The systematic construction of a smart network for ecological health observation of grassland in Xinjiang

Grasslands, which regulate the regional climate and maintain ecological balance, are a significant form of terrestrial ecosystem. Once the grassland ecology is damaged, ecological services are gradually lost and even degraded in the desert. Understanding grassland ecological health in a timely and accurate manner not only protects grassland ecology and implements carbon peak and carbon neutrality strategies but also ensures the livelihoods of pastoralists and provides an important foundation for promoting stable livestock development in pastoral areas. The ecological grassland protection issue has grown in importance, and grassland desertification has deteriorated in Xinjiang during the last 40 years. Climate change and unreasonable human activity are major drivers of grassland degradation, desertification, and biological disasters. Overall, the lack of professional and smart monitoring networks makes it difficult to quantify the ecological health of grasslands. In addition, there are few reports on the research of smart networks for the ecological health observation of grasslands in Xinjiang based on emerging technologies, such as big data, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Here, this study focuses on the emergency, the global technical framework, and the means of implementation of the monitoring of the ecological health network of grasslands in Xinjiang. This is based on wild areas, numerous types and complex monitoring and evaluation in the grassland of Xinjiang. This smart network comprised three sub-systems and 1 cloud database. These subsystems include the observation, evaluation, and early warming of grassland health. The cloud database is an integrated satellite-aerial-earth-soil monitoring system for grasslands. The grassland ecological health monitoring subsystem (IoT Perception System), which comprises perception, transmission, and data centers, can obtain grassland biometric, biophysical, and ecosystem indicators. The grassland ecological health assessment subsystem is a comprehensive system for the quick and accurate quantitative assessment of grassland ecological health status. The grassland ecological health early warning subsystem, an intelligent early warning system highly coupled with grassland ecological health perception and evaluation, is dedicated to short-term grassland abiotic (drought, snow disasters, and fire) and biological (rat, insect, poison, and weed) disaster warnings. The “satellite-aerial-earth-soil” integrated cloud data is composed of a three-dimensional monitoring network with satellite-based, air-based, and ground-based coordination and its related hardware and software, which realizes intelligent monitoring of grassland ecological health and multi-source data aggregation. Our research attempts to promote integrated surveillance, evaluation, and early warming of grassland ecological health. This smart network was designed to realize automated surveillance of grassland health and ecological status, dynamically assess the ecological health of grasslands, and provide an early warning of multi-disaster grasslands. Promote three-dimensional monitoring of “satellite-aerial-earth-soil” and integrate multi-source data to build data on grassland clouds in Xinjiang. Cultivate professional talent and build an intelligent grassland operational team. We will improve the technical standards and accelerate the development of key technologies in intelligent surveillance network systems for the ecological health of grasslands. This is essential for the ecological development and high-quality ecological construction of grasslands in Xinjiang, particularly for its ecological security and socioeconomic development.