Sensing the Forest - Let the Forest Speak using the Internet of Things, Acoustic Ecology and Creative AI

气候变化是一个世界性问题。气候变化的影响从世界上最近发生的自然灾害（如欧洲夏季干旱、南极洲冰融化、印度和巴基斯坦洪水等）中显而易见。可以说，一般公众在地方一级缺乏可获得的科学信息，这些信息可以帮助他们就如何适应日常生活作出明智的决定，并为国家未来适应气候变化作出贡献。森林丧失或砍伐森林是当代气候变化的原因之一。与气象观测站类似，森林观测站产生大量环境数据，需要专家科学家进行分析和解释，一般公众不易理解。关于气候变化对森林影响的科学研究大多集中在有限的几个重点监测地区。这缺乏广泛的地域差异，在扩大到区域或国家一级进行决策时增加了不确定性。我们相信，提供复杂数据的艺术和简化的图形/声波解释以及监测附近树木的能力可以帮助提高人们对气候变化对森林生态系统造成的相关问题的认识，并有助于更广泛的地理数据变异性。该项目将引起公众对气候变化引起的森林变化的关注。该项目通过辩论气候变化对森林的潜在破坏性影响，为艺术家、科学家和森林爱好者的社区建设做出贡献。我们希望对人们的意见产生积极的影响，从而转变为政策变化。首要的研究问题是，如何使用艺术和社区科学研究方法来帮助人们了解和教育气候变化？特别是，我们可以从使用物联网（IoT），声学生态学和创造性人工智能（AI）的艺术和社区科学研究方法中学到什么，以监测森林行为和提高对气候变化的认识？该项目旨在提高森林游客/爱好者、艺术家、科学家和公众对森林与气候变化之间联系的认识。社区建设的重点是以创造性和艺术性的方式利用复杂的科学数据更好地了解森林行为。该项目有三个主要目标：（1）利用现场科学数据和促进声学生态学经验，在英国森林进行为期一年的现场和在线艺术干预。(2)开发一个内部物联网（IoT）原型，以测量与树木压力相关的变量，如树液流量，空气温度，湿度和土壤湿度，使用社区/公民科学方法与网络应用程序连接进行数据分析，可视化和声音处理。(3)提供和传播工具、在线资源和教学活动，并促进讨论环境，以提高公众的认识和参与。我们设想将艺术和技术科学研究方法相结合，以实现项目的目标。我们的方法是跨学科的，重点是寻找新的艺术，声学和视听方法来理解环境森林数据。该项目是新颖的，因为它汇集了一个跨学科的艺术家和科学家团队，利用原创方法研究一个及时的问题，以获得有关森林与气候变化之间联系的知识，这些知识可能对地方，国家和全球产生影响。学者和非专业人士都可以从这项研究中受益。学术领域包括SMC/音乐学，人机交互，声波艺术和生态学。

Climate change is a world problem. The effects of climate change are clear from the latest natural disasters in the world (e.g. summer droughts in Europe, Antarctica ice melting, and floods in India and Pakistan, among others). Arguably, the general public lacks accessible scientific information at a local level that can help them make informed decisions on how to adapt to everyday life and contribute to the future national adaptation to climate change. Forest loss or deforestation is one of the causes of contemporary climate change. Similar to weather observatories, there exist forest observatories that produce vast amounts of environmental data that require analysis and interpretation by expert scientists, usually in a way not easily digestible by the general public. Much of the scientific research on the impact of climate change on forests focuses on a limited number of intensively monitored areas. This lacks wide geographical variability, increasing the uncertainty when upscaling to a regional or national level for policy-making. We believe that offering artistic and simplified graphical/sonic interpretation of complex data and the ability to monitor nearby trees can help raise awareness of relevant issues caused by climate change to our forest ecosystem and contribute to a wider geographic data variability. The project will bring the attention of the general public to the forest changes caused by climate change. This project contributes to community building of artists, scientists and forest aficionados by debating the potentially devastating effects of climate change on forests. We hope to make a positive impact on people's opinions that can turn into policy change.The overarching research question is, how can the use of artistic and community science research methods help to inform and educate people about climate change? In particular, what can we learn from using artistic and community science research methods employing the Internet of Things (IoT), Acoustic Ecology and Creative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in relation to monitoring forest behaviour and raising awareness about climate change? The project aims to raise awareness among forest visitors/aficionados, artists, scientists, and the general public about the connection between forests and climate change. Community building will centre on looking at a better understanding of forest behaviour using complex scientific data in creative and artistic ways. The project has three key objectives: (1) To make a one-year on-site and online artistic intervention in a UK-based forest using live scientific data and fostering acoustic ecology experiences. (2) To develop an in-house Internet of Things (IoT) prototype to measure variables related to tree stress, such as sap flow, air temperature, humidity and soil moisture to be piloted using community/citizen science methodologies connected to web applications for data analysis, visualisation and sonification. (3) To provide and disseminate tools, online resources, and pedagogic activities as well as to promote a discussion environment to foster awareness and engagement among the general public. We envision the combination of artistic and techno-scientific research methods to accomplish the project's objectives. Our methodologies are interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on finding new artistic, acoustic and audiovisual methods to understand environmental forest data. The project is novel because it brings an interdisciplinary team of artists and scientists together to work on a timely issue using an original approach to gaining knowledge about the connection between forests and climate change that can have a local, national and global impact. Both academics and non-specialists can benefit from this research. Academic fields include SMC/musicology, Human-Computer Interaction, Sonic Arts and Ecology.