ArchiveSatellite Asian forest fire detection
www.kcl.ac.uk
A forest fire and smoke pollution monitoring system for Asia is the latest King’s project to win funding from Innovation China-UK (ICUK). Seven King’s projects have now successfully bid for grants from ICUK.
The latest is an award of £63,500 made to a project led by Martin Wooster, Professor of Earth Observation Science of the Department of Geography at King’s College London.
The project ‘Development of a geostationary forest fire monitoring and characterising system for China and the wider Asia region’ will allow the Chinese National Satellite Meteorological Centre access to the wild fire detection algorithms and software developed at King’s, and will enable the team to access real-time data from Chinese satellites in order to develop a forest fire monitoring system for China and Asia.
The data will also be sent back to the UK to act as a component of a ‘global’ fire emissions monitoring system being developed by King’s and collaborators for the purposes of air quality forecasting.
ICUK sponsors jointly funded collaborative research and partnerships between UK Partners and Chinese Universities and Research Institutes. Launched in November 2007, and managed on behalf of the King’s by King’s Business, the College has, to date, been awarded to seven King’s Proof of Concept projects and Partnership grants worth almost £300,000.
Geography postdoctoral scientist, Dr Weidong Xu, together with Dr Liqun Yang of King’s Business, played a critical role in securing the award, negotiating with the Chinese partners, translating material and organizing a trip to China to coordinate the proposal prior to its submission.
Global information system
Professor Wooster comments: ‘We are absolutely delighted to have won this ICUK money, which gives us access to Chinese satellite data that is vital for our long-term goal of building a geographic information system for estimating real-time atmospheric emissions from global wildfires.
'Though the funding is only for a year, we already have much of the software operating with European satellites through an existing NERC grant, and have a further years funding secured through an EU research project that will help build the global system.’
Other successful King’s bids from ICUK include:
• King’s and Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica: £83,000 for the development of a database of Chinese herbs and their use within traditional Chinese medicine, together with chemical data on and predicted biological activities of their constituents. (Professor Peter Hylands, Pharmacy)
• King’s and Tianjin University: £70,000 for developing a new generation highly flexible anthropomorphic robotic hand. (Professor Jian Dai, Engineering)
• King’s: £13,200 to partner with Hong Kong University to develop a new generation digital forensics software for fighting digital crimes. (Dr Richard Overill, Computer Sciences)
• King’s: £14,800 to partner with Jiangnan University to develop novel Optical Biosensor to monitor microbial loading in food and water. (Professor Peter Quinn, Biochemistry)
Source: www.kcl.ac.uk
