WDC News

New Data Set Improves National Estimates of Population, Landscape, and Climate Characteristics

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Map of coastal proximity zones in South America. PLACE III provides land area and urban and rural population estimates for people living within 200km, 100km, 10km, or 5km of their country’s coastline.

Version 3 of the Population, Landscape, and Climate Estimates data set (PLACE III) has been released as part the National Aggregates of Geospatial Data Collection, produced by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. PLACE III provides national-level estimates of resident population and land area in relation to the environmental characteristics of their location (for example, by biome, climate zone, coastal proximity, and elevation) in a tabular format. Population estimates are available for 1990, 2000, and 2010 for 232 statistical areas (countries and other territories recognized by the United Nations). New features in version 3 are separate estimates for urban and rural populations and a pivot table to facilitate data selection and analysis.

The PLACE III data set is especially useful for those who are not familiar with specialized geospatial software and methods. The data set is organized so that users can quickly find the specific countries and variables of interest. It may be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet or as a comma-separated file (CSV) that can be opened by any text editor. Spreadsheet users may filter data by country, urban or rural classification, and other categories such as geoRegion (a geographic entity defined by the UN, similar to continent), geoSubregion (regions smaller than continents but larger than countries), and income group or lending category (World Bank global classifications of poverty and lending attractiveness).

Population and land area estimates have been generated for a variety of themes, including biomes of the world, climate classifications and predictions, elevation levels, distance from the coast, and population density zones. PLACE III facilitates comparative research at the national level by providing access to a range of useful summary variables on such questions as approximately how many people live within 10 kilometers of the coastline in South American countries; roughly how many rural Africans live in deserts and xeric shrublands; or how populations are distributed by elevation in southern Asia. Data from previous versions of PLACE have been used and cited in a number of scientific articles in both the natural and social sciences.

Population, Landscape, and Climate Estimates (PLACE III)

Webinar Features New Superfund Mapping Service

Tue, 08 May 2012 04:00:00 GMT

The new online mapping service, the National Priority List (NPL) Superfund Footprint Mapper, was featured as part of a Webinar sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Partnerships for Public Environmental Health (PEPH) on May 7. Participants numbered 158 attendees, more than 30 from federal agencies. Senior research associate Meredith Golden showcased the Mapper with assistance from geographic information specialist Tricia Chai-Onn, who also helped develop the service. Golden highlighted data from several projects of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center operated by CIESIN. These include the U.S. Census Grids and the Global Poverty Mapping Project. The NPL Superfund Footprint Mapper can display population and environmental characteristics for areas surrounding more than 1700 NPL Superfund sites. An archived recording of the Webinar will be available soon on the SRP Web site.

Columbia University Superfund Research Program Web site

Integrating Earth Observing Systems the Focus of Geneva Meetings

Sat, 05 May 2012 04:00:00 GMT

More than 100 experts on Earth observations gathered in Geneva April 30–May 4 to coordinate plans for integrating remote sensing and other environmental and socioeconomic data under the auspices of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). CIESIN director Robert Chen participated in the GEO Work Plan Symposium 2012, reporting on the efforts of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group to reduce the legal and institutional barriers to sharing data across the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) being developed by GEO member countries and other participating organizations. Chen is one of the co-chairs of the Working Group, representing the International Council for Science, and serves as task coordinator for the GEO work plan task on data sharing. CIESIN geographic information specialist Sneha Rao subsequently participated in the kickoff meeting for the fifth phase of the GEO Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP-5), held May 3-4. She presented CIESIN’s planned contributions to the pilot, emphasizing ways to integrate data on population, land use, hazards, and sustainability with Earth observations to support GEO's priority societal benefit areas such as disaster management, agriculture, and climate adaptation.

Enhanced Website on African Soils Launched

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:00:00 GMT

A new and improved Web site and quarterly newsletter have been released by the Africa Soils Information Service (AfSIS). One important enhancement is a section on the homepage called "Data and Map Portal" that highlights the project's progress in sampling sentinel sites across the continent, creating the Africa Soil Profiles Database, carrying out diagnostic trials, and conducting critical analysis of the data. The subscription-based newsletter, which now offers a more reader-friendly layout, aims to keep interested recipients up to date on project activities and provide a behind-the-scenes look at some of the individuals involved in AfSIS field work. AfSIS is a collaboration between the Earth Institute and African scientists and institutions to develop detailed digital maps of soils in 42 countries of sub-Saharan Africa in support of sustainable agriculture. Development of the new outreach vehicles has been led by AfSIS team members Alison Rose, research manager at the Earth Institute's Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program; Sonya Ahamed, senior research associate at CIESIN; and Annie Gerard, media designer at CIESIN. To subscribe to the newsletter, go to the new AfSIS Web site.

2012 EPI Ranks the Environmental Performance of 132 Countries

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Announced at the World Economic Forum held January 25–29 in Davos, Switzerland, the 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by CIESIN and Yale University’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP), in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy, identifies Switzerland as first in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges. Iraq is ranked last. The EPI has been produced every two years since 2006. The 2012 EPI ranks 132 countries, using 22 indicators in ten major policy categories including air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity, and forest management.

For the first time a complementary index showing country improvement from 2000 to 2010, the Pilot Trend Environmental Performance Index (Trend EPI), was released. Latvia was ranked number one in the Trend EPI, with Russia in last place. The U.S., which is 49^th in the EPI, was just 77^th in the Trend EPI, implying few recent gains in addressing environmental issues.

Data sets making up the EPI were contributed from the International Energy Agency, remote sensing research groups at Battelle and University of Maryland, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and other entities. Lack of data in certain areas—in particular, waste management, toxic exposures, agricultural sustainability and water resources—continue to limit the ability of the EPI to contribute towards the understanding necessary to develop policies for safeguarding the environment.

2012 Environmental Performance Index

Project to Integrate Global Census and Environmental Data Launched

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:00:00 GMT

The logo for Terra Populus: A Global Population/ Environment Data Network (TerraPop), which will integrate population census data from the past two centuries with environmental data. The project is led by University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Population Center, with CIESIN as a key partner.

The National Science Foundation has made a major, $8 million, five-year award to a team led by the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Population Center for a new project, Terra Populus: A Global Population / Environment Data Network (TerraPop). The goal of TerraPop is to integrate population census data from the past two centuries with global land cover, land use, and other environmental data, providing a unique data access and analysis system for improving understanding of the interactions between humans and the environment from local to global scales. CIESIN is a key partner in the project, contributing its expertise in integrating socioeconomic and environmental data. CIESIN director Robert Chen, associate research scientist Susana Adamo, and senior digital archivist Robert Downs participated in TerraPop’s kickoff meeting September 29-30 in Minneapolis.

As part of NSF’s Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network (DataNet), TerraPop will develop a sustainable digital archive for its data, accessible to researchers worldwide and building on the distributed capabilities of its partners. The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan is also a key contributor to the project. Other participants from the University of Minnesota include the Institute on the Environment, the University of Minnesota Library, and faculty from the College of Liberal Arts and College of Science and Engineering.

CIESIN Releases Major Spatial Population Data Collection

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:00:00 GMT

Urbanization poses both challenges and opportunities for sustainable development and environmental management. Improved data on patterns of human settlement and trends in population can help researchers and policy makers better understand differences between urban and rural areas in terms of their impacts on the environment and vulnerability to environmental variability and change. The newly released Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1) data collection is a valuable resource both for researchers studying human-environment interactions and for applied users working to address critical environmental and societal issues.

Developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, GRUMPv1 consists of eight global data sets: population count grids, population density grids, urban settlement points, urban-extents grids, land/geographic unit area grids, national boundaries, national identifier grids, and coastlines. All grids are provided at a resolution of 30 arc-seconds (~1km), with population estimates normalized to the years 2000, 1995, and 1990. All eight data sets are available for download as global products, and the first five data sets are also available as continental, regional, and national subsets.

The population density and population count grids build on SEDAC’s Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 data set (GPWv3), which does not distinguish between urban and rural areas. GRUMPv1 identifies urban areas based in part on observations of lights at night collected by a series of Department of Defense meteorological satellites over several decades. The night-light data were carefully processed by the U.S. National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) in Boulder, Colorado. CIESIN then used these and other supplementary data to develop an urban-rural “mask,” or urban extents grid, which identifies those areas of the Earth’s land surface that appear to be urbanized. GRUMPv1 also includes a geo-referenced database of urban settlements with populations greater than 5,000 persons, which may be downloaded in both tabular and shapefile formats.

Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1)

'Eye on Earth' Summit Will Address Global Data Access Issues

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 04:00:00 GMT

CIESIN is playing a leading role in the organization of the Eye on Earth Summit, to be held December 12–15 in Abu Dhabi. At the Summit global leaders, innovators, and decision-makers will focus on how to ensure effective access to the world’s expanding pool of environmental and societal data by all who need it. Facilitated by the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and hosted by Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD) in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Eye on Earth Summit will strengthen existing efforts and inspire a search for unified, global solutions to the issues that preclude access to data. Marc Levy, CIESIN deputy director, is co-chair of Working Group 2 on content and user needs, and Alex de Sherbinin, senior research associate, serves on Working Group 1 on policy and networking.

Eye on Earth Summit

New Observing System Explored at Oxford Meeting

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:00:00 GMT

CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin participated in a meeting organized by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) to design a new Global Integrated Observing Strategy. This meeting, held September 6–8 in Oxford, England, included many experts in Earth System Science modeling and ecological field research. As a representative of the social science data and observations community, de Sherbinin provided suggestions on how to design an observation system that will improve monitoring of coupled human-environment systems. The strategy will focus on under-observed regions in Africa and Asia.

International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme

Marc Levy Appointed to NRC Committee on Issues in Himalayan Region

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:00:00 GMT

CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy has been appointed to the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Himalayan Glaciers, Climate Change, and Implications for Downstream Populations. The committee, which is chaired by Henry J. Vaux, Jr. of the University of California, Berkley, also includes former CIESIN research scientist Deborah Balk, currently of Baruch College of the City University of New York, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientist Ed Cook, and Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) scientist Drew Shindell. The committee will take stock of what is known regarding glacier melt in the Himalayas and the consequences for populations in the region, including possible security impacts. The committee’s first meeting was held July 11–12, at the Keck Center of the National Academies in Washington, D.C.

NRC Committee on Himalayan Glaciers, Climate Change, and Implications for Downstream Populations