A long-overdue check-in conversation with Tom Hengl, , director at OpenGeoHub and one of the leading scientists in earth observation and remote sensing—one of the most cited in his field, belonging to the top 0.1% (based on Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers). We discuss the significant changes in the world of remote sensing, satellites, and the hype surrounding AI, machine learning, and large language models over the past three years. While the hype has brought some interesting advancements, it also distracts people from the real work that needs to be done.
We delve into the AI4SoilHealth European project we are part of, discussing how we can already monitor and observe most places on Earth from the sky at a resolution of 30 by 30 meters. Importantly, we can now look back nearly 25 years for almost all locations in Europe and analyse changes on a field-by-field basis. While we might not know the individual farmers, we can identify their fields, and we can train models to make predictions and provide actionable, relevant advice.
We explore the idea of celebrating farmers and land stewards who have successfully regenerated their plots of land over the past decades. But how do we shift a culture that celebrates sports over regenerative farming? Finally, we touch on the challenges holding back some of this work, including the need for reliable and affordable in situ in-field soil health analysis.
This podcast is part of the AI 4 Soil Health project which aims to help farmers and policy makers by providing new tools powered by AI to monitor and predict soil health across Europe. For more information visit ai4soilhealth.eu.
WHY TOM IS INTERESTED BUT NOT TOO EXCITED ABOUT THE CURRENT AI HYPE
Tom’s view is that the recent advancements are more hype than actual breakthroughs.
”Let’s put it also honestly. It’s a hype. I mean, it’s not that computers started talking or thinking, they became a sentiment or something conscious. So, it is larger hype.” Tom Hengl
”I’m not too impressed with it; I still don’t use it for complex things, for solving problems, or for checking some statistical modelling. I mean, for me, it’s just like a very advanced search and aggregation tool at the moment; however, you know it’s happening, and the next version will be better, and eventually, it might be able to also propose new solutions, and it might replace a lot of jobs. We’re talking about maybe 60% of jobs in 10 years.” Tom Hengl
”I don’t think for our project, for example, for soil health, and for our work, I don’t think I’m too excited about it yet.” Tom Hengl
WHAT IS CURRENTLY POSSIBLE WITH REMOTE SENSING AND EARTH OBSERVATION?
Tom talks about mapping biophysical indices across Europe over the last 25 years, detecting changes in vegetation, bare soil, and tillage intensity, and mapping soil carbon density changes across Europe.
́ ́We made a e bi-monthly time series of biophysical indices for Europe for the last 25 years. So, for example, we use the Lansat because we are interested in the last 25 years. If you take the Lansat images, you can derive some kind of a proxy. They’re not like really measurements from the space. They are a kind of proxy, for example, vegetation index and NDVI. So that’s a vegetation estimate: how much vegetation you have, how much leaf area you have, how much photosynthesis is happening. So, you can estimate it based on the combination of near-infrared and green bands, etc.” Tom Hengl
”So, one example is meteorological climatic data. So, let’s say climatic data is usually about the past, the weather in the past aggregated over months, seasons, or years. And so, somebody could go and say now, if you have a climatic data cube, you could train the LLM to get, for example, some summary, for example, say, show me all the countries that have a decrease in the rainfall over the last 30 years.” Tom Hengl
́ ́We also combine it with this big monitoring programs of the European Commission. One of them is called LUCAS, and there’s a component called LUCAS Soil, and they did four systematic surveys. Each survey has about 20,000 locations in Europe. They take samples, and we took the data, and we run pan-European space time models to predict changes in soil carbon density.” Tom Hengl
GLOBAL OBSERVATION IN ALMOST REAL-TIME OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA IS SOON POSSIBLE.
Tom discusses the potential for global, near real-time environmental monitoring.
”I think we could, within let’s say, 10 years, go to a total monitoring system and environmental monitoring. Now, we do have monitoring in the cities; in urban areas, they are heavily monitored. You have the cameras for security. You have the sensor for the speed. So, urban areas are monitored in Europe, let’s say. But now we also have the environment; slowly you will have this monitoring, but it will be mainly based on a satellite-based system. So Earth observation, so it will be non-destructive, but we will have that monitoring, and we’ll have full monitoring.’’ Tom Hengl
WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR CULTURE AND CELEBRATE THOSE WHO REGENERATE AND RESTORE
Tom emphasises the need to actively identify, celebrate, and reward the “champions” of land restoration and regenerative practices, rather than continuing to celebrate sports and entertainment figures.
”Governments should really locate these people that are champions. So, anybody who does, for example, effective regenerative agriculture, regreening, building terraces, dams, land regeneration, and restoration, governments should come to them and say, we know what you’re doing; we have tax benefits for you; we would like to put that, put you on our website, I don’t know, and all these things; they could really change the atmosphere.” Tom Hengl
‘’Our mission is really just to promote people using environmental data and changing their culture, really to change to a restoration culture. That’s really our mission. And so now we have this data, but we need to reach the people, and we need to train them to use it. And we also need governments and all these agencies to realise that they have these champions. We give awards to sports people. Somebody goes or wins the Olympic medal or something, or they play in the finals or something, and it’s all in the news. And what about the champions of land? What about the champions of the land restoration? We should also find these people. We should celebrate them.” Tom Hengl
OTHER POINTS DISCUSSED:
Koen and Tom also talked about:
- Why non existing cheap and reliable in situ infield soil health analysis is holding back a lot of developments
- Geospatial AI and Data Analysis
- Business Models and Data Subscription
- Policy and regulatory changes in promoting sustainable land management practices.
LINKS:
LINKED INTERVIEWS:
- Ichsani Wheeler and Tom Hengl – Everyone has the right and the data to know what is happening on our planet
- AI and Soil Health series
- Alfred Grand – Why an Austrian farmer and researcher trained by earthworms is very excited about AI
- Mateusz Ciasnocha and Maria Virginia Solis Wahnish – From EU Soil Mission to Pope Francis, how to change local and state agriculture and food policies
- Bridget Emmett – Moving over carbon soil compaction is the real issue in agriculture
- Jason Hayward-Jones – Corporates paying for low carbon grains and why virtual twins are key in gaming and Scottish whiskey
- Paul Clarke – Smart Machines, AI and Modeling: engineering our way out
- Chris Tolles – All the venture capital in the world can’t make soils change faster
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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
This work has received funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant numbers 10053484, 1005216, 1006329].
This work has received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).
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