Empirical Evaluation of QAOA with Zero Noise Extrapolation on NISQ Hardware for Carbon Credit Portfolio Optimization in the Brazilian Cerrado
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.09047 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 6 Feb 2026] Title:Empirical Evaluation of QAOA with Zero Noise Extrapolation on NISQ Hardware for Carbon Credit Portfolio Optimization in the Brazilian Cerrado Authors:Hugo José Ribeiro View a PDF of the paper titled Empirical Evaluation of QAOA with Zero Noise Extrapolation on NISQ Hardware for Carbon Credit Portfolio Optimization in the Brazilian Cerrado, by Hugo Jos\'e Ribeiro View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Optimizing carbon credit portfolios is a critical challenge for climate mitigation, particularly in high-biodiversity biomes such as the Brazilian Cerrado. This study explores the practical application of the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) combined with Zero Noise Extrapolation (ZNE) to address a multi-objective territorial planning problem. We model an 88-variable portfolio optimization involving carbon sequestration, biodiversity connectivity, and social impact metrics, executed on intermediate-scale IBM Quantum hardware (ibm_torino and ibm_fez). The results of seven independent hardware runs demonstrate that the QAOA+ZNE workflow consistently outperforms a classical greedy baseline. The quantum method achieves a mean portfolio score of 58.47 +/- 6.98, corresponding to a 31.6% improvement over the classical heuristic (44.42), with high statistical significance (p = 0.0009) and a large effect size (Cohen's d = 2.01), where ZNE yields extrapolated expectation values of the portfolio objective rather than a discrete portfolio solution without noise. A validation run conducted after a 13-day interval confirms the temporal stability of the methodology against hardware calibration drifts. These findings establish empirical quantum utility in an environmental science context, showing that current NISQ-era devices, when coupled with rigorous error mitigation, can identify complex territorial synergies that myopic classical approaches overlook. The proposed workflow provides a scalable methodological template for high-precision environmental conservation policies. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) MSC classes: 81P68, 90C27 ACM classes: F.2.2; I.2.8; J.2 Cite as: arXiv:2602.09047 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.09047v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.09047 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Hugo José Ribeiro Ribeiro H J [view email] [v1] Fri, 6 Feb 2026 18:17:28 UTC (1,481 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Empirical Evaluation of QAOA with Zero Noise Extrapolation on NISQ Hardware for Carbon Credit Portfolio Optimization in the Brazilian Cerrado, by Hugo Jos\'e RibeiroView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)