Vibrant Planet uses AI for land mapping and improving climate resiliency

 As the planet warms due to human-caused climate change, damage from wildfires has increased with it. The amount of forest area burned by wildfires increased 320% from 1996 to 2021, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System.

While building tech to slow the progression and impacts of climate change would be ideal, it’s a massive, costly problem that impacts every industry and needs adaptive answers in the more near term. Vibrant Planet looks to be one of those solutions. The startup digitizes land mapping and uses AI to help its users — fire departments and government bureaus — better manage land and also better prepare for potential climate incidents like wildfires.

Vibrant Planet founder and CEO Allison Wolff recently said on TechCrunch’s Found podcast that despite how necessary proper land management is to food security, human safety and the protection of biodiversity and natural resources, the industry is still largely stuck on paper maps that aren’t always accurate. This analog approach makes playing out certain climate disasters or events, and planning for them, very difficult.

Wolff said Vibrant Planet, sold as an annual subscription, solves this problem by bringing everything online and using AI to make it easier and faster for its users to see how potential disasters and events could unfold.