THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state biodiversity board is exploring the possibility of testing a 'landslide-forecasting device' from the United States at Munnar in Idukki, following a discussion with climate change experts from the University of Alabama, US.

The plan has emerged as an offshoot of a discussion on the potential framework for crowd sourcing of information for ecological research in the Western Ghats to study climate change due to human intervention.

"The discussions were centred on testing the facility of a landslide-forecasting device in the US to Munnar to ascertain and predict the occurrence of landslides here. Discussions are also planned with geographical experts here to take it forward," board chairman Dr Oommen V Oommen said.

He said smartphones could also be used to acquire data. "We have data on green cover based on satellite photographs but there is no actual ground-level information. It's possible with new-generation smartphone-based format generated by the US-based Alabama university by feeding the data of a place, including latitude, longitude and species of animals and plants," he said.

Board member-secretary K P Laladhas said the increased availability of mobile devices with global positioning and photographic capabilities provided opportunities for utilization of crowd sourcing for ecological research.

"Remote sensing of land cover and land use change is one such application. Ecological niche modeling also requires truthful data for training and validation. Data collected by the general public can be used with imagery from satellites to study deforestation, urbanization and also afforestation projects," he said.

Around 75 personnel, including scientists and project fellows, took part in the discussion led by state biotechnology commission director P R Sudhakaran here the other day.

The major speakers included climate change expert from University of Alabama Udayasankar S Nair, Kerala university inter-university centre for excellence in bioinformatics Achuthsankar S Nair, Suresh Raju of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and T K Sabu of St Joseph's College, Calicut.