Google powered software to aid UN to tackle climate change

Open Foris, a set of free and open-source software tools that facilitates flexible and efficient data collection, analysis and reporting, will be helping the world tackle problems related to climate change, deforestation, and food production, powered by Google.

This software, from UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO),uses high-resolution satellite images to monitor the environment and changes in land use and forest cover.

Erik Lindquist, forestry officer at Open Foris, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said, "We make maps in a week, which used to take three years. Rather than preparing data to analyze we can spend time probing the data for answers. We're getting answers much more quickly."

The software can also be deployed to inspect water resources and even evaluate locations for refugee camps based on the availability of firewood for cooking.

For the software which can be used by anyone, Lindquist said, "There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the total forest area in the word, how much forest is being lost and gained, how the land use is changing and what are the effects on carbon emissions. The more we use these tools the more we're going to be sure of whether the situation is improving or getting worse."

Earlier this month, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres launched the MapSwipe app, which also uses satellite images and allows users to map remote, rural regions vulnerable to humanitarian crises.