Artificial intelligence reveals hundreds of millions of trees in the Sahara
If you think that the Sahara is covered only by golden dunes and scorched rocks, you aren't alone. Perhaps it's time to shelve that notion. In an area of West Africa 30 times larger than Denmark, an international team, led by University of Copenhagen and NASA researchers, has counted over 1.8 billion trees and shrubs. The 1.3 million km2 area covers the western-most portion of the Sahara Desert, the Sahel and what are known as sub-humid zones of West Africa.
"We were very surprised to see that quite a few trees actually grow in the Sahara Desert, because up until now, most people thought that virtually none existed. We counted hundreds of millions of trees in the desert alone. Doing so wouldn't have been possible without this technology. Indeed, I think it marks the beginning of a new scientific era," asserts Assistant Professor Martin Brandt of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, lead author of the study's scientific article, now published in Nature.
The work was achieved through a combination of detailed satellite imagery provided by NASA, and deep learning -- an advanced artificial intelligence method. Normal satellite imagery is unable to identify individual trees, they remain literally invisible. Moreover, a limited interest in counting trees outside of forested areas led to the prevailing view that there were almost no trees in this particular region. This is the first time that trees across a large dryland region have been counted.
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/uoc-air102020.php
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