Los Alamos National Laboratory advances national and global security by harnessing the environment itself as a source of critical intelligence. Through integrated capabilities in Environmental Biosensing and Environmental Security, LANL develops innovative methods to detect, interpret and anticipate signals of natural and human-driven change across terrestrial, aquatic and coastal systems. These efforts combine remote sensing, biological and geochemical indicators, advanced modeling and AI-enabled analytics to support nonproliferation, climate action monitoring, infrastructure resilience and environmental risk assessment. Together, these complementary approaches enable early warning, verification and decision support in complex and evolving security environments — often without the need for direct, on-site observation.

Advantages

Capability 1: Environmental Biosensing

Environmental Biosensing leverages biological, ecological, and geochemical systems as natural sensors to detect activities and changes of security relevance. By analyzing plant responses, ecosystem functional signatures, greenhouse gas fluxes, and subsurface environmental signals, this capability enables remote and covert monitoring without the need for on-site instrumentation. Applications include nuclear nonproliferation monitoring, climate action verification, detection of subsurface leakage, and the development of next-generation sensing approaches for national security and energy missions.

From Detection to Interpretation

Signals detected in the environment gain their full value when placed in a broader physical, ecological, and geospatial context. Environmental Security builds on these observations by modeling how environmental systems evolve, interact, and respond to both natural processes and human activity—transforming detection into actionable insight.

Capability 2: Environmental Security

Environmental Security focuses on understanding and predicting risks to natural and built systems through advanced modeling of hydrological, coastal, and ecosystem dynamics. Using integrated Earth system models, global geospatial datasets, remote sensing, and AI/ML techniques, this capability assesses vulnerabilities related to freshwater availability, coastal change, sediment and nutrient transport, and infrastructure exposure to climate-driven hazards. These analyses support decision-making for national security, resilience planning, and environmental risk mitigation.

Technology Description

Environmental Biosensing

Experimental manipulation and identification of plant responses to pollutants, pathogens and environmental changes
Hyperspectral analysis of plant growth and stress markers
Spectral analyses of environmental change and greenhouse gas emissions
Plant-Environment interactions:
- Microbiome genetic analyses and manipulations
- Soil biogeochemistry
- Epigenetic markers
Radiological Greenhouse
Climate-controlled growth chambers
LICOR Photosynthesis, CO2, N2O, CH4, O3, NOx, VOC and aerosol particle analyzers
Ecosystem and plant disease modeling

Environmental Security

Extreme event modeling
Coastal land-water-vegetation modeling
Ecosystem dynamics modeling
River and watershed (streamflow) analysis and modeling
Global geospatial and remote-sensing data analysis
ML/AI models of hydrological and riverine processes
MPAS-Q
Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS)

Market Applications

Environmental Biosensing

New signatures for identifying activities of interest using environmental, biological or geophysical systems as sensors
Remote monitoring of nuclear proliferation and weaponization without on-site sensors
Climate action monitoring and verification
Remote sensing of subsurface storage conditions and leakage for safeguards and energy solutions
Next generation, cost-effective, covert sensing capability for sponsor needs
New solutions and detection methods for fracture

Environmental Security

Impacts on streamflow availability and temperature
Coastal flooding salinization and erosion modeling
Assessments of coastal landscape security due to sediment erosion, deposition and land subsidence
Freshwater, sediment and nutrient fluxes through river networks
Remote sensing – detecting coastal and surface water changes
Coastal infrastructure susceptibility to sea-level rise

Next Steps

Prospective partners are encouraged to contact LANL to discuss their objectives and identify the most appropriate collaboration mechanism. Early engagement enables rapid scoping, efficient project design and alignment with sponsor priorities.

U.S. Patent No. 7,692,789; patent pending S-167739

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