2022 News & Events

December 1, 2022

A Webinar hosted by NASA Earthdata on November 30 featured CIESIN deputy director Alex de Sherbinin and research scientist Susana Adamo presenting air quality data sets distributed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). The Webinar covered global gridded and tabular country and city trend data for particulate matter and other pollutants, and grids focusing on the United States for particulate matter, ozone, and nitrogen-dioxide. The Webinar also demonstrated the use of these data products with a variety of SEDAC data sets—Gridded Population of the World (GPWv4), Social Vulnerability Grids, and the recently released Global Relative Deprivation Index—to study health impacts and environmental justice.

See: NASA Earthdata Webinar: NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center Data Sets for Health and Air Quality Impacts (recording)

June 1, 2022

The majority of countries worldwide will fall short of the net-zero goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, according to the 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by researchers at the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (YCELP) and CIESIN. The EPI uses emissions data from the past 10 years as a basis for projecting mid-century levels for 180 countries. For the first time India’s EPI score was the lowest among all countries, reflecting its drastically poor air quality and quickly rising GHG emissions. Intensifying air pollution and increasing GHG emissions also placed China towards the bottom of the 2022 scorecard, at 160. Among rich countries, the US was ranked low at 43; although it has reduced its emissions, its starting rate is so high that it is unlikely to make the 2050 target. Countries beset by conflict or other crises such as Myanmar and Haiti or nations that favored economic growth over environmental concerns—for example, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—also received low rankings.

Denmark was again rated the most sustainable nation, with the United Kingdom and Finland close behind owing to success in cutting GHG emissions. Sweden and Switzerland were among high-scoring countries for air and water quality. Offering insights into the drivers of good environmental performance, CIESIN senior research scientist Alex de Sherbinin, one of the lead authors of the 2022 EPI, explained, “Good governance, policy commitment, and targeted environmental investments separate the nations that are moving toward a sustainable future from those that are not. High-scoring countries have well-thought-through programs to protect public health, conserve natural resources, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.”

The 2022 EPI used 40 performance indicators to rank 180 countries on their proximity to international targets for addressing air and water pollution, waste management, and biodiversity and habitat protection, as well as the transition to a clean energy future. Even with continuing lags in GHG emissions reduction worldwide, over the past decade significant progress has been made on critical environmental health issues like sanitation, drinking water, and indoor air pollution. YCELP and CIESIN have collaborated in producing the EPI biennially since 2006.

Adapted from a press release by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy.

April 14, 2022

CIESIN will lead one of 17 university-based faculty teams to receive a highly competitive grant from the US Department of Defense FY2021 Minerva Research Initiative to support research in social and behavioral science. A multi-institution, interdisciplinary team headed by principal investigator (PI) Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN senior research scientist and associate director for Science Applications, will conduct the three-year study comparing underlying drivers of international migration flows from Central America and West Africa to the US and Europe, respectively. Increased understanding of these dynamics will make a critical contribution to improved policy responses to the humanitarian and security challenges posed by migration crises. The team will use innovative methodologies to answer two questions: one, to what degree do climate factors contribute to migration flows, versus individual, structural, and governance factors? And two, how may such flows change in response to combined changes in social, political, economic and climate factors? The research team is formed across the Columbia Climate School entities CIESIN, the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), and Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, and includes scientists at Oregon State University (OSU). Co-principal investigators (co-PIs) include CCSR’s Michael J. Puma and OSU’s David Wrathall. Additional senior personnel from the Columbia Climate School include CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo (demography), IRI associate research scientist Ángel Muñoz (climate science, predictive models), Lamont Research Professor Richard Seager (climate science); and two postdoctoral scientists, Fabien Cottier (political science) and Cascade Tuholske (geography), and a research associate, Carmen González Romero (political science/law).

See: Project description: “South-North Migration in Central America and West Africa”
       Press release

March 13, 2022

Source: Understanding Flood Vulnerability: A Case Study of Harris County (StoryMap)

Climate change disproportionately affects the poor and socially vulnerable. The scientific community is responding in its commitment to data and services development that can advance environmental justice. A recent NASA Earthdata Backgrounder profiles some of the work the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Application Center (SEDAC) is doing in this area.

The backgrounder describes a research project focused on the low-wealth, predominately Black community of the Hampton Roads region of Norfolk, VA, which is experiencing rising sea level rise in part because the land area is sinking. SEDAC population data was paired with satellite data to reveal high population density combined with anomalously high sea surface height in this area, identifying high vulnerability. Integrating different types of data in this way lets planners and policymakers make better-informed mitigation decisions that take into consideration social as well as physical impacts of sea-level rise, better insuring environmental justice for vulnerable communities.

In a second example, in collaboration with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), SEDAC helped develop an index that assesses flood vulnerability for Harris County, Texas. Taking a multidisciplinary approach to capturing resilience and susceptibility to flooding, 15 indicators were combined into an aggregate index. The tool can visualize flood vulnerability at the block group level for Harris County and analyze relative flood vulnerability across the region, improving prioritization of flood remediation policies and aid.

CIESIN director Robert Chen, with associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin and research scientist Susana Adamo, helped organize and co-lead a NASA Equity and Environmental Justice virtual workshop, in their respective SEDAC roles as manager, deputy manager, and project scientist. The workshop report was released in December 2021.