GSI Seminar Series – Tarje Nissen-Meyer ‘Of earthquakes, elephants and earthworms: Towards scalable geophysical monitoring of complex ecosystems’

The all-encompassing ecological crises we face require informed, concerted, and swift action, while recognising their interconnectedness across scales and processes including socio-economic, cultural repercussions, and projecting future probable pathways. This is a fundamental problem as we do not have comprehensive, quantitative theories or toolboxes to capture these systems of complex systems at the necessary level of detail. In dealing with such systems and thus crises, they are often broken down into distinct scientific disciplines and theories, often neglecting multiscale interconnectedness and complexity. Alternatively, one may approach this from a data-driven perspective, supported by machine-learning techniques. Aided by new developments on modern sensors and algorithms for data fusion and analysis, such scalable environmental monitoring of signals has the potential to provide multi-scale, spatially explicit, longitudinal, non-invasive, and multi-modal insights into the complexity of key system processes. The crux of this approach relies upon a deep understanding of the recorded signals, and mixing data types to infer causality, in particular regarding interconnected processes.

Prof Tarje will propose and focus on geophysical data and techniques as a means to reveal profound insights into complex ecosystems at scale, in this instance motivated by informative seismic vibrations to illuminate quantitative, testable, long-range interactions and process dynamics. Examples are drawn from earthquake processes, but then focus on sub-Saharan megafauna monitoring and relations to human-wildlife conflict, draught management, as well as soil health monitoring with implications for resilient, sustainable food systems. Such geophysical observations can act as proxies for biodiversity and climate change, ecosystem resilience and pathways to action, while being embedded within relevant, local socio-economic and cultural factors.