HP is collaborating with Conservation International (CI), a non-governmental organisation committed to protecting the environment, in an initiative called HP Earth Insights.
CI is using HP technology to boost the accuracy and speed of data collection and analysis in environmental science. The project acts as a sort of early warning system for conservation efforts, allowing conservationists to react proactively to environmental threats.
Speaking at a press conference during HP Discover, in Barcelona, on Tuesday, George Kadifa, EVP of HP Software, said HP Earth Insights provides close to real-time analytics and is already producing data that shows a decline in a significant percentage of species being monitored.
The project applies HP's big data technology to the ecological research being conducted across 16 tropical forests around the world by CI, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Kadifa says CI formed a Tropical Ecology Assessment Monitoring (TEAM) Network as a way for scientists to standardise and innovate ways to monitor and measure the state of tropical forests around the world.
Currently, he said there are 16 TEAM sites in 14 countries, including Brazil, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Indonesia, Laos, Madagascar, Malaysia, Peru, the Republic of Congo, Panama, Suriname, Tanzania and Uganda.
HP and CI have collaborated to place 1 000 camera traps in strategic areas in the forests to allow TEAM scientists to collect data on animals, carbon and climate. In this way, the scientists can better understand what is happening in these regions, and better assess the causes of endangerment in these systems.
Memory cards in the cameras are collected by the scientists, the information uploaded to their tablets, and the data analysed in near real time by HP technology, said Kadifa.
The data and analysis from the project will be shared with protected area managers to develop policies regarding hunting and other causes for diminishing species in the forests, he added.
He said tropical forests are home to about 30 million different species, accounting for 50% of all the plant and animal life on the planet, and also generate 40% of the world's oxygen.
"HP Earth Insights is totally transforming environmental science, and the collection and analysis of this vast amount of information," said Sandy Andelman from CI. She said what up until now took scientists weeks or even months to analyse, can now be done by a single person in a matter of hours.
At present, HP Earth Insights manages three Terabytes of critical biodiversity data. Kadifa says this includes more than 1.4 million photos and more than three million climate measurements.
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