Inside the Natural History Museum's Partnership with AWS
London’s Natural History Museum has joined forces with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on a conservation project taking place in the heart of the museum’s newly enhanced gardens.
The museum’s famous gardens have now been fitted with more than 25 high-tech sensors, courtesy of AWS.
These sensors are designed to monitor environmental changes in real time, meaning the museum’s scientists can now monitor data on a previously unachievable scale.
Then there’s the new ‘Data Ecosystem’, built with AWS technology, which is being used to process and manage the data on one platform. This will eventually open access to scientists across the UK.
‘A brand-new scientific tool’
“This is a chance to give you, for the first time ever, a multi-location, multi-species, almost always-on continuous observation tool, and science has never had that before,” said Dr Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum.
These sensors are part of the larger vision of the museum’s Urban Nature Project, an ambitious effort to better understand urban ecosystems.
The array captures a wide range of environmental data, from temperature and humidity to acoustic recordings of wildlife interactions.
Early projections estimate that the system will collect up to 20 terabytes of audio data within its first year alone.
Data-driven biodiversity research
The collected data feeds into a newly developed Data Ecosystem, hosted on AWS infrastructure.
“The data ecosystem is a biodiversity monitoring platform built on Amazon Web Services and it's helping us to build a digital record of the state of nature over time,” says Rich Hinton, Chief Information Officer at the Natural History Museum.
“We're bringing together audio data, visual observations and environmental DNA data to give us a much more comprehensive picture of what is happening in biodiversity than we've ever had before.”
By consolidating information from various sources, including third-party APIs and direct observations, the system creates a comprehensive database for scientific analysis.
It also integrates more than 57,000 wildlife observations recorded since 1995, enabling researchers to compare historical and current data seamlessly.
This integrated platform supports the museum’s Community Science Programme, empowering individuals and local groups to contribute to global biodiversity research.
As Lucy Robinson, Community Science Manager, says: “It has never been more critical to speed the pace at which local observations feed into world-class research, and back into real action for the planet.”
Unlocking hidden biodiversity through eDNA
Beyond sensor data, the partnership is also advancing the study of environmental DNA (eDNA).
By analysing genetic material left behind in soil and water samples, researchers can detect the presence of various species without direct observation.
One major challenge in this process is taxonomic equivalence, the difficulty of matching species names between global databases and UK-specific taxonomy systems.
Previously, manually mapping 20 eDNA samples could take researchers an entire day.
With AWS technology, the museum has developed an algorithm that completes this process in less than five minutes, significantly reducing human error and accelerating the pace of research.
"Transforming and accelerating research"
“The new Data Ecosystem is already transforming and accelerating the museum’s scientific research and community science capabilities,” says Tanuja Randery, Managing Director for Europe, Middle East, and Africa at AWS.
The project’s potential extends well beyond the museum’s London gardens.
There are plans to expand the sensor network to other locations, aiming to create a comprehensive biodiversity monitoring system.
This scalability could provide valuable insights for tackling global environmental challenges.
A model for future conservation efforts
While the initiative is still in its early stages, its implications are clear.
By harnessing cloud computing and advanced data analytics, the partnership demonstrates how technology can play a pivotal role in conservation science.
The collaboration between AWS and the Natural History Museum offers a model for future projects seeking to bridge the gap between technological innovation and ecological research.
As biodiversity loss accelerates globally, initiatives like this may prove vital in understanding and mitigating the impacts of climate change, urbanisation and habitat destruction.
More importantly, it underscores the need for collective action to safeguard our planet’s rich and fragile ecosystems for future generations.
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