Google Earth Uses the Cloud to Fight Deforestation

Google has turned their considerable computing power to more “sustainable” goals with a new product announced yesterday at the UN Climate Change Conference.  A prototype system that combines with Google Earth uses their significant cloud computing horsepower to automatically detect and visualize areas of suspected deforestation.

The prototype system, could, for example, allow users to show forest cover and deforestation over time in Rondonia, Brazil from 1986-2008 in just seconds. This type of computation normally takes days or weeks, but the massive horsepower of Google’s data centers makes the information much more quickly. In practical terms, that means police investigators can get to the root of illegal logging activity quickly, and activist groups like Greenpeace could call out logging operations in real-time. The system could also be used in the proposed UN REDD program, which might pay developing countries to cut down on deforestation.

Google Blog via Google Earth Uses the Cloud to Fight Deforestation | Sustainability | Fast Company.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal research lab, aiding researchers to discover the insights buried within their terabyte datasets generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. He also runs VizWorld.com .