The Internet of Things is Helping to Combat Climate Change

We are at the mercy of weather, and probably always will be. As climate change accelerates, disrupting weather patterns and creating droughts and hurricanes of increasing severity, that vulnerability will only become more acute.

Fortunately, we have at our disposal a tool of tremendous power: Big Data. The ability to capture huge amounts of info on wind, temperature and moisture—priceless data that can be stored and analyzed, revealing patterns we otherwise couldn't see—is perhaps our greatest weapon in defending ourselves against the caprices of nature. But it's more than defense; Big Data also gives us the means to better use the resources we have, doing right by the environment and striking the problem at its root.

The Internet of Things is poised to transform just about every facet of our lives, and it all comes down to data—lots of it. The technical demands of harvesting and processing all that information is staggering. Intel® has emerged as a leader of IoT, in part, because it's best equipped to meet those demands. Intel's low-power silicon for Intelligent Things, Intel® Quark microprocessors, can be installed in just about any device imaginable, making them "smart." Intel® IoT Gateways can put those devices in conversation, even if they speak in proprietary code. Developer boards, such as the Intel® Edison, give software engineers a user-friendly toolbox to design apps that make use of that data in innovative and consequential ways.

By providing these foundational technologies, Intel facilitates the ingenuity of others. Through alliances with other researchers and organizations, both public and private, it has fostered collaboration in addressing some of the world's most pressing issues.

Take California's drought; perhaps the most exigent weather issue facing the U.S. right now. Agriculture consumes some 80% of the state's water, far outstripping industrial or municipal use. Since it produces half of the nation's fruits, vegetables and nuts, a thirsty California is a major problem for all of us. A solution to the water shortage begins with agriculture. While there isn't much we can do to create rain, there are many projects underway to better manage the water we have.

In one such attempt to manage water efficiently, Intel is collaborating with the University of California-Santa Barbara's Earth Research Institute to develop a project that measures snow patterns in the Sierra Nevada using satellite imaging. California farmers depend on water from snowpack in places like the Sierra Nevada; currently, those sources are at about 20% of normal levels.

Not long ago, gathering this kind of information required researchers to actually travel to the mountains and manually collect the data—an extremely laborious, and imprecise, process. Now, roughly 20 terabytes of data is being gathered each month, which is subsequently made available to climate researchers at UC-SB and beyond.

The immediate goal is to figure out exactly how much water California currently has, and how much it will have in the future. By gathering all this data, and making it easily accessible to scientists, Intel hopes to spur research initiatives by other groups. The larger objective is to create a reliable reference platform—a database of images, basically—that can be used by governments, academics and companies around the globe. Once that model is perfected, it can then be made scalable and applicable to other problems.

Another collaborative project, this time with the University of California-Davis and the World Food Center, demonstrates how Big Data and cloud computing technology can be directly applied to agriculture. For this project, IoT-enabled crop sensors are placed on farms to monitor moisture levels, among other things. The info is then combined with other data streams—from public and private weather stations, even "smart" cars and phones—to give farmers a detailed, real-time portrait of not only the weather in general, but also the "micro-climates" of specific sections on their land.

Precision farming, as it's known, will help farmers determine the optimal time to plant, and how much water to use. According to Intel, this crop sensor system could reduce water by as much as 50%—an astounding illustration of the effect IoT technologies will have on agriculture, the thirstiest of industries. When compounded with waste-reducing apps and gadgets all throughout the supply chain, in the factory and in the home, the effects could be revolutionary.

Others have implemented similar solutions using Intel technologies, with similar results. An Arizona-based Intel employee who works on sustainability issues recently designed an IoT proof-of-concept project that outfitted a farm with weather stations and soil moisture sensors that are wirelessly connected via Intel® IoT Gateways, which communicate with a cloud-based server. The whole system is powered by solar energy—an abundant source of energy in the arid deserts of northern Arizona.

Another example was devised by two high school freshmen and their respective fathers (who both happen to work for Intel). For a school science project, they built an end-to-end IoT-enabled system to measure water use on garden peas, so as to determine optimal growing conditions. The system is comprised of four Intel® Galileo boards, each containing five sensors that are placed in the soil to measure moisture. All of this is connected to an Intel® IoT analytics kit, which provides detailed information about what's actually happening. The students (and their fathers) even built a robot to administer the water precisely. Like the Intel/UC-Davis collaboration, this system cut water usage in half. The whole set-up costs about $450.

The challenges posed by climate change are monumental and many. The solutions, similarly, will come from all kinds of places. While the "big picture" efforts led by world governments, research institutes, and multinational corporations are all extraordinarily valuable, part of a solution to the crises of climate change and resource depletion lies in tapping the wellspring of DIY ingenuity, as expressed by normal folks. This is something for which Americans—heirs to the legacy of Edison and Franklin, the ultimate basement tinkerers—are particularly adept. By building the hardware and software that makes the IoT possible, Intel has done much of the heavy lifting. Now entrepreneurs and hobbyists can focus on the simple matter of saving the world, one drop of water at a time.

Learn more about how you can get started with Intel® IoT

If you are a developer and want to be involved in changing the world for the better through Intel® IoT, explore some of the tools that are right at your fingertips:

• Move rapidly from Prototype to Production
• Choose the Right IoT Gateway
• Download the Intel® IoT Developer Kit