Harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Combat Deforestation in U.S. Agriculture

Scientific Study from the year 2024 in the subject Environmental Sciences - Climate and environmental protection, grade: A, , language: English, abstract: Agricultural conversion is a major reason for deforestation that affects the United States and is responsible for the loss of species, soil depletion and global warming. This work aims to analyze the use of AI for combating deforestation in the agricultural sector in the United States through improved surveillance, risk assessments, and policy modeling. This proposed framework combines satellite imagery data, agricultural records, and selected socio-economic factors and uses CNNs, GBMs, and ABMs to tackle deforestation systematically. CNNs also showed an accuracy of 94% in the identification of the area of deforestation, while the GBMs showed an accuracy of 0.92 AUC-ROC in identifying hotspot areas. Through ABMs that assumed policy changes such as reforestation incentives and fines for violators, the study showed that deforestation rates could be cut by up to 25%. Regression and correlation analyses and hypothesis testing proved significant predictors such as crop yield, rainfall variability and the superiority of the models to conventional techniques. The outcomes reveal that AI can offer an effective solution to increase food production and maintain forests at the same time. This framework allows for the formulation of specific recommendations for policy initiatives because it incorporates empirical evidence. Further research should improve the modularity, the real-time monitoring system and the access to the algorithm to further increase the impact of AI on sustainable land management and the chopping down of forests.