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| Implementing Data Sharing Addressed at Italy Workshop | ||
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March 12, 2010 Linking Earth observations and other spatial data from many different systems is a goal of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), an intergovernmental initiative aimed at developing the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). CIESIN associate director for Information Technology, Sri Vinay, is representing CIESIN at an international workshop in Frascati, Italy on March 10-12, helping to kick off the third phase of the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP-3). CIESIN plans to contribute to AIP-3 by enhancing a new Population Estimation Service. The service, which was developed as part of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), supports spatial queries about population distribution using open interoperability standards. CIESIN is also working to develop user interfaces that recognize open access licenses such as those developed by Creative Commons. Vinay is co-leading a session on data sharing approaches at the workshop and is helping to develop specific scenarios of interoperable data services in several different application areas, which will be demonstrated at the next GEO Ministerial meeting in Beijing in November 2010.
See: Group on Earth Observations |
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| Director's Annual Message: Focus on Environmental Sustainability and Disasters | ||
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March 8, 2010
In just a bit more than five years, the world has experienced an unprecedented string of “megadisasters.” These events were the result not only of the awesome power of earthquakes and cyclones but were also due to the high exposure and extreme vulnerability of populations around the world to a range of hazards. At the end of 2004, the South Asian tsunami shocked the world with its sudden devastation of many densely settled and poorly protected coastal areas. In 2005 and 2008, we witnessed the suffering of hundreds of thousands affected by major earthquakes in Pakistan and China, compounded by poorly constructed schools, dams, and other structures. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 gave us an object lesson about the potential for disaster even in a highly developed country, if governments and citizens fail to prepare for hazards and fail to respond effectively to them. Then Cyclone Nargis in 2008 provided an even more devastating example of the vulnerability of disenfranchised populations worsened by a rogue government. And now we have begun the year 2010 with damaging earthquakes in both Haiti and Chile—the first inflicting much more death and destruction than it should have and leaving a massive and continuing humanitarian crisis in its wake. These disasters underscore the important roles population location and physical and social vulnerability play in amplifying the risks of natural hazards around the world. We know that population has been growing much faster in coastal areas than elsewhere, often accompanied by accelerated stress on coastal ecosystems and marine resources. Rapid urbanization is occurring in many areas prone to earthquakes, landslides, and/or floods with little or no attention to building codes, protective works, land degradation, or land use restrictions. Poverty continues to force millions to live in substandard housing in environmentally marginal areas with few resources to draw upon when drought, floods, and other hazards strike. Full story |
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| New Web Site Features Project to Restore Ecosystem Services of Haiti | ||
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February 26, 2010 A new Web site features information and data for a project designed to help Haiti restore its ecosystem services over the course of the next 20 years. The project, the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, is a major collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Earth Institute, and Haitian partners, including the National Center for Geospatial Information. Pilot research for the project has been launched in the Port-á-Piment watershed in southwestern Haiti. Baseline assessments taken there are providing a basis for designing integrated watershed management programs that combine reforestation, agro-forestry, sustainable energy, and flood risk management activities. Partners are now re-working the scope of the project in coordination with the overall reconstruction effort in Haiti to address new challenges and issues resulting from the January 12 earthquake. The Web site is interim until the official project site is launched. It contains basic information about progress of the project, access to data on Haiti that CIESIN has been compiling, and a link to the UNEP/Haiti Project Mapper, an interactive mapper developed and hosted by CIESIN. Download of the data is presently limited to members of the Earth Institute community but the data catalogs, one of spatial data and the other of satellite imagery, are viewable by the public.
See: Haiti Regeneration Initiative Web site |
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| SIPA Panel Discusses Microfinance in Post-Disaster Settings | ||
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February 25, 2010 “Microfinance in Post-Disaster Zones” was the title of a panel presentation held February 24 at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs on , which explored the particular challenges faced by microfinance institutions when providing post-disaster relief and helping to generate new economic activity for populations made especially vulnerable by natural or man-made disasters. The panelists, CIESIN program coordinator Alex Fischer and Michelle Chaplin of BRAC, talked about how micro-finance institutions can maintain effectiveness in a post-disaster context. This included discussion of preventative programs, with a specific focus on programs in Haiti and the role of Fokonze, the largest micro-finance institution in Haiti and a partner with BRAC. Fischer has been participating in a long-term collaborative ecological restoration project, the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, and was doing fieldwork in Haiti at the time of the January 12 earthquake. He has special expertise in groundwater management in post-conflict settings. |
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| Theory vs. Policy Explored by International Studies Experts | ||
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February 25, 2010 CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy participated in the International Studies Association (ISA) annual meeting in New Orleans February 17–20. The theme this year was “Theory vs. Policy? Connecting Scholars and Practitioners.” Levy served on two panels dealing with climate change politics. With Geoff Dabelko of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program he co-chaired a round table discussion on approaches to teaching environment, population, and conflict. The ISA was founded more than 40 years ago by a group of scholars and practitioners to pursue mutual interests in international studies. It has more than 4,000 members worldwide representing 80 countries.
See: International Studies Association (ISA) Web site |
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| Population Estimation Service and New Mapping Tools Added to GPW Web Site | ||
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February 12, 2010 The Web site for CIESIN’s flagship data product—Gridded Population of the World (GPW), now in its third version—has been enhanced with three new services and tools: the Population Estimation Service, a Web-based service for estimating population totals and related statistics within a user-defined region; and two mapping tools. Because the Population Estimate Service is accessible through three standard protocols (the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web processing service (WPS) standard, a representational state transfer (REST) interface, and a simple object access protocol (SOAP) interface), it can accommodate a wide variety of map clients and tools and users can quickly obtain population estimates for specific areas without having to download and analyze large amounts of spatial data. Users submit polygons that define an area, then the service returns measures of population, land area, quality measures, and basic parametric statistics. These estimates are based on the gridded population data for 2005 from the GPW v3 data set developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. One of the new mapping tools also released, based on the technology used by Google Maps, demonstrates the Population Estimation Service. It lets users select an area of interest by drawing a polygon on the map and submit the request to the service, and it displays the results. The other tool is a basic mapper that provides previews of the GPW v3 data sets with an overlay of national boundaries, and lets users pan and zoom to an area of interest before downloading the data sets. For more complex visualization and overlay of other data sets, the stand-alone SEDAC Map Client is recommended.
See: Population Estimation Service |
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| Visiting Scholar Will Lead Dialogue on Post-Conflict Reconstruction Issues | ||
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February 5, 2010 CIESIN welcomes Maliza van Eeden as the first visiting scholar under the auspices of a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB) and the Earth Institute. Van Eeden’s visit February 8–18 will focus on identifying new areas of collaboration between UNEP and Earth Institute faculty and research centers. A lawyer trained in South Africa, Van Eeden has worked for the PCDMB since 2005. She was part of the UNEP team that conducted an environmental assessment in Lebanon, following the conflict between Hizbollah and Israel in 2006. She also has experience in disaster risk reduction, including the evaluation of UNEP’s post-tsunami reconstruction projects in Southeast Asia. She is currently the coordinator for a joint project of UNEP and secretariat for the Basel Convention on hazardous waste management in Cote d’Ivoire. The UNEP-EI partnership, established in 2007, has already led to a number of collaborative activities, including course development, the creation of interactive training simulations, and support for the development of guidance notes on resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and climate change. The partnership was also instrumental in developing the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, a long-term project to restore ecosystems in Haiti. The project team is now adapting their approach in order to address the new challenges and issues raised by the Haiti earthquake in coordination with the overall reconstruction effort. |
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| New Interactive Mapper Previews Human Influence Data | ||
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February 5, 2010 An interactive mapper has been released as part of the Last of the Wild Web site. This new mapper provides previews of the Last of the Wild, Version Two data sets. Using the mapper, users are now able to visualize the human influence index and the human footprint data sets, overlay national boundaries, or pan and zoom to an area of interest to gain a preliminary understanding about the data sets before downloading them. The mapper was developed using the open source Open Layers client technology with Geoserver backend. For more advanced visualization and overlay with other related data sets, users may turn to the stand-alone SEDAC Map Client, which is offered via CIESIN’s World Data Center for Human Interactions in the Environment Web site. The Last of The Wild, Version Two data sets depict the extent of human influence on terrestrial ecosystems, using data sets compiled on or around the year 2000.
See: Last of the Wild Web site |
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| CIESIN Welcomes New Staff | ||
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February 4, 2010 Several researchers have recently joined CIESIN’s Science Applications Division. New senior research staff assistant Xiaoyi An brings diverse work experience in IT and data management to her role as a member of the Millennium Villages Project data team. An received her MA in economics and education from Teachers College, Columbia University (CU) and her BS in management information systems from Nanjiing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. She is also an MS candidate in systems engineering there. Paola Kim-Blanco is a senior research staff assistant currently involved in data collection and geo-spatial analysis for the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, a collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme and other partners to restore Haiti's degraded ecological systems. Kim-Blanco has a BA in architecture and an MS in sustainable development from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, where she worked overseeing the Architecture Program. She also has a master of international affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Hydrologist Lior Asaf is also focused on the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, where he is currently involved in modeling and analyzing floods and landslide hazards in Haiti. Asaf received his BS in geology, MS in water and soil sciences, and PhD in hydrology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Most recently he was research coordinator for an Israeli-Palestinian trans-boundary watershed management project and a senior hydrologist for Tahal Consulting Engineers Ltd in Israel, where his work related to sustainable surface and groundwater management programs there and abroad. |
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| 2010 Index Rates How Close a Country is to Environmental Benchmarks | ||
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January 28, 2010
The 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), which ranks 163 countries on environmental performance, has been released at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010 in Davos, Switzerland. The Index, produced every two years since 2006 by researchers at CIESIN and Yale University’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy, is based on twenty-five indicators grouped within ten core policy categories—including environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change—in the context of two objectives: environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The EPI’s proximity-to-target approach, in which each country’s performance is measured against clearly defined targets, enables comparisons among countries with very different characteristics. Although some rankings have changed dramatically—the U.S. dropped from 39th to 61st place since the 2008 index, for example—so too have the methodologies and data. “A better focus is the comprehensive country profiles, which present a measurement across the different environmental indicators,” says CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin, a co-author on the report. These profiles, designed by CIESIN research associate Valentina Mara in conjunction with the Yale team, show a country’s scores for the indicators, policy categories, and objectives. Drilling down here, de Sherbinin points out, can help decision makers identify the needed focus of attention for a particular country. Geographic information specialist Malanding Jaiteh, CIESIN deputy director and EPI project leader Marc Levy, and senior research staff assistant Paola Kim were also part of the CIESIN team. Analysis shows that income is a major factor in high environmental performance, but that policy choices may trump economic capacities. For example, the differences between neighboring countries Chile (ranked 16th) and Argentina (70th), or between Malaysia (55th) and Thailand (68th), have a lot to do with different approaches to environmental policy and governance. The biggest changes this year were seen in the scores for air pollution and effects on ecosystems, and a new indicator, water scarcity, was added. The indicators were drawn from international organizations such as the World Bank, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Some of the data sets are drawn from government reporting that is not subject to external validation, and incomplete data have resulted in incomplete representation of countries. The report calls for greater investment by the world community in environmental monitoring, and for data sharing and transparency on the part of national governments.
See: 2010 EPI Web Site |
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| The First Global Assessment of Light Pollution Impact on Protected Areas | ||
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January 26, 2010
A new report conducted by Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) and Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) relates findings from the first-ever global assessment of light pollution and related human impacts on protected areas. The assessment, a contribution to the Dark Skies Advisory Group of the Cities and Protected Areas Specialist Group of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, uses satellite observations of artificial night lighting derived from the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). The report highlights adverse effects on ecosystems or species that are sensitive to light, providing a list of countries and biomes where protected areas are particularly affected by light pollution—and also, presumably, by human activities. First results of the analysis indicate that the most affected regions are in Europe and Asia Minor, the Caribbean, and South and East Asia, as well as in the eastern part of the United States. Another finding, revealed by introducing aggregated data on biomes, demonstrates that among protected areas, those located in temperate broadleaf and mixed forests suffer the greatest impact from light pollution. The report communicates groundbreaking analysis about the impacts of light pollution to the scientific community as well as raises awareness of the general public about the seriousness and environmental ramifications of light pollution.
See: Global Assessment of Light Pollution Impact on Protected Areas Report |
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| Web-GIS Solutions Paper Awarded Prize at Map India 2010 | ||
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January 25, 2010 CIESIN staff members were awarded third place in a juried paper competition at the Map India 2010 conference held January 19–21 in Gurgaon, India. The paper, “Choosing the Right GIS Framework for an Informed Enterprise Web GIS Solution,” written by geospatial application specialist Sneha Rao and associate director of Information Technology, Sri Vinay, won in the technical session category and was presented by Rao at the Web GIS technical session on Jan 20. The paper evaluates various architectural and system components using factors such as workflow, performance, scalability, interoperability, total cost of ownership, and others in designing an enterprise Web GIS solution, and discusses specific usability issues that can help optimize the responsiveness of a particular client when rendering large data sets. It draws from CIESIN’s rich expertise in the design and implementation of Web GIS in providing suggestions on an enterprise solution. Map India 2010 is a global conference whose theme this year was “geospatial vision for India.” ERDAS, ESRI, OGC, and other international institutions involved in organizing and sponsoring the event were present. An online version of the paper and abstract will be available soon on the Web site of GIS Development, a geospatial resource portal.
See: Map India 2010 Web site |
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| New EI Fellow Joins CIESIN | ||
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January 24, 2010 Ilana Brito, an Earth Institute Fellow, is currently doing post-doctoral research at CIESIN identifying the drivers of infectious disease emergence. Brito, who is hosted by Professor Ruth DeFries in the Columbia University Department of Ecology, Environment, and Evolutionary Biology, is also participating in a series of CIESIN research projects testing the link between disease dynamics and specific land use decisions. Her work expands on previous results of a major collaborative study that CIESIN was a part of, “Global Trends in Emerging Infectious Diseases,” which found possible links between anthropogenic changes to the environment and the spread of zoonotic (animal-borne) diseases to human populations. Brito will use a variety of methodologies to study how disease dynamics are affected within different environmental and spatial contexts. She received her BA in biology and government from Harvard University and her PhD in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |
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| CIESIN Staff Return Safely from Haiti | ||
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January 15, 2010 Two CIESIN staff members who were in Haiti for a collaborative project to restore Haiti’s damaged ecosystems returned safely to the United States late Thursday night. Deputy director Marc Levy and program coordinator Alex Fischer have been travelling to Haiti throughout the past year as part of a project, the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, focused on the Port-a-Piment watershed area, located west of the capital city and the epicenter of the earthquake. At the time of the earthquake on the afternoon of January 12, Levy and Fischer were in Port-au-Prince, inside a UN building that did not collapse. Along with seven other individuals from Columbia University, they were moved to a UN compound near the airport the next morning and flown by helicopter to Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, on Thursday afternoon. The Haiti Regeneration Initiative is a collaboration between UN agencies, governmental entities, nongovernmental organizations, and technical institutes. One of the main partners is UNEP, whose programme officer Andrew Morton was also in Port-au-Prince during the earthquake.
See: Columbia University information |
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| 2010 Winter Meeting of ESIP Federation Held in D.C. | ||
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January 12, 2010 CIESIN Staff gave presentations at the 2010 Winter Meeting of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), which was held on January 5–7 in Washington, D.C. Senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin gave a demonstration of the map viewer, TerraViva!, developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center. He also presented the paper, “Using Satellite Data to Develop Environmental Indicators,” during a session on environmental decision making. As part of a session on data preservation and stewardship, Robert Downs, senior digital archivist, presented the paper, “SEDAC Long-Term Archive Development.” Downs also presented the poster, “Software Reuse for Environmental Decision-Making,” which was co-authored by Chris Mattmann of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and James Marshall and Shahin Samadi of INNOVIM and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. CIESIN Data Center Services manager John Scialdone also participated in the meeting. |
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| Map Viewer Tutorial Now Available on YouTube Web Site | ||
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January 8, 2010 TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer is a map viewer and standalone software application that uses a powerful data-viewing engine and tools to enable the visualization and integration of hundreds of socioeconomic and environmental variables and layers, including a range of satellite-based data. A three-part tutorial that explains how to use TerraViva! is now available through the YouTube Web site. The tutorial was produced by senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin and senior media designer Al Pinto, under the auspices of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.
See: TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer Map Tutorial |
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| Climate Change Database the Subject of 2009 NASA Anthology Article | ||
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January 8, 2010 CIESIN’s role in making climate change data freely available to the public is noted in an article in the NASA Earth Science Research Features 2009 volume of Sensing Our Planet. The article, “A Catalog of Change,” looks at an unprecedented database designed for use by international agencies and government leaders, as well as scientists, to further research and understanding of current and future global climate change impacts. A team of researchers, led by NASA scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, has compiled information on the effects of climate change into a comprehensive database of more than 600 studies on organisms and physical systems around the world. The development of the database—the Observed Climate Change Impacts Database—grew out of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007. The data are freely available to the public through the IPCC Data Distribution Center, a joint service of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, the British Atmospheric Data Centre, and Germany’s High Performance Computing Centre for Climate and Earth System Research (Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum). Sensing Our Planet, published annually, is a collection of articles about how scientists use earth science data to learn about the planet.
See: “A Catalog of Change” online article |
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| Topographical Model Created for New Haiti Project | ||
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January 7, 2010 A topographical model has been created that depicts the locus of the pilot phase of the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, a project due to launch in 2010 that aims to restore the country’s degraded ecosystems and diminishing livelihoods. The project is being developed through consultation among UN agencies, government groups, NGOs, and technical organizations, including CIESIN. The 24” X 24” model depicts an area of 100 sq kilometers of rugged countryside within the Port-a-Piment Watershed, inhabited by approximately 30,000 people. The physical model was created by Brigette Borders, a recent graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and manager of the School’s Avery Digital Fabrication Laboratory. CIESIN research assistant Alex Fischer and research associate Liana Razafindrazay were consultants on the project, supplying the GIS data and creating the 3-D computer model for Borders to work with. The topographical model is the first to be undertaken by the Lab, a relatively new venture headed by Philip Anzalone, which has as its underlying mission to support research and experimentation throughout the Columbia community—and is further encouraged by Dean Mark Wigley to collaborate across disciplines as much as possible. “The model is true to the data,” says Borders, who notes that vertical scaling, where relationships in scale are altered to bring out particular physical details, was not used in this case. It was made by importing GIS data through a series of software programs, eventually outputting the data to a CNC router, a machine which literally carved the model into shape. The model is envisioned as a tool for planning and for communication in the field in Haiti. Says Marc Levy, deputy director of CIESIN and a principal investigator on the project, “In a situation where a hillside is under consideration for reforestation, the model could help envision the implications of proposed actions: for example, where communities at lower elevations that are vulnerable to flooding might see benefits in supporting communities at higher elevations to enact self-imposed limits to deforestation.” |
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