Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Logo
Menu
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Organizational Charts
    • Virtual Tours
    • EESA Strategic Vision
  • Our People
    • A-Z People
    • Alumni Network
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • IDEA Working Group
    • Paul A. Witherspoon
    • Postdocs & Early Careers
    • Search by Expertise
  • Careers & Opportunities
    • Careers
    • Intern Pilot w/CSUEB
    • Mentorship Program
    • Recognition & Funding Opps
    • EESA Mini Grants
    • S&E Metrics for Performance and Promotion
    • Student Opportunities
    • Supervisor EnRichment (SupER) Program
    • Promotion Metrics (Scientific)
  • Research
    • Area-Wide Program Domain
      • Earth AI & Data
    • Our Divisions
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
      • Environmental & Biological Systems Science
        • Programs
        • Environmental Remediation & Water Resources
        • Ecosystems Biology Program
        • Bioenergy
      • Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
        • Terrestrial Ecosystem Science
      • Climate & Atmosphere Processes
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
      • Earth Systems & Society
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
    • Energy Geosciences Division
      • Discovery Geosciences
        • Programs
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geochemistry
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Isotope
      • Energy Resources and Carbon Management
        • Programs
        • Carbon Removal & Mineralization Program
        • Carbon Storage Program
        • Geothermal Systems
        • Hydrocarbon Science
        • Nuclear Energy & Waste
      • Resilient Energy, Water & Infrastructure
        • Programs
        • Water-Energy
        • Critical Infrastructure
        • Environmental Resilience
        • Grid-Scale Subsurface Energy Storage
        • National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI)
    • Projects
    • Research at a Glance
    • Publication Lists
    • Centers and Resources
    • Technologies & National User Programs
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
    • Operations
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
    • Earth & Environment Newsletter
  • Intranet
  • Safety
    • EESA Safety
  • FoW
  • Search

  • all
  • people
  • events
  • posts
  • pages
  • projects
  • publications

Strengthening Wildland Fire Science and Scientific Collaboration through New Data Management Platform3 min read

by Lauren Nicole Core on June 13, 2022

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

A prescribed fire, such as the one shown above, is one type of wildland fire. Prescribed fires are used to reduce the buildup of materials that fuel wildfires. Photo: USDA Forest Service

 

Wildfires are increasing in severity and frequency worldwide. A new report called Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires indicates that wildfires are responsible for significant economic, environmental, and sociopolitical damage (UNEP, GRID-Arendal, 2021). They also contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions – thereby further fueling climate change. 

Researchers need to store, manage, and harmonize relevant data to better understand and predict fire hazard and risk, as well as fire behavior. 

Enabling Wildland Fire Science Initiative (WFSI) Data Integration Through a Managed Data Platform is a new Department of Defense (DoD) funded project that aims to support research related to wildland fires, which encompass both wildfires and prescribed fire. Led by researchers and engineers within the Computing Science Area’s Scientific Data Division (SDD) and Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA), the platform will enable a collaborative data repository with advanced publication and search features, and will encourage uniform metadata and data standards, collaboration among scientists, and long-term data archiving. More generally it will support the concept of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data. 

Shreyas Cholia, Lead Principal Investigator (PI) of the project, said, “The new data platform is crucial for enabling a common and consistent approach to managing the data lifecycle across the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) WFSI projects. Currently, these projects face barriers due to a lack of metadata/data standards and a common platform to share data. There is a strong need to share data across projects and enable greater collaboration,” says Cholia.

The platform is a timely and relevant contribution to the science surrounding wildland fires, a term that encompasses both wildfires and prescribed fire –an essential land management tool used to reduce the buildup of materials that fuel wildfires, such as dead leaves and fallen pine needles, and promotes forest resilience. Andrew Hudak, a USDA research forester who is collaborating on the project, says that fire scientists participating in WFSI are collecting data regarding fuel, fire behavior, and smoke measurements before, during, and after prescribed fires, in order to improve models used by managers to inform decision making on all wildland fires, including undesirable wildfires. With this data obtained across multiple scales, scientists can better understand the intensity and development of fires while they are burning, and help to assess wildland fire effects and impacts. 

Berkeley Lab brings together an interdisciplinary team to tackle these challenges, including Robinson Negron-Juarez, Staff  Scientist in EESA-Climate and Ecosystem Science Division, and Valerie Hendrix, Senior Software Engineer in the SDD. 

“A research publication usually represents the end of data analysis. Data management extends the life of a dataset, which can now, with curation, be used far beyond its original intent. Data management incentivizes collaboration among scientists to explore beyond their areas of expertise,” said Negron-Juarez. 

This newly funded project will build on DoE’s Earth and Environmental System Science Data for a Virtual Ecosystem (ESS-DIVE) project led by Berkeley Lab. The project falls within a new program domain for EESA, Earth Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data (EAID), which is focused on research that makes use of machine learning, data sciences, informatics, and data management to advance state-of-the-art Earth science observations, modeling, and theory. 

“The data management platform represents a wonderful opportunity to bring together approaches and expertise in both wildland fire science and data science to make real progress in understanding how wildland fires behave,” said Cholia. “Modelers will be able to look at different aspects of wildland fires, and to build knowledge collaboratively.” 

 

News & Events

Chun Chang Places Second in Annual Berkeley Lab Pitch Competition3 min read

January 18, 2023

Commercializing Berkeley Lab inventions is an important part of the Lab’s mission, and one that requires strong communication skills. For example, Lab inventors need to be able to pitch their ideas to external partners and potential funders.  The annual Berkeley Lab Pitch Competition occurred on October 27, 2022 and is a part of an entrepreneurship…

EESA Scientists Collaborate With Universities to bring Environmental Science Research Opportunities and Training to Students Underrepresented in STEM3 min read

January 13, 2023

  EESA researchers are collaborators in three of the 41 projects awarded in December by DOE through its Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) initiative.  RENEW aims to build foundations for research at institutions that have been historically underrepresented in the Office of Science (SC) research portfolio. The initiative provides opportunities for undergraduate and…

New Report Explores Revolutionary Environmental Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure5 min read

January 10, 2023

In a collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) and DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, as well as with community experts, the Artificial Intelligence for Earth System Predictability (AI4ESP) workshop was held from October through December 2021. BER developed the process as the Model-Experiment paradigm, or ModEx, and a report released this fall outlines the key takeaways of last year’s event.

A Q&A With Postdoc Kunxiaoja Yuan3 min read

January 4, 2023

  Kunxiaojia Yuan received her Bachelor’s of Engineering in remote sensing and Ph.D. in geographic information engineering from Wuhan University. She is a postdoctoral researcher in EESA, with a research focus on global carbon, energy, and water cycle analysis and model evaluation using machine learning and causal inference. What motivated you to pursue a postdoc…

  • Our People
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • Organizational Charts
    • Postdocs
    • Staff Only
    • Search by Expertise
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
  • Research
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
    • Energy Geosciences Division
    • Program Domains
      • Programs
    • Projects
  • Contact
    • 510 486 6455
    • eesawebmaster@lbl.gov
    • Our Identity

Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo DOE Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo UC

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Managed by the University of California

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Earth and Environmental Sciences Area · Privacy & Security Notice