Wednesday

The world is currently facing the huge challenges of climate change, plastic pollution, industrial and domestic waste pollution, and the unintended impacts of natural resource exploitation by humans on the environment. As a result 60% of wildlife has disappeared over the past 30 years; putting us in the 6th mass extinction event in the history of life on Earth (the 5th being the end of the dinosaurs). We're also in an era where we have unprecedented potential to understand and address these challenges - and the need to do so has never been more urgent.

By applying techniques from astrophysics, computer science, machine learning, engineering and other technical disciplines, the astro-ecology research group are helping to address these challenges. Working in collaboration with conservationists, ecologists and environmental groups, we are building drone-based remote sensing systems to give us an unprecedented view on our planet. By applying the multi-wavelength approach often taken in astrophysics, we can monitor endangered animals more efficiently, catch poachers, and find people in need of rescue at sea or in disaster areas. We are also building systems to combat climate change by locating underground fires (a larger source of carbon than the global transport sector), and address environmental pollution through drone-based spectroscopy. I will give an overview of the project and discuss how we can use astrophysics to solve real world problems.