18 June 2024
Carsten Brinkschulte, co-founder and CEO, Dryad Networks
The National Trust manages vast areas of countryside, including forests that are susceptible to fires. Traditional methods of monitoring these areas can be challenging due to their size and remoteness. Recognising this, the National Trust has been exploring the use of LoRaWAN mesh networks on Marsden Moor – a site of special scientific interest and a habitat for rare birds and plants.
Marsden Moor is home to rare plants like bog rosemary and cotton grass, and fauna including the golden plover, curlews, and short-eared owl. The area also contains carbon-rich peat, which can release greenhouse gases when burned. Last year, the region suffered seven fires that burned three square kilometres of moorland, destroying nests and eggs of rare birds and affecting small creatures like frogs that could not escape.
Apart from posing a direct threat to life, wildfires lead to biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruption. Intense heat damages soil structure, reducing fertility and increasing erosion risk. Fires emit significant quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change. Additionally, ash and other debris wash into waterways, contaminating drinking water sources and harming aquatic ecosystems.
Early detection
Catching wildfires early is crucial. Standard methods involve watchtowers, cameras, and satellites, but these typically identify fires only after they have broken through the tree canopy. By this stage, fires are often substantial and extremely challenging to control. However, a new era in fire detection allows firefighters to reach a fire while it is easier to control.
The use of ‘ultra-early’ detection technology can reduce wildfire detection times from several hours to minutes. A crucial component of this technology is LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network), a protocol designed for wireless communication that facilitates long-range, low-power connectivity between devices and the internet. Along with WiFi and Bluetooth, it operates in the unlicensed spectrum (frequency bands that regulatory authorities make available for public use under certain conditions).
LoRaWAN is specifically tailored for IoT applications, enabling devices such as sensors to connect to the internet over long distances with minimal energy consumption. This makes it ideal for scenarios where devices are deployed in hard-to-reach areas or where replacing batteries frequently is impractical — like forests.
Key features and advantages
LoRaWAN can cover distances up to 15km in rural areas and 2-5km in urban environments, making it ideal for wide-area applications. Devices can operate for years on a single battery or supercapacitor, thanks to the low power requirements of LoRa modulation and the efficient communication protocol.
A network can support millions of devices, making it highly scalable for large IoT deployments. LoRaWAN offers robust security features, including end-to-end encryption, device authentication, and integrity protection. Operating in unlicensed spectrum bands eliminates the need for costly spectrum licenses, reducing operational costs.
Applications
LoRaWAN facilitates smart agriculture (monitoring soil moisture, weather conditions, and crop health to optimize farming practices) and smart cities (managing street lighting, waste collection, and parking) through connected sensors. It also allows monitoring of equipment health, managing energy consumption, and ensuring safety in industrial environments. Moreover, LoRaWAN makes environmental monitoring easier: tracking air and water quality, wildlife habitats, and disaster-prone areas.
The broad range of LoRaWAN-compatible network components and sensors facilitate the development of customized applications addressing various environmental and ecological use cases, including biodiversity monitoring and forest health. LoRaWAN can become the generic network infrastructure of forests, like an ‘internet of trees,’ supporting forest management applications such as the early detection of diseases, pests, and climate change impacts. LoRaWAN networks could provide critical information for policy-making and conservation efforts, enhancing the sustainability and resilience of forest ecosystems.
LoRaWAN mesh networks
A mesh network is a type of network topology where each node (device) connects directly to multiple other nodes, creating a web-like structure. This decentralized design enables efficient, robust, and scalable communication across the network. Mesh networks are often used where traditional network infrastructure might be impractical, such as in large areas, remote locations, or environments requiring high reliability.
Adding mesh network capabilities to LoRaWAN offers considerable advantages:
• Extended range for large areas and remote locations such as forests, nature reserves, and disaster areas.
• Improved resilience, redundancy, and reliability: If one node fails, other nodes can reroute data.
• Scalability: Extending network coverage is easy by adding more devices.
• Compatibility: Devices compatible with LoRaWAN from multiple vendors can participate in the extended range and coverage of the multi-hop mesh network.
LoRaWAN mesh networks in action
The real value of these networks lies in their real-world application. Here are a few examples of how LoRaWAN mesh networks are leading the charge when it comes to global wildfire mitigation:
Spain: coverage of vast biodiverse forest areas
In Andalusia, Spain, a LoRaWAN mesh network covers vast biodiverse forest areas, providing early warnings to help protect the region from devastating fires.
Sicily: improving firefighting response time and decision-making
The town of Castelbuono, Sicily, bolstered its firefighting efforts with a LoRaWAN mesh network that monitors critical fire-risk areas in real time. This empowers local fire departments to react swiftly and make more informed decisions regarding potential threats.
California: ultra-early detection
A pilot at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) demonstrated a LoRaWAN mesh network’s ability to detect wildfires significantly faster and earlier than traditional methods. Ultra-early detection can reduce response times and the devastation and costs associated with uncontrolled wildfires.
Lebanon: rapid intervention from ultra-early detection
In December 2023, a long-range LoRaWAN mesh network detected a small, unauthorized fire in a Lebanese forest. The alert reached authorities quickly, facilitated rapid intervention, and mitigated the risk of a larger, uncontrolled wildfire.
Enhancing LoRaWAN with mesh technology significantly improves remote area connectivity, especially in vital sectors including conservation and forest management. Continuous innovation in developing and deploying LoRaWAN networks will enable advancements and wider applications benefiting environmental protection and forest monitoring for current and future generations.
