Nasa technology used to study outer space is now being turned downwards towards the Western and Eastern Cape to scan one of the most unique biodiversity hotspots on the planet — the Greater Cape Floristic Region , described as the most difficult place on Earth to study biodiversity.
“That’s our life-support system,” Turner said. “I’d say climate change and biodiversity loss are two existential crises facing humanity today. Existential, because if we don’t fix it, if we don’t do it and get it right it can lead to our own demise, extinction of species. “I work for Nasa so yes, we’re trying to go to Mars and Mars is great, but living on Mars is not trivial. We evolved to live here , so let’s take care of what we know and what we got, because this is our cradle, this is our home and where our children live. So we need to take care of it, but we can’t take care of it without understanding and taking care of the life around it,” he said.
“What’s really exciting about this project is that in a lot of ways the technology that Nasa has come up with has outpaced the science, in the sense that the technology is extremely impressive and so far has been focused on looking at other planets, or like methane emissions, which are very important, but this is the first time that Nasa — or anyone really — is making a concerted effort to catch up biodiversity science with the potential of the technology,” Cardoso said.
These remotely sensed data will combine with existing and new field observations of the spatial distribution of species, ecosystems and their characteristics. Together, these observations enable high-resolution mapping of biodiversity, functional traits and environmental variations and local disturbances .
LVIS: The Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor is a laser altimeter scanner able to produce 3-D images of topography and vegetation. Data from LVIS will be fused with spectral information from the above scanners to enhance biodiversity observation and prediction