Making the Invisible Visible

A St. Louis faith and advocacy organization, Metropolitan Congregations United, helped scientists bring together a group of churches willing to install air quality monitors to gather data on pollution and call for solutions.

The city of Louisville, built and sustained largely by pollution-inducing industries such as rubber factories and bourbon distilleries, is grappling with how to make the city air cleaner. The novel Air Louisville study integrated a partnership between a technology healthcare startup and a government-sponsored initiative that tracked incidence of asthma in different areas of the city. The results are already leading to healthier residents, but it is also just the starting point for long-term change.

After nearly back-to-back coral bleaching events made headlines internationally, there's been an increased awareness around the need to save what's left of the species. The newest strategy being implemented has to do with genetic technology that helps scientists determine via DNA markers which types of coral may be the most weak and the most resilient. “Scientists’ goal right now should be to take the steps necessary to optimize coral species so that each successive generation is more resilient,” explains marine biologist Ruth Gates. Although still early in its debut, this is the goal of genetic technology.

Coral reefs on the brink of near extinction, but the more we know about the reefs themselves, the better chance they have to survive - or so says a group of coral reef specialists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. This group has implemented a 3-D imaging mapping project at the University of Queensland in Australia with the goal of equipping communities with the knowledge needed to help coral reefs survive another major bleaching event.

In an effort to collect data about the environmental health of high traffic destinations, researchers are examining the text and images of geotagged social media posts. Tweets about the Great Barrier Reef were analyzed for relevant information about specifically where people visited, common activities, and common complaints. While people passively provided data by geotagging posts, researchers are also proposing creating hashtags that allow for people to actively communicate data to researchers through social media posts.

Geography and climate change challenge the viability of sea-level cities in Vietnam, but architects, researchers, and urban planners work together to find creative solutions. One architect in Ho Chi Minh City designed green roofs to absorb the rainwater that causes floods.

Alaska has deployed a state-of-the-art, multi-agency monitoring system at Barry Arm featuring seismic stations, radar, and tidal gauges that can successfully predict tsunami risks after one year of data collection. Working with community businesses allowed the system to adapt operations and demonstrate how real-time landslide detection can provide crucial location data within minutes of an event.

CleanAIRE NC, an organization that trains residents to collect and share air quality data, uses AirKeeper Dashboard—an interactive mapping tool that displays real-time data from sensors across the state—to help North Carolina communities track and understand local air pollution and advocate for cleaner, healthier air.

A collaborative coastal network of signaling devices called StationKeepers is enabling ship operators to receive real-time whale location alerts directly on their navigation screens, resulting in significantly reduced collisions and greater protection for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Okala, a technology company, has developed smart camera traps equipped with a mini-computer and a satellite connection that, with the help of artificial intelligence, send researchers real-time notifications about which species pass by. Real-time camera alerts are not only helping researchers, but also surrounding communities intent on keeping people and crops safe from wild animals.