National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Grabs CeADAR’s AI for Environmental Impact Award

Jul 26, 2024 | News

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is responsible for the conservation and protection of Ireland’s natural heritage, including its national parks, wildlife, and habitats.

The NPWS has been awarded CeADAR’s AI for Environmental Impact award, recognising their significant contributions to the AI2Peat project. This initiative, funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), aims to enhance peatland monitoring across Ireland using advanced technologies. NPWS’s involvement has been critical in providing ground truth data and qualitative validation, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the AI-driven analysis. Their domain expertise has been fundamental in developing the best computational approaches for condition mapping, guiding the project’s research agenda, and contributing to the overall success of AI2Peat.

 

Peatlands play a vital role in carbon sequestration, water filtration, and supporting biodiversity, but many have been damaged or destroyed. The AI2Peat project leverages remote sensing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to monitor and assess these crucial ecosystems. With NPWS’s expert input, the project has developed PeatSense, a collaborative platform for global peatland condition monitoring and data sharing. Currently in beta, PeatSense offers valuable peatland condition data, a directory of related initiatives, and a glossary of terms, inviting stakeholders to contribute and collaborate.

 

This award highlights NPWS’s significant contributions to environmental conservation and sets a benchmark for future AI-driven ecological projects.

Idiro Analytics supported my Marie Curie Fellowship award from the very beginning and actively helped me write up my successful application. Their CEO, Aidan Connolly, advocates for AI algorithms that not only optimise performance/accuracy but are also unbiased and efficient from an energy use perspective. As such, Idiro were very supportive of me using my fellowship to advance the auditing of algorithms through model explainability and bias detection whereby simpler, more explainable and energy efficient models could be contrast against more complex but accurate “black box” algorithms. My achievements in the area of advancing Trustworthy AI could not have been realised without Idiro’s support and aligned vision. This made working with them a pleasure and a privilege. Our meetings were always fruitful and constructive. Therefore, I’m delighted that CeADAR has acknowledged Idiro Analytics by presenting them with the 2023 Advancing Trustworthy AI award in recognition of their advocacy and support for my Marie Curie Fellowship success.

Adrian Byrne

Dr. Adrian Byrne, is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Career-FIT PLUS Fellow at CeADAR, Ireland’s Centre for AI, and also Lead Researcher of the AI Ethics Centre at Idiro Analytics, CeADAR