Projects Profile
Project Title
Development of a Geostationary Forest Fire Monitoring and Characterizing System for China and the Wider Asian Region
Partnership
Prof. Martin Wooster, King's College London
Prof. Liu Cheng, National Satellite Meteorological Centre
Project Aim
In this project King’s College London and Tianjin University are collaborating to investigate the feasibility and commercial application of a real-time forest fire early detection and plume prediction technology based on geostationary satellite system.
This project aims to draw on the research expertise at King’s on biomass burning characterization, modeling and that at NSMC on geostationary satellite technology to develop a commercial prototype system for real-time wild fire detection and characterization to apply to the need in China and the wider Asia, with a potential of integration with the information from European and US satellites to form a true global biomass burning system.
Inspiration for the projects
Forest fires are extremely widespread in many of Earth’s key ecosystems and are of great importance, destroying valuable forest carbon stores and emitting very large amounts of smoke pollutants that have substantial climate impacts. Early detection and tracking of wildfire development is key to (i) fire suppression & management efforts, (ii) forecasts of smoke plume transport and effects on air quality downwind, and (iii) providing policy makers with detailed pollutant emission inventories to allow monitoring of existing treaty obligations and to help develop new environmental policies. China and the wider Asian is one of the key regions which suffer from serious forest fires.
Working with UK-NERC King’s College London has developed new methods, algorithms and computer code that deliver key information on forest fires from optical and thermal satellite imagery. China has established a series of excellent geostationary meteorological satellites (the FY2 series) that view the entire Chinese landmass and other Asian regions of huge importance in terms of fire activity (e.g. Indonesia and the Russian Far East)
In this proposal King’s and the National Satellite Meteorological Centre (NSMC) of China Meteorological Administration (CMA) initiates a joint research program aiming at the development of a novel real-time wildfire monitoring technology for China and the wider Asian region by combining the world leading expertise of King’s in geostationary fire event monitoring and characterization, with the state of the art of Chinese expertise on the FY2C, FY2D and MTSAT satellite platform. These data will be used within China for early identification of new fires and for coordinating fire information, management and suppression efforts, and externally will be available to support efforts at fire management across Asia.
Innovation Elements
The key innovation of the project will be the combination of the novel imagery fire detection system with the geostationary satellite technology to realize a true real-time fire event identification and pollution plume modeling system, which will be the first such system in the world to be able to provide such information and services to regional governmental agencies, and other relevant organizations.
Commercial Potential and Further Development
The project will produce a commercial prototype geostationary satellite forest fire monitoring system with true real-time detection capability, including novel software for fire event identification, characterization and pollution plume modeling and forecasting functionality to provide real-time information to the regional governments, wildfire agencies, and other organizations in China and wider Asia region upon project completion.
The project has showed great commercial potential and has attracted great industry including some satellite equipment suppliers. Numerous companies have expressed strong interests in gaining access to the technology upon the project completion.
