December 1, 2001

Papers and posters presented at the 2001 Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Research Community are now available for download. A search interface allows searching on author, title, and abstract fields.

See: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/openmeeting/downloads.html

November 26-27, 2001

Columbia University’s Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) sponsored the International Symposium on Arsenic in Drinking Water.

For more details see: http://superfund.ciesin.columbia.edu/

In conjunction with the Open Meeting, CIESIN conducted training on the preparation of geospatial metadata to support research and applications on the human dimensions of global environmental change. The training focused on the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata. The course was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Support for this course was provided by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Cooperative Agreement Program.

Information on the training class is available at:
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/openmeeting/FGDCsched_reg.html

October 6-8, 2001

The 2001 Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Research Community was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on October 6-8, 2001. The Open Meeting was organized by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), and CIESIN. Marc Levy, CIESIN Associate Director for Science Applications,was a co-chair of the International Scientific Planning Committee.

Information about the meeting is available at: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/openmeeting/

October 6, 2001

CIESIN participated in LDEO's Open House.

see: http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/events/lamont/OpenHouse01.htm

September 2001

CIESIN helped to organize and host a joint workshop on "Assessment of High Risk Disaster Hotspots" co-sponsored by the World Bank's Disaster Management Facility (DMF) and Columbia University's new Center for Hazards and Risk Research (CHRR) . The workshop reviewed the scientific basis for defining and comparing natural disaster risks of different types by combining hazard data with spatially detailed estimates of potentially vulnerable human populations and their infrastructure, economic activities, and coping capacities. Some 35 experts covering a range of hazards, disciplines, and approaches participated, including 7 from Europe.

Workshop materials are being made available at: http://www.proventionconsortium.org/conferences/highriskhotspots.htm

The LandScan data set is a worldwide population database compiled on a 30" X 30" latitude/longitude grid. Census counts (mainly at sub-national level) were apportioned to each grid cell based on probability coefficients, which are based on proximity to roads, slope, land cover and nighttime lights. LandScan 2000 has been developed as part of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Global Population Project for estimating ambient populations at risk. The LandScan files are available on our ftp server in Band Interleaved by Line (BIL) format by continent and in ESRI grid format for the world.

CIESIN is pleased to announce the availability of two new publications: A Guide to Global Population Projections and Report of the Workshop on Remote Sensing Applications at the State and Local Level.

A Guide to Global Population Projections is an article published in the online, peer-reviewed journal Demographic Research. Prepared by Brian C. O'Neill of Brown University, Deborah Balk and Melanie Brickman of CIESIN, and Markos Ezra of Brown, this guide provides an in-depth review of available global population projections and their underlying data, methods, and assumptions. The full text of the 90-page report is available as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file at: http://www.demographic-research.org/ (Volume 4, Article 8). An html version is in preparation.

The Report of the Workshop on Remote Sensing Applications at the State and Local Level, edited by Francesca Pozzi of CIESIN, summarizes discussions at a workshop held at CIESIN on February 23, 2001. This 30-page report is now available online as a PDF file at: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/remote_sens/.

June 1, 2001

CIESIN is hosting the Web site for Columbia University's Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) on Health Effects and Geochemistry of Arsenic and Lead. Supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the project is an interdisciplinary, collaborative effort including faculty and staff from Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the Henry Krumb School of Mines, and CIESIN. Encompassing seven research projects, three research support core laboratories, and a training core, the Columbia SBRP's goal is to assist in the development and application of new knowledge regarding the bioavailability of soil lead in humans and the bioavailability, health effects, and geochemistry of arsenic. Field research is undertaken in both Bangladesh and at selected Superfund sites in the USA. The Columbia SBRP offers several seminars throughout the year that are open to the public. On November 26 & 27, 2001, it will be sponsoring the International Symposium on Arsenic in Drinking Water.

For more details about the program, please see: http://superfund.ciesin.columbia.edu/

May 4 , 2001

"Potential Impacts of Climate Change on World Food Supply: Data Sets from a Major Crop Modeling Study."

This new interactive Web site is hosted by CIESIN's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). The site provides access to data developed by Cynthia Rosenzweig and Ana Iglesias of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) on projected crop yield changes for major world regions based on climate model estimates, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and alternative adaptation scenarios. The interactive query interface permits users to view the projections of crop yield changes by countryor region; climate model scenario; or commodity type. Extensive information is provided online on the study's methodology, inputs, and limitations and on related links.

See:
http://beta.sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/giss_crop_study/index.html

April 2001

CIESIN hosted a Workshop on Photooxidants, Particles, and Haze across the Arctic and North Atlantic: Transport Observations and Models, at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York on 12-15 June 2001. The purpose of this workshop was to bring together international experts from the global and regional atmospheric chemistry communities to assess the current state of knowledge, identify research needs, and improve coordination of research efforts with regard to a series of specific scientific questions of interest to the international environmental policy and research communities. The workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada, in coordination with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) and the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP).

For further information, see: http://ciesin.columbia.edu/pph/

February 23, 2001

The Population Environment Research Network seeks to promote scientific exchange in the emerging interdisciplinary field of population/environment research. It includes a cyberseminar series, a searchable bibliographic research database, and updates on conferences and funding opportunities. The site is co-sponsored by the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) on Global Environmental Change, and hosted by CIESIN through the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC).
The site is at:
http://www.populationenvironmentresearch.org

February 2001

CIESIN's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) sponsored an informal user workshop on "Remote Sensing Applications at the State and Local Level" on February 23, 2001 at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. About twenty representatives from local and state governments and non-governmental organizations in New York and New Jersey participated. The workshop addressed issues of the availability of and needs for remotely sensed data products on the part of local users

A workshop report is available at the workshop WWW site:
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/remote_sens/

January 2001

The 2001 Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability, developed for 122 countries. It was developed in collaboration with the World Economic Forum's Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment Task Force and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and was formally released on Saturday, 27 January 2001 at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The report and the data are available online at: http://ciesin.columbia.edu/indicators/ESI/