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Scientific cooperation through RNP’s network

Project in the Amazon involves researches from 15 countries

More than 1500 scientists, almost 500 students, 15 countries involved, 118 research projects, 157 national and foreign partner institutions, six Brazilian ministries and a global budget of around a hundred million dollars.

These numbers explain better than any word the grandiosity of one of the greatest projects of international scientific cooperation being carried out nowadays: the LBA Project (Large Scale Experiment in the Amazon’s Biosphere-Atmosphere – Experimento de Larga Escala na Biosfera-Atmosfera na Amazônia).

Led by Brazil, the project aims at explaining how the changes in the use of the land in the Amazon affect the regional and global climate and how the global climatic changes influence the biological, chemical and physical functioning of the forest and its sustainability.

Coordinated by the National Institute of Research in the Amazon (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia – INPA), the LBA started being implemented in 1996 as a result of meetings between Brazilian and foreign scientists which had been happening since 1990, focusing on concerns about the climatic changes in the world and the influence of the Amazon forest in this process.

For the scientific community worldwide, the changes in the natural water, energy, carbon and nutrient cycles in the forest, caused by deforestation and by sudden changes in the use of the Amazonian vegetable cover, can have climatic and environmental consequences both locally and globally.

LBA’s proposal is to promote a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary study capable of integrating physics, chemistry and biology in an analysis of several of the ecosystems in the forest so that one can understand the environmental risks run by the planet due to changes in human action upon the environment.

In order to reach this goal, the program has created 118 research subprojects, with different scientific perspectives, grouped in 7 themes. The Brazilian-American cooperation is responsible for 81 of these projects, and it involves important North American institutions, such as the NASA, which sponsors one-third of the LBA. In Brazil, there are many organizations directly or indirectly supporting the project, such as the University of São Paulo (USP), the Goeldi Museum, Embrapa, Finep, CNPq and Fapesp.

Planned to be over in 2007, the LBA project already has 39 finalized subprojects and 62 in progress – 17 are waiting for an authorization by the Brazilian government to be started. The results of this work are discussed and presented during the LBA’s International Scientific Conference, held biannually. This year, the meeting will take place in Brasília in July, and more than 600 studies will be presented.

Antonio Ocimar Manzi, LBA’s Implementation manager and coordinator of the Central Office, calls attention to the social dimension of the project:

— The LBA is worried about the influence of the climatic changes in the local communities in the Amazon, and its work is directed to public policies, in an attempt to contribute to the sustainable development of that region. Besides, at the end of its process, the project aims at leaving in the area at least a hundred people holding a Master’s degree or a Ph.D., specialized in the biosphere-atmosphere interaction, expanding its range and improving the local research institutions — explains Manzi.

The data path

The field study is carried out in an area of estimated 7,000,000 km², which includes the entire Amazon bay and part of the "cerrado" (typical vegetation of the Brazilian Midwest) as far as Brasília.

Towers, balloons, radar, airplanes, satellites and a variety of measuring instruments for data collection are installed all over the area so as to permit understanding and controlling the energy, water, carbon, nutrient and trace-gas flows between the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere in the Amazon.

Every day, this material generates an ample information base, which is processed in the several project offices and travels through RNP’s network until it gets to the LBA-DIS (Data Information System), located in another office, in the Center of Weather Forecast and Climatic Studies (Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos – CPTEC), in São Paulo.

The material that gets to the Center is consolidated, organized and later sent to the Latin American, North American and European partners, who evaluate the information, discuss ideas and hypotheses from their countries, in an international joint effort.

According to Laurindo Campos, general coordinator of LBA’s Data Information System, a great amount of data is generated as a result of the project, and it consumes a lot of band, which demands an appropriate computer infrastructure.

For the month of February, around 70 gigabits of information will be made available, including thousands of theme maps made by satellite. According to Luiz Horta, manager of LBA’s Data Information System, this is a good example of the band consumption required by the project.

For Laurindo Campos, without the network that RNP makes available, there are no chances of a project of this size being carried out:

— The LBA presents scientific answers to Brazil and to the world that require speed, immediate governmental action. RNP’s help accelerates decision-making.

The LBA is managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT). Besides the MCT, the project’s Higher Commission integrates five other ministries: the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Mining and Energy, the Ministry for Foreign Relations, and the Presidential Chief of Staff.

[RNP, 01.28.2004]