GAINS
Advancing AI-powered nature solutions for a carbon-neutral future — forest carbon, climate change, extreme climate events, ecosystem resilience, tipping points, biodiversity, and GeoAI at landscape to jurisdictional scales.
About GAINS
GAINS — Global Artificial Intelligence and Nature Solutions — builds scientific tools and decision support for governments, universities, NGOs, and industry. We treat AI and Earth observation as instruments to test and scale ecological theory, not as a substitute for mechanism.
Scale ecological theory with GeoAI and structural equation modeling to sustain forest carbon and biodiversity under climate change — including resilience to extremes, early warning of tipping points, JREDD+, Net Zero, and nature-based solutions.
An international research institute bridging field ecology, multi-sensor remote sensing, and AI for transparent carbon MRV, climate-risk assessment, restoration design, and early warning of ecosystem tipping points.
Theory first. Evidence over black boxes. Open methods where possible. Partnerships that serve climate adaptation, resilience, and biodiversity priorities.
Tropical forests, mangroves, urban greenspace, agroforestry, and coastal systems under intensifying climate extremes — with methods that transfer across tropical and subtropical landscapes.
GAINS research is aligned with — not a substitute for — major international agendas for climate and biodiversity action.
Research programs
Organized research programs spanning forest carbon, climate extremes and tipping points, biodiversity, AI for Earth, remote sensing, and digital twin forests.
Carbon accounting, sequestration, carbon stability under a changing climate, MRV, JREDD+, and Net Zero pathways for forests and blue carbon — including contributions to global mangrove soil-carbon mapping collaborations.
Cyclones, heat, drought, salinity, and compound extremes; recovery trajectories; critical slowing down (CSD); long-term vegetation signals (e.g. kNDVI); and early warning of ecological tipping points.
Functional composition, multifunctionality, structural diversity, and ecological modeling with SEM — how biodiversity sustains function under climate stress.
Machine learning, deep learning, GeoAI, foundation models, and explainable AI for monitoring, resilience forecasting, and decision support.
Satellite, drone, TLS/LiDAR, hyperspectral, radar, GEDI, Planet, and MODIS — fused for multi-scale observation of change, extremes, and recovery.
Living digital representations of stand structure, carbon, resilience, and tipping risk — linking plots, UAV/LiDAR, and satellite time series.
Institute profile
Multi-scale monitoring, GeoAI analysis, and application pillars — including forest carbon, climate resilience, and ecological tipping points across urban, tropical, coastal, and agroforestry landscapes.
Publications
Selected papers by venue. Full list on Google Scholar (1,497 citations; h-index 13; i10-index 19 — as of July 2026).
Founder & Director
Founder & Director, GAINS · Research Fellow, Remote Sensing Laboratory, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Forest ecologist with a decade of experience across Kyoto University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, The University of Hong Kong, Jiangmen Laboratory of Carbon Science and Technology (HKUST Guangzhou), and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His work integrates field ecology, UAV/LiDAR, satellite remote sensing, GeoAI, machine learning, and structural equation modeling to understand forest carbon, climate extremes, ecosystem resilience, and tipping points — with 20+ peer-reviewed articles (1,497 citations; h-index 13; i10-index 19, Google Scholar, July 2026) in Nature Communications, Global Change Biology, and Communications Earth & Environment.
Capabilities
Areas of scientific expertise for future partnerships — not a commercial service catalog. Engagement depends on collaboration, institutional approval, and funding.
Engage
Pathways we aim to open as the institute grows — enquire by email; nothing below is an open call or guaranteed program yet.
Seeking collaborations with universities, agencies, NGOs, industry, and international organizations.
Coming soon.
Coming soon.
Data portal, open GEE/Python tools, and interactive carbon & resilience calculators — roadmap only.
Contact
Research partnerships on climate extremes, resilience, tipping points, forest carbon, GeoAI, MRV, training, and institute development — get in touch.
Email GAINS