#ARIES15years: Celebrating 15 years of AI for environmental sustainability

Since 2007, ARIES has been building the first ‘Wikipedia-like’ open-source platform for interoperable data and models, through AI. Check out this infographic providing an overview of our vision to take open science to the next level and watch for a series of new ARIES online infographics to be released throughout the following months!

ARIES for SEEA Explorer

The Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP), in collaboration with the international research and innovation platform Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability (ARIES) at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), have developed a pioneering Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered application for rapid natural capital accounting: the ARIES for SEEA Explorer!

k.LAB's remote engine is available online!

Knowledge Laboratory (k.LAB) is the open-source software powering ARIES. It supports selection of the most appropriate data and models using cloud technology and following an open data paradigm: the resulting insight, in the same fashion, remains open and available to society at large, and becomes a base for further computations, contributing to an ever-increasing knowledge base.

#ARIES15years: Celebrating 15 years of AI for environmental sustainability

Since 2007, ARIES has been building the first ‘Wikipedia-like’ open-source platform for interoperable data and models, through AI. Check out this infographic providing an overview of our vision to take open science to the next level and watch for a series of new ARIES online infographics to be released throughout the following months!

ARIES for SEEA Explorer

The Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP), in collaboration with the international research and innovation platform Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability (ARIES) at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), have developed a pioneering Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered application for rapid natural capital accounting: the ARIES for SEEA Explorer!

k.LAB's remote engine is available online!

Knowledge Laboratory (k.LAB) is the open-source software powering ARIES. It supports selection of the most appropriate data and models using cloud technology and following an open data paradigm: the resulting insight, in the same fashion, remains open and available to society at large, and becomes a base for further computations, contributing to an ever-increasing knowledge base.

An adaptive modelling technology

Keeping it simple, but realistic

ARIES is an artificial intelligent modeller rather than a single model or collection of models. ARIES chooses ecological process models where appropriate, and turns to simpler models where process models do not exist or are inadequate. Based on a simple user query, ARIES builds all the agents involved in the nature/society interaction, connects them into a flow network, and creates the best possible models for each agent and connection. The result is a detailed, adaptive, and dynamic assessment of  how nature provides benefits to people.

Empowering urban heat resilience through ARIES 

In a recent paper published in the Science of the Total Environment journal, BC3 researchers Celina Aznarez and ARIES team members Sudeshna Kumar and Alba Márquez Torres explore the disparities in heat vulnerability and their implications for environmental justice. ...

The UN ARIES for SEEA Sector Hub premieres its brand new landing page on the UN Global Platform’s website!

As the first subject-specific hub of its kind, the ARIES for SEEA Sector Hub joined last year to the other Regional Hubs within the United Nations Global Platform, a collaborative environment established by the UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for...

ARIES at EGU 2024: Pioneering research in environmental sustainability

ARIES team members Alba Márquez, Anna Sperotto, Diego Bengoechea Paz and Sudeshna Kumar will participate in The European Geosciences Union (EGU) conference 2024, one of the most anticipated events in the realm of geosciences, bringing together researchers, scientists,...

Empowering Pyrenean communities for climate resilience

ARIES is excited to announce its involvement in a European project coordinated by the Pyrenees Climate Change Observatory (OPCC) - Pyrenees Working Community Consortium (CTP): LIFE CC PYRENEES. This initiative seeks to ensure the leverage effect to achieve a first...

New report on global vegetation carbon stocks

The ARIES team has released annual global vegetation carbon stock trends from 2001 to 2020. This provides new insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation carbon stocks worldwide, with  important implications for global efforts to mitigate and adapt to...

An overview of methods to enhance ecosystem services assessments within the Global Biodiversity Framework

ARIES’ Natural Capital Accounting project manager at BC3 Alessio Bulckaen and Natural Capital Accounting Specialist at U.S. The Geological Survey (USGS) Ken Bagstad recently led a comprehensive review of candidate models, data sources, and SEEA-compatible valuation...

Updated ARIES Interoperability Strategy

In the latest release of the Working Paper series by BC3, the ARIES team, consisting of Ferdinando Villa, Stefano Balbi, and Alessio Bulckaen, in collaboration with Ken Bagstad from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), has unveiled an updated interoperability...

Now available – the full video recording of the ARIES AI roundtable in Bilbao

AI has become a fundamental part of our lives, affecting everything from environmental decision-making to policy management and equity. On the 25th of September in Bilbao, under the title ‘Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities’...

ARIES for SEEA at COP28!

In a compelling side event held during COP28 in Dubai, environmental experts and statisticians joined for a thought-provoking discussion on the seamless integration of natural capital accounting (NCA) and climate change considerations.  Moderated by BC3’s scientific...

ARIES at UN Datathon 2023!

The ARIES team participated in the latest UN Datathon 2023 in Montevideo, Uruguay, from November 3rd to 6th, where we hosted an intensive workshop on November 4th, attracting a diverse audience of around 20 participants!  The workshop was structured into two sessions,...

Modelling on the semantic web

ARIES is based on the radically novel k.LAB technology, which allows models and data to be contributed by independent researchers, hosted on a network, and automatically assembled into model workflows following a user’s simple. The technology, which can be applied beyond the field of ecosystem services, is the first operational example of semantically integrated, distributed, collaborative modelling. As an international network of scientific collaborators contribute data and models, the ARIES system grows by itself, and each new assessment automatically adopts the best data and models available. In the next year, users will be able to not only develop, but also run models directly from the world wide web, enabling a simple, two-step modeling workflow suitable for non-technical users, such as decision makers and their staff.

Hightlights

While work continues on ARIES’ web-based infrastructure that will enable more its independent use, ARIES is being used by researches and practitioners to quantify, map, and evaluate a broad spectrum of ecosystem services and beneficiaries in case studies across the globe. We have partnered with government agencies, universities, NGOs, and other stakeholders to develop data and models that are relevant to resource management, producing high-quality knowledge and understanding to support decision making. The case studies highlighted here were designed using local, high-resolution spatial datasets whenever available to populate models that account for a broad range of ecosystem services in a variety of ecological and socio-economic settings. The map below highlights some of the projects where ARIES has been used. Click a pin on the map to review the details for individual case studies.

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