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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Privacy Preserving Federated Learning for Advanced Scientific Ecosystems

We present a framework to provide privacy preserving (PP) federating learning (FL) across multiple computational and experimental facilities. This work joins the compute capabilities of National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Research Cloud (ORC) with simulated experimental data, such as those produced at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). We describe the software infrastructure developed to provide privacy for computational and experimental networks. We developed algorithmic privacy across the federated system by embedding database security, computation, and communication into the federation architecture, utilizing scientific tools developed by the experimental community.

Archibald, Rick [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000245389780)↗
NASA NTRS2013

Thermal Remote Sensing and the Thermodynamics of Ecosystem Development

Thermal remote sensing can provide environmental measuring tools with capabilities for measuring ecosystem development and integrity. Recent advances in applying principles of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to ecology provide fundamental insights into energy partitioning in ecosystems. Ecosystems are nonequilibrium systems, open to material and energy flows, which grow and develop structures and processes to increase energy degradation. More developed terrestrial ecosystems will be more effective at dissipating the solar gradient (degrading its exergy content) and can be measured by the effective surface temperature of the ecosystem on a landscape scale. Ecosystems are viewed as open thermodynamic systems with a large gradient impressed on them by the exergy flux from the sun. Ecosystems, according to the restated second law, develop in ways that systematically increases their ability to degrade the incoming solar exergy, hence negating it's ability to set up even larger gradients. Thus it should be expected that more mature ecosystems degrade the exergy they capture more completely than a less developed ecosystem. The degree to which incoming solar exergy is degraded is a function of the surface temperature of the ecosystem. If a group of ecosystems receives the same amount of incoming radiation, we would expect that the most mature ecosystem would reradiate its energy at the lowest quality level and thus would have the lowest surface temperature (coldest black body temperature). Initial development work was done using NASA's airborne Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) followed by the use of a multispectral visible and thermal scanner-Airborne Thermal and Land Applications Sensor (ATLAS). Luvall and his coworkers have documented ecosystem energy budgets, including tropical forests, midlatitude varied ecosystems, and semiarid ecosystems. These data show that under similar environmental conditions (air temperature, relative humidity, winds, and solar irradiance) and within a given biome type, the more developed the ecosystem, the cooler it's surface temperature and the more degraded the quality of it's reradiated energy. HyspIRI is a hyperspectral visible/Near IR and multispectral thermal future global satellite mission that will collect data to study the world's ecosystems and will provide a benchmark on the state of the worlds ecosystems against which future changes can be assessed. HyspIRI will provide global data sets that will provide a means for measuring ecosystem development and integrity.

Luvall, Jeffrey C.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Thermal Remote Sensing and the Thermodynamics of Ecosystem Development

Thermal remote sensing can provide environmental measuring tools with capabilities for measuring ecosystem development and integrity. Recent advances in applying principles of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to ecology provide fundamental insights into energy partitioning in ecosystems. Ecosystems are nonequilibrium systems, open to material and energy flows, which grow and develop structures and processes to increase energy degradation. More developed terrestrial ecosystems will be more effective at dissipating the solar gradient (degrading its exergy content) and can be measured by the effective surface temperature of the ecosystem on a landscape scale. Ecosystems are viewed as open thermodynamic systems with a large gradient impressed on them by the exergy flux from the sun. Ecosystems, according to the restated second law, develop in ways that systematically increases their ability to degrade the incoming solar exergy, hence negating it's ability to set up even larger gradients. Thus it should be expected that more mature ecosystems degrade the exergy they capture more completely than a less developed ecosystem. The degree to which incoming solar exergy is degraded is a function of the surface temperature of the ecosystem. If a group of ecosystems receives the same amount of incoming radiation, we would expect that the most mature ecosystem would reradiate its energy at the lowest quality level and thus would have the lowest surface temperature (coldest black body temperature). Initial development work was done using NASA's airborne Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) followed by the use of a multispectral visible and thermal scanner- Airborne Thermal and Land Applications Sensor (ATLAS). Luvall and his coworkers have documented ecosystem energy budgets, including tropical forests, midlatitude varied ecosystems, and semiarid ecosystems. These data show that under similar environmental conditions (air temperature, relative humidity, winds, and solar irradiance) and within a given biome type, the more developed the ecosystem, the cooler it's surface temperature and the more degraded the quality of it's reradiated energy. HyspIRI is a hyperspectral visible/Near IR and multispectral thermal future global satellite mission that will collect data to study the world's ecosystems and will provide a benchmark on the state of the worlds ecosystems against which future changes can be assessed. HyspIRI will provide global data sets that will provide a means for measuring ecosystem development and integrity.

Luvall, Jeffrey C.↗
DOE OSTI2018

Ecosystem services: Urban parks under a magnifying glass

Highlights: • We mapped ecosystem services in an urban park with high spatial detail. • Ecosystem services varied widely with vegetation type. • Native forest provided the most ecosystem services. • Urban parks should not be seen homogenous units regarding ecosystem services. • Nature-based solutions can help managers to optimize ecosystem services provision. Urban areas’ population has grown during the last century and it is expected that over 60% of the world population will live in cities by 2050. Urban parks provide several ecosystem services that are valuable to the well-being of city-dwellers and they are also considered a nature-based solution to tackle multiple environmental problems in cities. However, the type and amount of ecosystem services provided will vary with each park vegetation type, even within same the park. Our main goal was to quantify the trade-offs in ecosystem services associated to different vegetation types, using a spatially detailed approach. Rather than relying solely on general vegetation typologies, we took a more ecologically oriented approach, by explicitly considering different units of vegetation structure and composition. This was demonstrated in a large park (44 ha) located in the city of Almada (Lisbon metropolitan area, Portugal), where six vegetation units were mapped in detail and six ecosystem services were evaluated: carbon sequestration, seed dispersal, erosion prevention, water purification, air purification and habitat quality. The results showed that, when looking at the park in detail, some ecosystem services varied greatly with vegetation type. Carbon sequestration was positively influenced by tree density, independently of species composition. Seed dispersal potential was higher in lawns, and mixed forest provided the highest amount of habitat quality. Air purification service was slightly higher in mixed forest, but was high in all vegetation types, probably due to low background pollution, and both water purification and erosion prevention were high in all vegetation types. Knowing the type, location, and amount of ecosystem services provided by each vegetation type can help to improve management options based on ecosystem services trade-offs and looking for win-win situations. The trade-offs are, for example, very clear for carbon: tree planting will boost carbon sequestration regardless of species, but may not be enough to increase habitat quality. Moreover, it may also negatively influence seed dispersal service. Informed practitioners can use this ecological knowledge to promote the role of urban parks as a nature-based solution to provide multiple ecosystem services, and ultimately improve the design and management of the green infrastructure. This will also improve the science of Ecosystem Services, acknowledging that the type of vegetation matters for the provision of ecosystem services and trade-offs analysis.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2021

Mapping the Extent of Mangrove Ecosystem Degradation by Integrating an Ecological Conceptual Model with Satellite Data

Anthropogenic and natural disturbances can cause degradation of ecosystems, reducing their capacity to sustain biodiversity and provide ecosystem services. Understanding the extent of ecosystem degradation is critical for estimating risks to ecosystems, yet there are few existing methods to map degradation at the ecosystem scale and none using freely available satellite data for mangrove ecosystems. In this study, we developed a quantitative classification model of mangrove ecosystem degradation using freely available earth observation data. Crucially, a conceptual model of mangrove ecosystem degradation was established to identify suitable remote sensing variables that support the quantitative classification model, bridging the gap between satellite-derived variables and ecosystem degradation with explicit ecological links. We applied our degradation model to two case-studies, the mangroves of Rakhine State, Myanmar, which are severely threatened by anthropogenic disturbances, and Shark River within the Everglades National Park, USA, which is periodically disturbed by severe tropical storms. Our model suggested that 40% (597 km2) of the extent of mangroves in Rakhine showed evidence of degradation. In the Everglades, the model suggested that the extent of degraded mangrove forest increased from 5.1% to 97.4% following the Category 4 Hurricane Irma in 2017. Quantitative accuracy assessments indicated the model achieved overall accuracies of 77.6% and 79.1% for the Rakhine and the Everglades, respectively. We highlight that using an ecological conceptual model as the basis for building quantitative classification models to estimate the extent of ecosystem degradation ensures the ecological relevance of the classification models. Our developed method enables researchers to move beyond only mapping ecosystem distribution to condition and degradation as well. These results can help support ecosystem risk assessments, natural capital accounting, and restoration planning and provide quantitative estimates of ecosystem degradation for new global biodiversity targets.

Calvin K. F. Lee↗