A new study by Tel Aviv University found that the smart cell phones that are in the possession of each of us may help in collecting weather data (from the public) and in providing early warnings about extreme weather conditions that may lead to fires, and even prevent their development
A new study by Tel Aviv University found that the smart cell phones that are in the possession of each of us may help in collecting weather data (from the public) and in providing early warnings about extreme weather conditions that may cause fires to break out, and even prevent their development.
The researchers explain that every smart cell phone has many sensors that can collect important environmental data, such as temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, magnetic field, light, sound, position, acceleration, gravity, and more. This data helps us navigate in space, determine our location, alert us to battery heating and humidity in the device, and the data helps us in real time, without saving. The researchers showed that smart use of our data from smartphones may help in early warning systems for forest fire events.. especially since there are thousands, if not millions, of data collected in different countries around the world. Such early warning systems need data that are usually not available in remote forested areas due to a lack of measuring stations. However, the public carries smart cell phones in their pockets and in each of these devices are extremely sophisticated micro-sensors. The sensors work in the background continuously and the data obtained from them can be collected and saved. Already today, many companies collect this data and use it for various purposes, with the approval of the users. The researchers believe that this huge source of data (as of 2024 there are over 7 billion smart cell phones worldwide) may help with extreme weather forecasting.
Prof. Colleen Price and PhD student Hufit Shaf of the Department of Geophysics at the Porter School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Tel Aviv University used data collected from the public through the weather application WeatherSignal ((Opensignal) in order to develop a methodology for assessing the risk of forest fires, based solely on smartphone data The results of the study were recently published in the journal Natural Hazards Earth System Sciences.
One of the main parameters that determine the likelihood of a forest fire is the amount of moisture in the vegetation (which is essentially the fuel for the fire), and this is determined by the air temperature and the relative humidity of the air around the vegetation. Both of these parameters are readily available from smart cell phones in the hands of the public.
Hufit Shaf explains: "We developed an index based on VPD (vapor pressure deficit, which actually reflects the relationship between the environment (temperature and humidity) and the dryness of the plants. As the atmospheric conditions become hotter and drier, the environment attracts more moisture from the plants, which makes it easier About starting fires. When the air is cooler and moister, fires can't start. You can see more and more studies using VPD to predict level The danger of forest fires, although it is usually calculated using data taken from local weather stations. The innovation of our study is the use of data collected from smartphone users, without their active participation, to calculate VPD over large areas, providing important insights for fire risk assessment."
However, the smartphone data has errors. The temperature may reflect the air conditioner in the office, while the humidity sensors may detect the humidity in the bathroom during a shower. It was therefore necessary to first calibrate the cellular data using commercial meteorological stations. The calibrations turned out to be fairly straightforward, and only needed to be done once to correct the cell readings. After calibrating the data or "training it", the researchers focused on analyzing two significant test cases of forest fires: the first is the fire events in Israel in November 2016, the second is the giant fire in Portugal that occurred in July 2013. The results were surprising, as the smart cell phone data collected from the public showed significant anomalies in the VPD index before and during the large fires observed.
Hufit Shaaf adds: "Surprisingly, although each cell phone has its own errors and biases, by using large amounts of data from a large number of smart cell phones we can smooth out the errors and still be left with useful data. The large amount of data overcomes the problems associated with individual smart cell phones. "
Global smartphone coverage has grown by about 30% in the last five years. As their global density continues to increase, orbitally collected data may eventually offer better spatial resolution than traditional meteorological networks. This is especially true in urban areas where natural disasters such as fires can have a significant impact. In addition, in low-income countries there is a lack of meteorological infrastructure, so smartphones may provide useful data for monitoring extreme weather conditions. Price concludes: "Given the rapid growth in the number of smart cell phones around the world, we propose to take advantage of this data source to provide better early warning to the public and emergency managers of impending natural disasters. Better early warning can prevent natural hazards from becoming natural disasters."
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Cell phones usually report the temperature and relative humidity in the pockets or purses of the users.