An article in the anthology, Sensing Our Planet: NASA Earth Science Research Features 2011, highlights the research of Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty, who have focused on landscapes used by people in order to understand more about human impacts on ecology at the global and local scale. According to the article, “Repatterning the World,” two major insights resulted: that a surprisingly large amount of the world is actually taken up by human-inhabited areas (anthromes); and that human influence has grown so extensive that natural systems in large part now fit themselves within human systems. Rather than restricting biome definitions to various wild descriptors, as is traditional in ecology, Ellis and Ramankutty developed 21 classifications, of which only three are wild. Their results have been published as a data set, Anthropogenic Biomes, disseminated by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. Sensing Our Planet is an annual publication that showcases multidisciplinary research using Earth-observing data from NASA Earth science data centers, including research on climate change, hazards, and more. Ellis, who is an associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is a member of the SEDAC User Working Group, which provides strategic guidance regarding the data and information needs of SEDAC users. Ramankutty is an assistant professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

The first independent analysis of China environmental data at the sub-national level by an international team has been released by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Yale University. The report, Towards a China Environmental Performance Index, presents a framework for assessing environmental performance by province as an aid to developing government environmental policies. China faces formidable environmental challenges owing to its large population, limited water resources, rapid economic growth, and fast-paced urbanization.

The research was carried out in collaboration with the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning and the City University of Hong Kong. The framework that emerged, developed in consultation with many environmental experts in China and the U.S., provides a tailored set of issues and indicators that will be important to track for the foreseeable future. Core policy issues include air pollution, water quality, climate change, energy efficiency, and toxic metals, among others. According to the report, greater transparency and freer access to data, especially raw data from monitoring systems and spatial data on environmental conditions, are essential in the future development of environmental performance indicators for China.

The Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and CIESIN have been the world leaders in developing national-scale environmental indices since they launched the Environmental Sustainability Index in the year 2000. The motivation behind the subnational work in China was to better reflect the country's diverse geographical landscapes and differentiated environmental stresses, and to provide a more effective tool for policy making.

CIESIN director Robert Chen has joined the Board on International Scientific Organizations (BISO) of the National Academies for a three-year term beginning January 1, 2012. BISO promotes international collaboration in scientific research and coordinates U.S. participation in international scientific, engineering, and medical organizations. Chaired by Tilahun Yilma of the University of California, Davis, BISO serves as the U.S. National Committee to the International Council for Science (ICSU) and oversees a network of more than 20 U.S. National Committees for various ICSU scientific bodies. BISO also coordinates U.S. involvement in other international organizations such as the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), the InterAcademy Panel for International Issues (IAP), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Chen is currently Secretary General of the ICSU interdisciplinary committee CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology, through October 2012, and has extensive experience working with international scientific organizations and initiatives.

Sandra Baptista, a geographer specializing in sustainability science and the human dimensions of global environmental change, has been appointed senior staff associate at CIESIN beginning December 20, 2011. She will contribute to projects addressing sustainability indicators, environment-security linkages, and climate change impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and resilience.

Baptista was hosted by CIESIN for two years as an Earth Institute Fellow beginning in September 2008. In early 2011 she returned to CIESIN on a part-time basis to help organize a workshop on societal indicators for the National Climate Assessment and to research sustainability initiatives and standard systems for global supply chain management, benchmarking, and decision-making in the agriculture and food sector. Most recently, she has been working with the Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts, and Adaptation (PROVIA), a collaborative United Nations initiative to promote science-policy dialogue on climate issues. Baptista earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in geography from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and received an interdisciplinary B.A. in environmental studies and Portuguese and Brazilian studies from Brown University.

CIESIN director Robert Chen and senior research associate Alexander de Sherbinin joined more than 1,000 other delegates in Abu Dhabi at the Eye on Earth Summit, held December 11–15. As part of the Summit's open sessions, Chen presented a case study on the successful development and use of integrated data on natural hazards, illustrating the potential value of expanding efforts to assess diverse natural hazards and the risks they pose to human activities and welfare. At another session organized by the Summit working group on Policy, Governance, and Institutional Networking, de Sherbinin discussed “The Case for Investing in Data.” Facilitated by the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and hosted by the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Summit addressed the vital importance of environmental and societal data and information in decision-making from local to global levels. The Summit declaration was developed as an input into Rio +20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012.

CIESIN staff members contributed actively to the largest worldwide conference of the geosciences, the Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting held December 5-9 in San Francisco. The AGU this year attracted nearly 20,000 Earth and space scientists, experts in informatics, educators, students, and policy makers.

CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert Downs collaborated with Chris Mattmann of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to convene oral and poster sessions on the topic of “Software Reuse and Open Source Software in Earth Science.” He presented and contributed to several oral and poster papers on software reuse and development of trusted digital repositories, including a paper co-authored with CIESIN director Robert Chen. Associate director for information technology Sri Vinay also addressed Earth science informatics issues in a poster on CIESIN’s efforts to implement content management system technologies.

EI Fellow/CIESIN postdoc Alexandra Morel presented a poster on trade as a driver of oil palm expansion. Senior research associate Valentina Mara was co-author of a paper on welfare effects of natural disaster impacts in developing countries presented by Prof. John Mutter of the Earth Institute.

Representing the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), senior information specialist Joe Schumacher participated in a “Meet and Greet” to share data news and outreach ideas with staff from other NASA data centers and the NASA Education and Public Outreach community. He helped staff the Earth science data section of the NASA exhibit, where Robert Downs gave a presentation on using the 2011 TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer. Downs also served as a judge for the AGU Outstanding Student Paper Awards and presented two units for a workshop, Data Management 101 for the Earth Scientist, sponsored by the Earth Science Information Partners Federation.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Data Distribution Center (DDC) has released a series of Web pages describing the new process for developing scenarios in support of climate change research and the IPCC's Fifth Assessment. Scenarios describe plausible trajectories of different aspects of the future needed to investigate the potential consequences of anthropogenic climate change. The new scenario process allows for parallel rather than sequential development of different models, shortening the time required to develop scenarios and ensuring better integration between socioeconomic driving forces, changes in the climate system, and the vulnerability of natural and human systems.

The new DDC Web pages were developed and approved by the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impacts and Climate Analysis (TGICA) and the IPCC Technical Support Units. The DDC is managed collaboratively by the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC), the Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ) in Germany, and the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.

CIESIN geographic information specialist Kytt MacManus participated in a panel at the 26th Annual Northeast Arc Users Group Conference (NEARC) held November 13–16 in Saratoga Springs, New York. The panel, “Demonstrating Tools for Teachers from T3G2011,” presented methods to integrate geographic information systems (GIS) into teaching. It was part of GIS Educators Day, a full-day conference on the use of GIS and other geospatial technologies by educators, held in conjunction with NEARC. MacManus discussed the use of Web mapping applications in education, using the Population Estimation Service as an example of a product to launch geographic discussions or to introduce a lecture topic. The Population Estimation Service, available through the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, enables users to estimate population totals and related statistics within a user-defined region. Formed in 1986, NEARC is an independent regional organization for users of Esri ArcGIS GIS software, including urban and regional planners, educators, natural resource and utility professionals, and government agencies.

CIESIN staff members John Scialdone and Robert Downs participated in the 2011 NASA Earth Science Data Systems Annual Conference held November 1–3 in Newport News, Virginia. As co-chair of the NASA ESDS Software Reuse Working Group, Downs, who is senior digital archivist at CIESIN, helped lead the Software Reuse Working Group breakout sessions. He also co-authored the poster, “NASA’s Earth Science Data System Software Reuse WG: Year in Review 2011,” which was presented during the poster session November 2; co-authors were Chris Mattmann, Paul Ramirez, Cameron Goodale, and Andrew Hart, all of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Some 300 scientists and disaster management professionals from diverse backgrounds and countries gathered in Beijing, China, October 31–November 2 for the first conference of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) program of the International Council for Science (ICSU). On November 1, CIESIN director Robert Chen moderated a session on integrated disaster data, and gave a presentation on CIESIN’s extensive experience in developing and integrating data on hazards with data on exposure and vulnerability to hazards. IRDR is a 10-year research initiative of ICSU, with an International Program Office hosted by the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Associate research scientist Susana Adamo was a keynote speaker for the European Forum for Geostatistics Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, October 12–14. She gave a presentation, “A Comparison of Vector and Raster Population Time Series: Population Change in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1990-2010,” which examined the use of both gridded and vector-based population data for analyzing population change at the subnational level. Senior staff associate Liana Razafindrazay assisted in preparing the presentation.

In his role as a member of the Project Advisory Committee for the System for Integrated Modeling of Metropolitan Extreme Heat Risk (SIMMER) project, CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin attended the project meeting at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, October 10–11. The NASA-funded project is modeling extreme heat events, both present and future (through the use of climate scenarios), and mapping societal vulnerability in two major cities: Houston, Texas, and Toronto, Canada. Stakeholders from health departments in both cities attended the meeting. Houston experienced a 1 in 10,000-year heat wave this past summer, and the health department is planning to use project outputs to better understand differential vulnerability to extreme heat and to plan heat mitigation and health interventions.

More than 3,000 people from around the greater New York metropolitan area came to the Lamont campus of Columbia University on Saturday, October 2 for its annual Open House. Launched decades ago to educate the public about the unique research activities at Lamont, the Open House featured a variety of exhibits, hands-on demonstrations, lectures, and other activities organized by hundreds of Earth Institute scientists, staff, and students, including many from CIESIN. The CIESIN tent focused on the use of spatial data to address issues of local and regional concern, such as the impact of Hurricane Irene, the proximity of populations to nuclear power plants, land cover change in New York's Jamaica Bay, and climate risks in the urban northeast. Hands-on demonstrations of Change Viewer, a new mapping tool that visualizes climate change prediction data and population information, were also offered to science teachers and others. CIESIN has participated actively in the Open House since 1998.

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. SEDAC 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.

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.

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.

NASA conducts an annual survey of users of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) to assess their satisfaction with the data, tools, and support provided by EOSDIS data centers and services. The Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, which serves a wide range of basic and applied users interested in the integration of remote sensing and socioeconomic data, is one of the NASA EOSDIS centers evaluated by the survey.

During the week of September 12, users registered with SEDAC will receive an email invitation from the Claes Fornell International (CFI) Group on behalf of NASA, asking them to participate in an anonymous, Web-based survey about the quality and utility of SEDAC products and services, and the ease of access to SEDAC resources. The questionnaire takes approximately 10 minutes to complete, and optional comment fields are provided to address user concerns. Anyone who has used any SEDAC data or information resources, including online services available through the SEDAC website as well as offline tools like the TerraViva SEDAC viewer, may take the survey. Those who do not receive an invitation directly are welcome to contact the CFI Group at nasasurvey@cfigroup.com, providing an email address and self-identifying as a SEDAC data user. Invitations should not be forwarded to others, but others may be referred to the above email address.

SEDAC encourages all of its users to participate in the survey. Feedback affects future performance, identifies high priority user needs and concerns, and helps to justify NASA's continuing investment in EOSDIS data services and support. Past surveys have provided important inputs into the development of the redesigned SEDAC Web site, and user comments help to further improve SEDAC data and services.

Participants at the first ICSU World Data System Conference held September 3-6, 2011 at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan.

Typhoon Talas provided a stormy backdrop for the first ICSU World Data System Conference in Kyoto, Japan, September 3–6, which drew more than 150 representatives of data centers and services and other interested organizations from around the world. CIESIN director Robert Chen participated in his capacity as secretary general of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and as manager of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). He gave a plenary presentation on past, present, and future cooperation between the ICSU World Data System (WDS) and CODATA, which have complementary roles on scientific data issues under the ICSU umbrella. He also co-chaired an open forum for WDS members and partners with Ruth Neilan of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to discuss organizational and strategic issues.

The ICSU World Data System is working to strengthen and expand the network of international scientific data centers and services originally formed after the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58. It will serve as a globally interoperable data system that incorporates emerging technologies and new scientific data activities in support of global science.

A group of Earth Institute interns and research assistants originating from such diverse locations as Venezuela, China, India, Hawaii, North Carolina, Maryland, and New York collaborated with CIESIN researchers on a variety of projects this summer. Earth Institute interns Sriram Jayaprakash and Jimeng Du both worked with information scientist Xiaoshi Xing developing and improving emissions data. Jayaprakash evaluated, mapped, and gridded global sulfur emissions from energy use, and Du analyzed and processed the data using ArcGIS and other tools. Jayaprakash has a B.A. in Technology from SASTRA University and is working on a M.A. in Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs. Du received a dual B.A. in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Wuhan University and is working toward an M.S. in Operations Research in December 2011.

Kimberly Peng, also an Earth Institute Intern, worked on the Haiti Regeneration Initiative (HRI), with staff associate Paola Kim Blanco, assisting with the planning and preparation of the socioeconomic household baseline study for the southwestern part of Haiti. She also helped with the multi-sector facilities inventory in Haiti and the coordination and preparation of training material and field-testing of tools. Peng has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Maryland and is enrolled in the Earth Institute's M.A. Program in Climate and Society.

Josef Bronfenmajer also worked on the HRI, working with program manager Alex Fischer and fellow research assistant Jihye Lee in creating audiovisual media, including a 5-minute project background video. Josef has a B.S. in Film Studies from Hofstra University, and anticipates an M.S. from Columbia University in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution in 2012. Jihye Lee was responsible for multi-media data visualization and 3-D landscape modeling. Lee has a B.S. in Architecture from Seoul National University, and graduated this past May with an M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design from the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Yang Sui, a dual masters candidate in Computer Science and Journalism, performed Web site development and content management for both the Africa Soils Information Project (AfSIS) and the HRI, working with senior research associate Sonya Ahamed and Kim Blanco. Sui has a B.S. in Computer Science and B.A. in English from Tianjin University, China. Michelle DeCurtis, a rising junior majoring in architecture at Barnard College, worked with CIESIN associate director Mark Becker developing content for the Web site of the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Northeast (CCRUN), building a GIS database and creating climate change maps for the region. Arianna Feinberg, a rising senior majoring in sustainable development at Columbia College, also worked with Becker on the Global Climate Change Education Project, where she helped create a curriculum and interactive mapping tool about climate change and human health. Evan Drewry, a rising junior majoring in computer science at the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science, worked with senior geospatial developer Greg Yetman and associate research scientist Susana Adamo to obtain and organize census and boundary data for the next version of the Gridded Population of the World (GPW) data set.

The NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) “Top Hat” has been added to the Web site of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). The Top Hat is a visual appliance located on the top of SEDAC Web pages that provides direct access to the broad EOSDIS network of data centers and services. It enables EOSDIS users to easily search and access the wide range of NASA Earth science data and information products and services from any EOSDIS data center.

The Top Hat, along with the newly redesigned EOSDIS Web site, is part of a NASA initiative to ensure a coherent EOSDIS Web presence. With more than a dozen data centers and important services like the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) and the Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE), EOSDIS archives and distributes many petabytes of Earth science and related data from NASA satellites and other platforms, supporting tens of thousands of users each month. SEDAC’s primary role in EOSDIS is to facilitate interdisciplinary research and applications of remote sensing data with key socioeconomic data and information resources and services.