DX Mongolia / Digital Steppe
Grassland dMRV · DX Mongolia

The Digital Steppe

Turning Mongolia's grasslands into verified Tier 3 carbon assets — measured by sensors, drones and satellites, modelled by AI, and paid back to the herders who restore them.

Fund the proof of concept → Explore the terrain in 3D Investor brief
$3Mproof of concept
100,000 hapilot scale
24 monthsto verified credits
+$2Mherder incentive fund
Scroll to fly over the pilot landscape ↓
01 · The problem

What the satellites see

This landscape is real: 27 × 34 km around Khustai National Park, built from Copernicus elevation data and a Sentinel-2 image taken on 4 August 2024.

Switch to a vegetation index and degradation becomes measurable — pale, overgrazed slopes next to healthy valleys.

113M ha

of Mongolian rangeland face green desertification.

baresparsehealthydense
02 · Measure

Ground truth, from orbit to soil

  • Maxar high-resolution satellite imagery for broad-scale change detection
  • Multispectral drones flying survey lanes over every block
  • NaturaSpec Ultra soil spectrometry for the carbon stock baseline
  • LI-COR flux chambers for continuous biological flux

Calibrated against physical samples by the National University of Mongolia soil lab and the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Botany.

03 · Process

An AI core built for verification

An edge-to-cloud pipeline on Google Vertex AI — Random Forest and Vision Transformer models — turns raw IoT and drone data into a real-time national soil-carbon database.

No generic open-source LLMs in the pipeline: no hallucination risk, and Mongolia keeps sovereignty over its ecological data.

04 · Monetize

Verified credits, shared with herders

Results are packaged under an International Carbon Registry (ICR) Tier 3 methodology for voluntary markets, and reported through a live API to national and international registries.

Carbon credits and ITMOs remain the property of landowners, herders and the State — revenue flows back to the camps that practise rotational grazing.

05 · Two zones

Sequester here. Protect there.

Sequestration zone — Khentii, Tuv, Dundgovi and Dornod provinces. Rotational grazing restores soil carbon and generates verified credits for the voluntary market.

Conservation zone — Khustai National Park. Avoided-degradation monitoring feeds high-fidelity ecosystem data into Mongolia's NDC 3.0 and the Joint Crediting Mechanism with Japan.

Zones on the map are illustrative.

The ask

Fund the $3M proof of concept

Two years, 100,000 hectares, a Tier 3 methodology taken through International Carbon Registry approval — and a $2M fund that puts the first revenue in herders' hands. We are looking for partners in three ways:

Grant & blended finance

Fund the PoC build-out: sensors, drones, field campaigns, methodology and audit.

Development partners, climate funds, foundations, JCM programmes

Carbon pre-purchase

Commit to future verified credits from the pilot, giving the project early, predictable revenue.

Corporate buyers, carbon funds, Article 6 / JCM participants

Impact investment

Co-invest in the dMRV platform that can scale across Mongolia's rangelands and beyond.

Impact investors, climate-tech funds, strategic partners

Use of funds

$5Mtotal · $3M proof of concept + $2M herder incentive fund
  • $900kdMRV tech & AI — Vertex AI, custom drones, NaturaSpec, LI-COR, API
  • $750kField data & operations — 100,000 ha, satellite imagery, NUM/MAS labs
  • $600kMethodology & audit — VVB, ISO 14065, ICR fees
  • $450kProject management & legal
  • $300kCOP17 showcase, herder training, grazing pilots
  • $2MHerder incentive fund — direct incentives & sustainable land management

24 months to verified credits

  1. Months 1–3Technology & preparationField baseline mapping, drone sensing, Vertex AI pipeline; ICR concept note and ISO 14065 audit started.
  2. COP17Live debutLive showcase at UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar.
  3. Months 4–12Validation & live MRVThird-party VVB audit, 30-day public comment, ICR Board Tier 3 approval, automated reporting.
  4. Months 13–24CommercializationVerified credit sales on ICR, revenue to herders, NDC 3.0 data handover to the government.

Why this, why now

Policy tailwindUNCCD COP17, Land Degradation Neutrality and Paris Article 6.2 / JCM with Japan.
Tier 3 integrityMeasured, not modelled from defaults — physical samples validate every model.
Herders firstCredits stay with landowners, herders and the State; revenue funds better grazing.
Built to scaleOne methodology and platform for 113M hectares of rangeland.

Alliance

DX Mongolia / AerobotekProject developer — dMRV architecture, AI, custom drones, ICR certification. Led by B. Tuguldur.
NUM Soil LaboratorySoil baselines, sample validation, NaturaSpec calibration. Led by Ts. Soyol-Erdene PhD.
Institute of Botany, MASSpecies classification, degradation baselines, restoration tracking. Led by I. Tuvshintogtokh PhD.
Government & herder cooperativesMandate, land-use authorization and rotational grazing on the ground.

Let's talk

Request the full investor deck, ask for a briefing, or arrange a site visit to the pilot area. We usually reply within two working days.

info@dxmongolia.org
DX Mongolia — Digital Transformation Supporting Association of Mongolia (NGO), Ulaanbaatar

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