News & Events

May 2, 2008

Four views suggest the wide scope of data visualizations possible using the newly updated Terraviva! SEDAC Viewer.

The 2008 TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer has been updated with a wide range of new SEDAC data. This map viewer and standalone software application (Microsoft Windows-based) 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.

The update encompasses 51 ready-made maps, ten GeoData indicator collections with hundreds of variables, and other features—scatter plots, tabular data display, map image production, and Web-based download of additional data layers—that make the 2008 TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer such a valuable data exploration tool.

Produced in collaboration between ISciences and the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, these data sets build on a collection that includes the flagship SEDAC data set, Gridded Population of the World (GPW), and others. The 2008 version adds the following SEDAC data collections:

•  The Human Appropriation of Net Primary Productivity (HANPP)
•  Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis
•  Global Poverty Mapping
•  The Human Footprint and Last of the Wild, version two
•  The Population, Landscape, and Climate Estimates (PLACE II)
•  The Compendium of Environmental Sustainability Indicators

The software is free of charge.

See: TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer Order Form and Details

April 23, 2008

Mr. Takayuki Kawai (left), Robert Chen (center), and Dr. Yasushi Horikawa, following Dr. Horikawa's presentation April 21 at Lamont Campus, Palisades, New York.

Delegations from Japan and China were hosted recently by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. On April 21 two visitors from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) met with CIESIN staff and toured the Lamont Campus: Dr. Yasushi Horikawa, executive director, Office of Space Applications and Mr. Takayuki Kawai, deputy manager, SAPC. Dr. Horikawa made a presentation to CIESIN and Lamont researchers on the contribution of space-based Earth observations to the study of climate change. Discussions focused on Japan’s involvement in the planned Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS), and on SEDAC’s progress in the areas of data interoperability and indicator development.

Delegation from China with CIESIN staff.

The following day, April 22, Cai Yunlong of Peking University and seven other geographers and social scientists from around China visited CIESIN. Prof. Cai, a vice president of the Geographical Society of China, gave an overview of the state of geographical research in China, including development of China’s spatial data infrastructure. Prof. Cai is also the dissertation advisor for visiting scientist Huang Qiuhao, and conducts research on land cover and land use change.

See: JAXA
       Geographical Society of China
       

April 20, 2008

Earth Institute director Jeffrey Sachs opened the 2008 Meeting of the AAG (Association of American Geographers) in Boston, April 15-19 with a stirring plenary speech to more than one thousand AAG participants on the importance of geographic perspectives and analysis in meeting the pressing problems of sustainable development. Named as an Honorary Geographer by the AAG in 2007, Prof. Sachs has championed the use of spatial data and analysis, including a variety of data from CIESIN, for more than a decade.

Another featured session at the AAG meeting was a panel on “Developing GIScience and Geographic Analysis Programs at Universities Which Do Not Have Geography Departments,” in which CIESIN director Robert Chen described CIESIN’s role in interdisciplinary geospatial research and data development at Columbia University. Columbia, which terminated its Geography Department in 1986, is one of several U.S. universities such as Harvard, Brown, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan that now have active research and education activities in GIScience and spatial analysis without formal Geography departments.

Elsewhere at the AAG meeting, CIESIN research associate Valentina Mara gave a paper on “Global Patterns of Urbanization vis-à-vis Ecosystems,” co-authored with former CIESIN research scientist Deborah Balk, in a session on Worldwide Urban Population Change. In addition, CIESIN user services manager Joe Schumacher helped staff the NASA Earth Science booth at the meeting, distributing outreach materials and interacting with meeting participants on behalf of the NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers. Attendance at the AAG meeting exceeded 7,000, a new record.

See: 2008 AAG

April 12, 2008

The intersection of security and environment issues was the focus of two talks given in Europe recently by CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy. In Athens April 9 Levy addressed an audience of forty military and diplomatic officials from the Middle East, South Asia, and neighboring countries on “Assessing Security Threats from Natural Disasters and Climate Change.” The presentation was part of a conference of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. In Geneva April 11 he gave a talk, “Measuring Environment-Security Linkages: The Evolution of the State of the Art,” held at the UN’s International Environment House (IEH). Levy was also part of extensive meetings with the UN Environment Programme Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB) to explore options for implementing a new collaborative arrangement with the Earth Institute at Columbia university.

See: Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies
       PCDMB

April 10, 2008

A workshop to further plan the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Biodiversity Observation Network (BON) was held in Berlin/Potsdam April 8–10 and attended by Alex de Sherbinin, deputy manager of SEDAC. GEO-BON is envisioned as an open-access data resource for the best available global biodiversity data, with accompanying tools and resources. Organized by DIVERSITAS, NASA, and the GEO Secretariat, the workshop was hosted and co-sponsored locally by BMBF (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany).The meeting included a mix of plenary sessions and working groups aimed at soliciting inputs from the wider biodiversity community and identifying the first action items of a plan.

It is anticipated that GEO-BON will be one element of GEOSS, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, which aims to work with, and build upon, existing national, regional, and international systems to provide Earth observations as a resource for vital information for society. CIESIN is contributing actively to the development of GEOSS, in collaboration with NASA, the Open Geospatial Consortium, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) and the World Data Center (WDC) Panel of the International Council for Science, and other groups.

See: GEO-BON
       GEO

March 25, 2008

The creation and significance of subnational infant mortality data developed by CIESIN are the focus of a new article published in the journal Population, Space, and Place. Authored by former CIESIN staff Adam Storeygard and Deborah Balk, with CIESIN deputy director, Marc Levy, and Glenn Deane, “The Global Distribution of Infant Mortality: A Subnational Spatial View,” explains how subnational measures of infant mortality can serve as a useful, spatially-precise indicator of poverty. Prior to the production of this data set, global poverty measures had been available only at the national level; increased spatial precision at the subnational level is especially helpful when examining interactions between poverty and factors that do not conform to national borders, such as climate zones, eco-regions, and natural hazard exposure. The article describes how the data set was produced, delineates its known strengths and weaknesses, and reports some spatial patterns that emerge, such as the relationship between coastal proximity and poverty rates. The subnational poverty data set was produced in 2004-2005 as a part of The Global Distribution of Poverty project, a joint effort of the World Bank, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. The data set has been used in a number of global assessment exercises, including the UN Millennium Development Project and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

See: The Global Distribution of Infant Mortality (subscription only)
       The Global Distribution of Poverty Web site

March 20, 2008

Marc Levy, CIESIN deputy director, is part of a 15-member consortium that was recently awarded a grant from the United Kingdom-based Leverhulme Trust to create an international network on Transnational Climate Change Governance. The network will spend the next two and a-half years identifying patterns of transnational governance arrangements for climate change, developing a methodology for evaluating their significance, and conducting empirical research to explain variation in functions and effectiveness. The network will promote the creation of a research community built around a common database of transnational governance arrangements; technologies for sharing ideas, papers and information; and a series of workshops and conferences. The work will be integrated into ongoing debates on post-2012 climate change policy. The lead investigator for the consortium is Harriet Bulkeley, lecturer in the Durham University (UK) Department of Geography.

Data available for download include the Human Influence Index, the Human Footprint, and the Last of the Wild data sets.

See: Last of the Wild/Human Footprint

March 3, 2008

CIESIN-hosted meeting with Chinese visitors February 29. Left to right: Mark Becker, associate director, CIESIN Geospatial Applications Division; Zhao De'an, vice president of Northwest University for Nationalities; Xiaoshi Xing, CIESIN information scientist.

A delegation of nine Chinese academics from the Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou, People’s Republic of China, visited CIESIN on Friday, February 29. The group, headed by Zhao De’an, vice president of the university, included faculty from computer and information sciences, chemical engineering, biotechnology, geology, Islamic culture, fine arts, and gesarology (the study of the oral epic of the first Tibetan king, Gesar.) In his overview of the university activities, Prof. Zhao highlighted research on landslides and earthquakes, air pollution due to dust and industrial contaminants, respiratory diseases, hazard and risk modeling, and innovative information technology. The group discussed potential areas of collaboration with researchers from CIESIN, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). Later in the day on the Morningside campus, Prof. Lan Quejia, a well-known Tibetan scholar and member of the Northwest faculty, presented a seminar on the King Gesar epic.

As a minority institution of higher learning—one of six  in China—Northwest University was established in 1950 as part of a nationwide move to encourage minority participation in the university system. Recently, the university established the West China Institute of Environment and Health to serve as a focal point for research and education on environment and health issues in western China.

February 28, 2008

The University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, was the site of two international meetings held this week, in which CIESIN director Robert Chen and geographic information specialist Greg Yetman participated actively.

The Tenth International Conference for Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI-10) attracted experts on geospatial data, tools, and systems from around the world. Yetman, who is a member of the GSDI Association Board, led a workshop on the assessment of infrastructure and population in the low-elevation coastal zone and later gave a talk on CIESIN’s work on coastal vulnerability to sea level rise. As co-chair of the GSDI technical committee, he ran a session with Doug Nebert of the Federal Geographic Data Committee on updates to the Spatial Data Infrastructure Cookbook. He also attended the GSDI Association pre-conference board and council meetings, where activities for the coming year were planned and a new president and board members were elected. Chen presented a paper co-authored with Paul Uhlir of the U.S. National Research Council on development of proposed guidelines for implementing the data sharing principles of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). A workshop on poverty mapping featuring poverty data from CIESIN’s Global Poverty Mapping Project was also presented by researchers from the University of the West Indies.

In conjunction with GSDI-10, the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis (TGICA) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) held its 14th meeting February 26–28. The meeting focused on interdisciplinary data integration and access needs for the broad scientific and policy communities concerned with climate change. The Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), operated by CIESIN under contract to NASA, works with groups in the United Kingdom and Germany to provide access to data and scenarios used in the IPCC assessments. On February 28, Chen co-chaired a joint GSDI-TGICA session that addressed the spatial aspects of climate change vulnerability, impacts, adaptation, and mitigation.

See: GSDI
       TGICA
       IPCC Data Distribution Centre

Merging population characteristics with characteristics of climate, ecology, and place is one of the most challenging aspects of the integration of census and non-census data, according to CIESIN associate research scientist and demographer Susana Adamo. Issues related to this challenge were the basis for a presentation Adamo gave to the IPUMS International Workshop, “Global Integration of Population Microdata: Challenge for the 2010 Round,” held February 23 at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. The presentation, “Synergies of a Global Microdata Collaboratory: Climate and Ecology,” examined these issues in the context of the evolution of several of CIESIN’s major global population data products—Gridded Population of the World (GPW v3), GRUMP, and the Low-Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) data based on GRUMP. Adamo focused on how to use this kind of data integration to address significant global issues, in particular, climate change.

See: Climate and Ecology Presentation

Zoonotic pathogens passed from wildlife to humans, showing lowest occurrence (green) to highest (red). Credit: Nature.

A new study appearing in the Feb. 21 issue of Nature presents the first scientific evidence that emerging diseases are on the rise and that zoonoses—diseases from wildlife—are the prime threat, due to encroachment of wild areas by human population growth and related impacts. CIESIN’s deputy director Marc Levy is a co-author of the study, “Global Trends in Emerging Infectious Diseases,” which built a predictive model by correlating population data from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN with analysis of emerging diseases from 1940 to 2004. “Overlaying maps of where the zoonotic diseases have occurred, with population maps, allows a pattern of relationships to emerge,” says Levy, “and is a first step in prediction.” The result is a global map of emerging disease “hotspots” that shows a pattern of growing vulnerability to new diseases in rich as well as poor nations, with implications for further prediction and prevention. The study also offers insights into the role of conservation in preventing new diseases and the importance of reviewing approaches to allocation of public health resources in order to reduce risk.

In addition to Levy and former CIESIN colleagues Deborah Balk and Adam Storeygard, now at Baruch College, CUNY and Brown University, respectively, the international research team included scientists from the Consortium Conservation Medicine (CCM) Wildlife Trust New York; The University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology; and The Institute of Zoology at The Zoological Society of London, where lead author of the study and former Earth Institute fellow Kate Jones is now senior fellow. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

See: Nature article (subscription-only)
       NPR Interview:“Study Finds Emerging Diseases on Rise”
       Press release
      

January 30, 2008

CIESIN’s Global Poverty Mapping Project received high praise in the January 11 online issue of the Internet Scout Report. “A well-designed site…which can be used in a variety of settings,” the Global Distribution of Poverty Web site is noted for its collection of more than 300 maps documenting the geographic and biophysical conditions facing the poor. Users are encouraged to download the subnational and national poverty data sets available on the site and to explore Where the Poor Are: An Atlas of Poverty, an accessible publication of poverty maps and case histories that shows how poverty mapping data can be used to guide poverty interventions.

The Internet Scout Report is a weekly Web service which identifies valuable online resources, according to criteria developed by a team of professional librarians. It was established in 1994 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

See: Internet Scout Report   
    

January 28, 2008

CIESIN senior staff associate Alex de Sherbinin attended a meeting of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Knowledge Management: Land Initiative from January 21–23 in Bonn, Germany and made a presentation on land degradation indicators. CIESIN is working with the GEF to develop global spatial indicators that will help to better allocate GEF resources in the land degradation portfolio; and to assess where land degradation processes are improving or worsening. While in Germany, he made a second presentation to the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) in Frankfurt, describing the methods and results of the recently-released 2008 Environmental Performance Index (EPI). De Sherbinin is a co-author of the EPI along with Marc Levy and Valentina Mara of CIESIN and colleagues at Yale University.

See: KM: Land Initiative

January 23, 2008

The Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland was the venue for the release today of the 2008 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), co-authored by CIESIN and Yale University’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy. Last released in 2006, the EPI ranks 149 countries on 25 indicators across six policy categories: Environmental Health, Air Pollution, Water Resources, Biodiversity and Habitat, Productive Natural Resources, and Climate Change. Each indicator in the EPI measures how close each country comes to broadly-accepted targets, on a 0–100 scale. As a quantitative gauge of environmental outcomes, the Index is meant to provide a powerful tool for improving policymaking by shifting environmental decisionmaking onto firmer analytic foundations.

The 2008 EPI ranks Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Costa Rica as the top five overall countries. Mali, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Angola, and Niger occupy the bottom five positions. The U.S. is ranked 39th, lower than most industrial countries.

The Index also provides “peer group” rankings for each country, comparing performance of countries facing similar environmental challenges. These benchmarks allow easy tracking of leaders and laggards on an issue-by-issue and aggregate basis. The data also support efforts to identify “best practices” in the environmental realm.

See: 2008 Environmental Performance Index Web site

January 16, 2008

CIESIN director Robert Chen joined a meeting led by the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) at the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA-ROAP) in Bangkok on January 14–15. The focus of the meeting was to refine plans and outcomes for the Asian risk assessment study recently launched by NGI with support from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. The team meeting included staff from OCHA and other UN offices in Bangkok and researchers from the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), the University of Geneva, and the Pacific Disaster Center. Columbia University scientists are providing expertise and assistance on seismic and drought hazards, population exposure, vulnerability assessment, conflict mapping, and data integration.