Data! Sensor-embedded Landscapes

"As our worlds become smarter and get to know us better and better, it becomes harder to know where the world stops and the person begins." -Andy Clark

NEON
The NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) project is a super-exciting new direction in ecology. Scientists are gathering 584 types of data from permanent and mobile stations in 20 landscape types to glean insight into the impacts of invasive species, climate change, and land use change on the United States landscape. Great!

Of course, I almost immediately found my way to a spreadsheet that details the "data products" NEON will endeavor to gather. NEON will gather data remotely using LiDAR, spectrometry, and cameras. On-site, people will gather information and samples that will be processed in the field or in the lab. Most excitingly, NEON will employ lots of field instruments--sensors.

CH2M Hill's depiction of NEON infrastructure

Sensors in the Landscape Cyborg
Sensors have super potential for the creation of intentional landscape cyborgs by landscape architects. I've recently been reading Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence by Andy Clark (of the introductory quote), who wrote about the original impetus for the creation of cyborgs. Scientists first hoped to create cybernetic organisms to "extend the self-regulating control functions of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments."

The first step of self-regulation is the recognition of a stimulus. A wired landscape embedded with sensors has that ability. NEON scientists are using sensors to learn about the how people have impacted the environment, and landscape architects could use sensors to gather information before design and monitor the design's impacts after in much the same way. Or, we could use these sensors as the eyes and ears of a landscape that within certain thresholds trigger some sort of actuator-- pumps, lights, servos, fans, misters, the launch of a fleet of drones (cute, friendly drones, of course). 

For example, in Living Systems Liat Margolis and Alexander Robinson profiled a series of dams that can inflate or deflate as needed--within minutes--to make a park adaptable to highly variable water conditions (you can preview this entry on google books).

A Dutch inflatable dam- the largest inflatable dam in Europe. Photo by GK Bloemsma. 

So what are the sensors with which we could equip landscapes? Below is a list of phenomena NEON will be sensing via field instruments (with the smallest frequency noted in parenthesis). Nerd out with  me, or see the full pdf on data products here. 

Aquatic/STREON sub-system

Date of surface ice off (/day)

Date of surface ice on (/day)

Subsurface water height in a well (/minute)

Subsurface water temperature (/minute)

Subsurface water specific conductance (/minute)

Net radiation (/minute)

PAR near water surface (/minute)

Timing of leaf fall (/day)

Timing of leaf out (/day)

Timing of leaf senescence (/day)

Surface water cDOM (/minute)

Surface water conductivity (/minute)

Surface water dissolved oxygen (/minute)

Surface water height (pressure transducer) in stream (/minute)

Surface water velocity (/minute)

Tower Measurements

2-d windspeed (/minute)

Air temperature  (/minute)

Atmospheric pressure (/minute)

Biological temperature(?) (/minute)

Bulk precipitation (/minute)

Cameras at tower ground, middle, and top (/4 hours)

CO­­₂ (/minute)

Cross-wind (lateral) windspeed (/20 Hz, or per twentieth of a second)

Wind direction (/minute)

Diffuse PAR (/minute)

H­­₂O (/minute)

Horizontal windspeed (/twentieth of a second)

Inclinometer beta and alpha angles (/4 hours)

Incoming PAR (/minute)

Incoming radiation (/minute)

Reflected PAR (/minute)

Reflected radiation (/minute)

Relative humidity (/minute)

Snow water equivalent (/minute)

Sonic temperature (/twentieth of a second)

Vertical wind speed (/twentieth of a second)

δ13C -CO­­₂ [percent isotope] (/minute)

δ18O-H­­₂O [percent isotope] (/minute)

Sun Photometer

Aerosol optic depth 

Filter 1- 8 (sky, sun)

Almucantar (sky, sun)

Principle (sky)

Langley (sun)

Triplet (sun)

Particles from the Sky

Ozone concentration (/second)

NOx concentration (/second)

Bulk particulate deposition (/2 weeks)

Particulate size characterization (/second)

Soil

Canopy fill rates (once)

Maximum canopy capacitance (once)

PAR-line (/minute)

Throughfall (/minute)

Soil temperature (/minute)

Soil heat flux (/minute)

Soil semi-variogram/water (once)

Soil CO2 profile (/min)

Minirhizotron fine root image (/week)

Minirhizotron hyphae image (/week)

Do you have any suggestions for other sensors and actuators?