and land managers are more likely to protect a public water supply. Finally, the platform will also help land managers gauge the benefits to biodiversity. For example, trout and salmon that use the same stream as habitat and are sensitive to sedimentation, are also more protected in the face of wildfire risk.

Presentation 4: Supply chain monitoring and reporting for our forests 

Finally, forest data scientist Dr. David Diaz presented findings on quantifying, monitoring, and reporting forest carbon levels, designed for the timber management industry. He recognized that increasingly, consumers are motivated to understand how products impact climate resilience and carbon storage in specific working forests, and as a result, wood producers need better data to explain their product impacts. 

In partnership with Vibrant Planet Data Commons and Ecotrust, Diaz is leading the technical development of a forest monitoring and reporting system that will expand from the west coast to cover the contiguous USA, providing actionable information on carbon stocks, timber output, and several forest resilience and sustainability metrics evolve over time at high spatial resolution. This approach has been designed to fix a blindspot in forest product life cycle assessments that incorrectly claim all forests in North American and Europe are exactly carbon neutral. The results will more accurately show real impacts and benefits attributable to forest products and climate-smart forest management, attributing clearer value for wood products and their markets. (Read the presentation) 

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under agreement number NR233A750004G042. Work under this agreement is led by Sustainable Northwest in partnership with Climate Smart Wood Group, Ecotrust, Northwest Natural Resource Group, Pierce Conservation District, Trout Mountain Forestry, Vibrant Planet Data Commons, Vibrant Planet Public Benefit Corporation, and Washington Conservation Action.

The science that strengthens our platform and planet 

This work is not only significant for the scientific community, but also strengthens our platform, helping our users project-plan with better precision and depth. With VibrantVS, our platform is more accurately predicting vegetation structure and landscape attributes than any other industry benchmark model, giving users a best in class view of the area they manage. And with a more comprehensive view of how land management options can cascade into essential assets like drinking water, our platform can be used to help land managers make plans that build more resilient systems for both people and the planet. 

An active voice in the wildfire risk science community 

Scientific meetings like AGU are just one of the ways we share our science at Vibrant Science. We strongly believe in open, transparent science, and our many PhD scientists contribute to that process by acting as peer reviewers, committee members for graduate students, and collaborators on a wide range of research grants. Across these applications, our scientists contribute advanced statistical computing capabilities as well as deep expertise in ecological and fire sciences. 

Learn more about the science we’ve made open at the Vibrant Planet Data Commons, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that hosts and commissions open science focused on community and ecosystem resilience to wildfire and climate change. We collaborate with Vibrant Planet Data Commons to develop and share publicly available scientific data and insights. Learn more.