How Microsoft NCX is Innovating Reforestation Efforts

Microsoft has been a leader in the development of sustainable technology for businesses. Their part in making Cloud computing a common form...

Microsoft has been a leader in the development of sustainable technology for businesses. Their part in making Cloud computing a common form of IT infrastructure for business has enabled organizations to operate in a more energy-efficient and lower waste way. Microsoft has also developed a specific technology that could help with a big subject in sustainability, which is deforestation.

Wood and Timber is an important resource, and this has led to a lot of deforestation. However, it is possible to make wood a renewable material through sustainable practices and careful forest management.

Challenges of Forest Management

Historically, the process of taking inventory of a forest has been a difficult challenge for both landowners and conservationists. This is important for the correct management of a forest – a forest is not just a group of trees; it is a diverse ecosystem. In fact, every tree is its own ecosystem – there are mammals, birds, and insects that live in every part of the tree; from the branches, all the way down the trunk, and even deep among the roots. Any party that is utilizing the natural resources of a forest has a responsibility to manage a careful inventory, in order to care for the habitat.

The challenge of this is that it has always been a long, labor-intensive process to take inventory – trees have to be counted manually, and there could be thousands of acres of land to cover. Plus, the reliability of this process is not always high.

Microsoft NCX

Microsoft’s solution to these challenges, which is called NCX, is a way of digitizing the process of forest inventory. The solution uses aerial imagery and AI technology to make forest surveying quicker and more accurate. The use of high-quality image capture, enables landowners, foresters, and conservationists to document the trees in a forest; and this imagery can be captured entirely through high-resolution satellite imagery, so the solution does not require any hardware infrastructure that isn’t already established.

What is more, Microsoft NCX utilized a decade's worth of field data collected from the US Forest Service in order to train its AI to predict and identify tree species. With this specially trained AI, Microsoft NCX is able to analyze the satellite images to create HD maps of forests with detailed information on biodiversity. The level of accuracy Microsoft NCX produces is more than any team of foresters could dream of achieving.

What the Future Holds?

Microsoft has stated they have designed NCX to be scalable for global use. This means that this technology could be utilized to survey forests all across the world, resulting in better and more sustainable management of habitats. We’ve seen an increase in the kinds of managed services provider London, New York, Dubai offerings that are more environmentally focused and focused on helping companies reduce their ecological impact.