2024

2024

Projects

Greenfjord project

Climate change is accelerating in the Arctic and profoundly disrupting Greenland’s fjords, fragile ecosystems where ice, ocean, land, atmosphere, and biological life interact. These landscapes, essential to local activities, are experiencing increased glacier melt and calving, greatly increasing freshwater inflows. This change is disrupting marine dynamics, nutrient circulation, and the entire food web. Phytoplankton is influencing atmospheric chemistry and cloud formation, while fish are being affected, with direct consequences for the resources and economy of local communities.

AI and corals

Often relegated to the background behind fish in diving photos, corals nevertheless play a major ecological role. Although they cover less than 0.1% of the oceans, they are home to nearly a third of marine species and support the food security and economy of around half a billion people. Threatened by warming waters and local pollution, they are the subject of in-depth studies, particularly at EPFL’s Transnational Red Sea Center (TRSC). In this context, the DeepReefMap tool—an AI capable of reconstructing hundreds of meters of reefs in 3D from a simple underwater video—makes it possible to accelerate and democratize coral monitoring by significantly reducing the need for equipment and analysis. This breakthrough is the subject of a publication in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Energy demonstrator

A “Power-to-Gas” demonstrator has been installed on the Sion campus, a unique platform in Switzerland for large-scale testing of key energy transition technologies: CO₂ capture, hydrogen or methane production and seasonal storage. Developed by EPFL, HES-SO, and several industrial partners, it positions Valais as a hub for innovation in clean and circular energy. The MER Van Herle laboratory is piloting the reversible fuel cell, while other EPFL professors, including Wendy Queen, Kumar V. Agrawal, and François Maréchal, are also contributing to the project. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Diversity and distribution of bacteria in glacial streams

The rapid melting of mountain glaciers and the disappearance of the rivers they feed are powerful symbols of climate change. Glacial rivers are cold, nutrient-poor, and unstable ecosystems dominated by microbial biofilms. However, current knowledge about the microbiome of these waterways remains limited, preventing us from understanding how it responds to glacier retreat.

2024

Research support

Science Outreach Department (SPS)

The year 2024 marked the launch of the activities of the Science Outreach Department in Valais. This first year of implementation of the “Les sciences, ça m’intéresse!” program in the Valais enabled us to a wide offer primary and secondary school pupils, as well as young people outside the school environment, a wide range of scientific and technical activities. This new offering has complemented and strengthened our robotics and IT workshops, which have been running in the Valais since 2014, broadening the opportunities offered to young people to discover and experiment with science and technology. Thanks to this diversity, many participants were able to discover, manipulate and experiment with science in an interactive and fun way, with teaching methods adapted to each audience.

Shared services: an ecosystem serving science

There are a number of shared services on the campus, serving the laboratories. These entities, which are less in the limelight on a day-to-day basis, are nevertheless necessary for the smooth running of the campus and play a major role in the results obtained by the laboratories, which are responsible for scientific publications.

AI and corals

Based on images taken by cameras, an AI developed at the EPFL can reconstruct coral reefs in 3D in just a few minutes. A minor revolution for seabed study and preservation missions such as those of the Transnational Red Sea Center.

ECEO, Prof. Devis Tuia

Although they may appear in the background in the shots of shimmering fish taken by diving enthusiasts, corals are at the forefront of many scientists’ minds, given their fundamental ecological role. These animals with their limestone skeletons are among the most diverse ecosystems on the planet: although they cover less than 0.1% of the total surface area of the oceans, they are home to almost a third of known marine species. They also have a major impact on the lives of people in many reef-bordered countries: according to a study by the US Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, up to half a billion people worldwide depend on coral reefs for their food security and tourism-related income. Endangered by rising ocean temperatures and local anthropogenic pollution, which cause coral bleaching and death, corals are the subject of in-depth studies, such as those carried out by the Transnational Red Sea Center (TRSC), which aims to unlock the secrets of Red Sea species that are particularly resistant to the stresses of climate change. DeepReefMap, an artificial intelligence developed by the Laboratory of Computational Science for the Environment and Earth Observation (ECEO) at EPFL, was tested as part of this EPFL-led mission*. It is capable of reconstructing several hundred metres of coral reefs in 3D on the basis of an underwater film taken by a commercial camera in just a few minutes. It can also recognise and quantify certain coral characteristics. “This method democratises the digital reconstruction of reefs and gives a major boost to their monitoring by reducing the work, equipment, logistics and IT costs involved,” points out Samuel Gardaz, TRSC project manager. This research has now been published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Classify corals according to their state of health and shape

In order to further facilitate the work of their biologist colleagues working in the field, the scientists have included semantic segmentation algorithms to classify and quantify corals according to their state of health – from healthy, i.e. very colourful, to dead and covered in algae, via the white of bleaching – and to identify the forms of coral growth that are most common in the shallow reefs of the Red Sea according to an internationally recognised hierarchy – branching, massive, hard, soft, etc. -. “The aim was really to meet the needs of scientists and conservationists working in the field with a tool that can be deployed widely and very quickly: in Djibouti, for example, there are 400 km of coastline”, stresses Jonathan Sauder, who made the development of this AI the subject of his doctoral thesis. “Our method does not require a costly IT infrastructure: on a computer equipped with a simple graphics processing unit, semantic segmentation and 3D reconstruction can be obtained in the same amount of time as the video”.

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Greenfjord project

Study of the Greenland fjord ecosystem in a changing climate: socio-cultural and environmental interactions

EERL, Prof. Julia Schmale

The acceleration of climate change in the Arctic is having a profound effect on Greenland’s fjord systems. These systems are fragile because of the delicate link between the cryosphere, ocean, land, atmosphere and biosphere. Moreover, these iconic Greenlandic landscapes are at the heart of the socio-economic and cultural systems that govern local livelihoods. Warming induces the melting of glaciers and the detachment of ice blocks (calving), leading to a sharp increase in surrounding freshwater flows. Changes in these flows have an impact on the dynamics of marine ecosystems and the circulation of nutrients, which in turn affect the marine food web (food webs describe the food interactions between species in an ecosystem) with cascading effects: at lower trophic levels, changes in phytoplankton proliferation have an impact on atmospheric chemistry and cloud formation, and therefore on the surface radiation balance. At higher trophic levels, fish are affected, with major implications for local livelihoods and economies, which depend heavily on marine resources.

With GreenFjord, we want to better understand how climate change is affecting fjord ecosystems and how this is impacting biodiversity and livelihoods. The ultimate goal is to translate this new knowledge into models that can simulate and predict the future evolution of fjord systems, including glacial mass loss, trophic evolution and the carbon cycle. Our fieldwork will be carried out on land and at sea and will involve a high degree of participation by local populations. The main activities are as follows:

Cryosphere

Glacier evolution and impact on fjord water and nutrient circulation

Ocean

Physical and microbial characteristics of fjord systems

Biosphere

Determination of biodiversity using environmental DNA

Atmosphere

Influence of local natural emissions on cloud formation

Earth

Export of terrestrial organic matter to the ocean

Human

Understanding the relationship between local livelihoods and fjordic socio-ecosystems

2024

World-class research in the heart of the Alps

A research and innovation hub in the heart of Valais

Our laboratories

Prof. Julia Schmale

Extreme Environments Research Laboratory (EERL)

Prof. Sara Bonetti

Laboratory of Catchment Hydrology and Geomorphology (CHANGE)

Prof. Michael Lehning

Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (CRYOS)

Prof. Devis Tuia

Environmental Computational Science and Earth Observation (ECEO)

Prof. Tom Ian Battin

River Ecosystems Laboratory (RIVER)

Prof. Ianina Altshuler

Microbiome Adaptation to the Changing Environment (MACE)

Prof. Meret Aeppli

Soil Biogeochemistry Laboratory (SOIL)

Prof. Jérôme Chappellaz

Smart Environmental Sensing in Extreme Environments Laboratory (SENSE)

Prof. Wendy Queen

Laboratory for Functional Inorganic Materials (LFIM)

Prof. Dr. Sascha Feldmann

Laboratory for Energy Materials (LEM)

Prof. Raffaella Buonsanti

Laboratory of Nanochemistry for Energy (LNCE)

Prof. Kumar Varoon Agrawal

Laboratory of Advanced Separations (LAS)

Prof. Berend Smit

Laboratory of Molecular Simulation (LSMO)

Prof. Andreas Züttel

Laboratory of Materials for Renewable Energy (LMER)

Prof. François Maréchal

Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering (IPESE)

MER Jan Van herle

GEM Group of Energy Materials (STI-SCI-JVH)

Prof. Friedhelm C. Hummel

Defitech Chair for Clinical Neuroenginering, - Hummel Lab

Projects

Greenfjord project

AI and corals

Energy demonstrator

Diversity and distribution of bacteria in glacial streams

Research support

Science Outreach Department (SPS)

Shared services: an ecosystem serving science

AI and corals

Classify corals according to their state of health and shape

Cryosphere

Ocean

Biosphere

Atmosphere

Earth

Human