Galansiyang Developers

Cagayan de Oro | Space for Change

Awards & Nominations

Galansiyang Developers has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Project LANTAWA

High-Level Project Summary

Planting trees on deforested areas, especially on mined-out regions, have always been our initiative to mitigate the effects of climate change and bring back the natural state of deforested lands. However, problem emerges after this initiative, how can we monitor these vast growing trees without solely relying on manual human observation? This process of forest monitoring can be a massive cost and time consuming. Thus, we introduce LANTAWA, a web-based app that utilizes the NASA's GIS earthdata and LiDAR technology with RGB scanning drones to monitor rehabilitated land status and to empower communities, industries and policy makers against environmental injustices by automating forestry.

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/iS4h3IbTJFU

Link to Final Project

https://lantawa-by-galansiyang-dev.firebaseapp.com/

Detailed Project Description

SUMMARY OF THE PROBLEM

Mining firms don't have a sufficient technology for forest monitoring and tree inventory but rather rely on manual procedures since initiatives for research and innovation are unpopular opinions. And the critical need for precise monitoring system through automation now has long been forgotten.
Government in developing countries also struggles from insufficient manpower especially for environmental monitoring and policy enforcement
Communities living around mining tenements have no access to vital information concerning their safety

Introducing

The project name is a Bisaya (a Philippine language) word "lantawa" which means to look, to see, or to inspect.

BRIEF METHODOLOGY

I. Drone Modification

A multirotor UAV drone will be modified for mapping and scanning on post-mining sites. Materials are to be assembled and electronics are to be properly connected.

II. Drone integration and NASA's earthdata incorporation with LiDAR technology and GIS

Drone will be integrated with the LiDAR and NASA's GIS earthdata for the best aerial & aerospace gathering of data. Data gathered from NASA's earthdata will also be incorporated in the running system. This process will secure sharper ground perspective for data analysis of the canopies.

III. Web App Development (Alpha-type)

NASA's earthdata provides the necessary input to generate GIS-based imagery and other details using QGIS webmap.

The use of LiDAR technology and NASA's GIS earthdata provides sharp data on the better classification of trees, a more accurate modelling of the canopy layers, ground topography and biomass estimation; it can penetrate in the vegetation of a forest in order to produce a digital terrain model (DTM) and get inside-canopy for tree species identification, height and size measurements or volume of wood per hectare. All the gathered data will be uploaded to a web-based server then render it on an AI software to produce the needed information. Thus, creating a responsive web application with artificial intelligence (AI) to show GIS results, tree count, size, height & heath, tree species identification & classification, calculation of carbon sequestration, wildlife identification and display the actual digital 3D forest.

Github link for the code and QGIS file:

https://github.com/jaylamberte99/lantawa

Drive:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MpPcW0DDQa9e1tEnJ7KJBrrU9Q1PRS8J?usp=sharing

Space Agency Data

PROCESS FRAMEWORK

In order for the metal and mineral industry to avoid closure and continue their operation, they must secure their environmental permit once they are able comply to the environmental regulatory policies.

The mining environmental team will scan the mined-out areas via drones with RGB + LiDAR. The data gathered from drone scanning with RGB + LiDAR technology will be uploaded to LANTAWA web-app to be integrated with;
NASA's "MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices 16-DAY L3 Global 250m SIN Grind V061" including NDVI values which can be used to estimate the density of green on an area of land and vegetation characteristics. This project also integrated the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) as it provides NASA Earth science data in GIS-ready formats for easy integration and analysis in the primary tools employed by user communities. In this particular section, the collection of datasets are appropriate in this project since it indicates monitoring of vegetation health such as vegetation condition, vegetation types, canopy height, vertical structure of forests, habitat structure, delineation and conservation of protected areas, phenology, and biomass measurements of groups and individuals. Such layers of data or datasets are essential to the monitoring system.

As it was stated in the Vegetation Characteristics and Processes Data section,

Vegetation is a primary component of terrestrial biodiversity, playing a critical role in the global energy budget and in many of our biogeochemical cycles. Maintaining species richness ensures the productivity and stability of ecosystem processes, making it critical to monitor vegetation health.

With visual evidence and metrics, the Government’s Environmental Enforcers can also remotely monitor or inspect the rehabilitation progress online without the need of physical on-site visitation. The government’s environmental regulators can always, and have the potent authority, to request to for an action. For example, if some areas are not yet updated, re-scanning is necessary, or if the data from LANTAWA shows that some areas need more attention, they can request an action to the mining firms like adding more vegetation or more fertilizers, depending on the situation.
The overall information will be available on LANTAWA web-app, which serves as a platform for digitally empowered tools for community leaders and members that consistently deliver vital information at a faster rate, a wider reach but with enhanced accuracy and transparency. This minimizes travel costs and less exposure to risk viz. vehicular/mountain climbing accident, COVID19 outbreak, etc., and promote awareness and safety to all.

Thus, LANTAWA was inspired to use this data to cater a healthy and innovative post-mining rehabilitation system that can guarantee a feasible output, promote responsible mining, and empowering the communities, industries and government against environmental injustices by automating forestry!

Hackathon Journey

Considering that our team has been on hiatus since the start of pandemic, when our startup operations halted for safety protocols, this challenge became an opportunity for us to showcase again the grit and the hustle towards our love for innovation. The experiences we obtained in this hackathon from idea stage to prototyping, and from prototyping to small scale deployment (alpha version), reminded our team that we are participating in something that can actually make a change for our world, and not just for our world, but in any space that we occupy.

Eager to bring back the once lush forests and once healthy planet, LANTAWA has been created. The drive to automate the vegetation restoration of the disturbed or mined-out land areas and monitor the growing or existing forests is the fuel of our team to attenuate the effects of climate change while helping mining and quarry industries to be more sustainable.

We can never deny that climate change is affecting our lives. Thus, this project is not just to showcase our skills in science and technology but rather our approach is geared towards solving real global problems. And although this may seem unattainable now but surely our journey does not end here in this 2-day hackathon.

This is Joshua Fernandez - Electronic Technologist, Maynard Costanilla - Communication Technologist, Jay Gajudo - Drone Developer, Jay Lamberte - Software Engineer, Jiko Colita - I.T professional; and we will continue to empower communities, industries & policy makers against environmental injustices by automating forestry!