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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.

CIESIN associate research scientist Susana Adamo presented a paper at the ECLAC-CELADE (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean-Population Division) Expert Group Meeting on Population, Territory and Sustainable Development held in Santiago, Chile, August 16–17. The paper, “Areas of High Environmental Vulnerability,” was presented for discussion under the activities of the ECLAC Special Committee on Population and Development. It identifies areas of high environmental vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean using data from CIESIN’s Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by NASA, including the data sets Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP), version 1; Natural Disaster Hotspots; and Global Infant Mortality. In addition to the presentation of papers, the Expert Group revised and discussed the document, “Population, Territory and Sustainable Development,” to be presented at the next meeting of the Special Committee in early 2012.

The recently updated TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer was featured at two venues recently. In Austin, Texas, at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) held August 7–12, CIESIN geographic information specialist Malanding Jaiteh delivered an overview of SEDAC data products that included a tutorial on the use of TerraViva!, a map viewer and data analysis software application that enables the visualization and integration of hundreds of socioeconomic and environmental variables and layers. The presentation was part of the NASA EOSDIS pre-conference workshop, “Finding, Accessing and Using NASA Data and Tools for Ecology Research.”

At Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin provided hands-on training to educators from area community colleges in the use of TerraViva!. The training was part of a NASA Global Climate Change Education workshop held August 8–11, “Cooling the Curriculum: A Learning Community for Climate Change Education.” It was organized around data products developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN and climate scenarios data generated by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and other groups, all of which are included in the 2011 release of the TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer.

A complete redesign of the Web site of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN has been released. The goal of the new SEDAC Web site is to facilitate the discovery and access of SEDAC data and information resources through improved search tools, a map gallery, thematic slices into SEDAC content, and Internet mapping tools. The site employs the latest information technologies, including a backend content management system based on Bluenog/Hippo, a map gallery using Flickr, Web mapping services supported by Geoserver/OpenLayers, and social networking tools. As part of SEDAC’s efforts to support its diverse community of users, the site encourages user comments via a tool that allows anonymous feedback.

CIESIN geographic information specialist Tricia Chai-Onn attended the 2011 Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California July 11–15, which had as its theme this year “Understanding Our World.” Chai-Onn authored a poster showcased in the conference map gallery, “Global Reservoir and Dams (GRanD), v.1.01,” featuring 6,862 records of reservoirs and their associated dams. The poster was based on data recently released by the Socioeconomic Applications and Data Center (SEDAC). Another poster on display, “Haiti: Spatial Analysis of Vulnerability,” was co-authored by senior staff associate Liana Razafindrazay, CIESIN Earth Institute fellow Alexandra Morel, and senior staff associate Sandra Baptista. More than 13,000 geographic information system (GIS) professionals from more than 100 countries attended the conference.

CIESIN staff travelled to Santa Fe, New Mexico to attend the 2011 Summer Meeting of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) held July 12–15. The theme was “data and information quality.” On July 12, senior digital archivist Robert Downs presented a workshop for teachers, “Introduction to the 2011 TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer.” The workshop audience included middle- and high-school teachers as well as representatives from museums and educational programs. On July 13, Downs presented a poster authored with Robert Chen on “User-Centered Design of a Resource Center about Geospatial Data Preservation.” John Scialdone, manager of CIESIN’s data services group, also attended. Former CIESIN associate director W. Christopher Lenhardt, now at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is the current president of the ESIP Federation.

The User Working Group (UWG) of SEDAC, the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center operated by CIESIN, met recently at Columbia's Lamont Campus in Palisades, New York and at the Morningside Campus in Manhattan. The UWG provides strategic guidance regarding the data and information needs of the users served by SEDAC as well as feedback on new and planned SEDAC data and services. Specific topics at the meeting on June 22–23 included SEDAC’s potential role in supporting new NASA satellite missions and strategies for reaching out to new and potential users of SEDAC's data and services using social media and other approaches. As part of the meeting, Kenneth Crews, director of Columbia's Copyright Advisory Office, met with the UWG to discuss intellectual property issues related to scientific data and the development of open access approaches to data and information.

Chaired by Molly Macauley of Resources for the Future, the UWG includes experts from the social, natural, health, and information sciences. Five new UWG members have recently begun four-year terms: Paul Bartel of the Humanitarian Information Unit at the U.S. Department of State; Linda Billings of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University; Erle Ellis of the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County; Chandra Giri of the US Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observations and Science (EROS) Center; and Kyle McDonald of the Division of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the City College of New York (formerly with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory).

The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) has named CIESIN associate research scientist Susana Adamo to a new panel exploring the role of population dynamics in climate change. Adamo, a demographer originally from Argentina, will serve with population researchers Leiwen Jiang (China), Wolfgang Lutz (Austria), and panel chair Adrian Hayes (Australia). Through cross-disciplinary research, meetings, and other activities, the panel will aim to expand a network of population researchers working in the area of climate change, contribute to greater understanding of how population processes interact with climate change, and share findings with the research and policy making communities. In addition, panel members will examine conditions for such cross-disciplinary research and what this might mean for demographic training. The panel has been established through 2014.

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN is a unique source of interdisciplinary data and information and services related to the human dimensions of global environmental change. To help users more effectively find, access, and use these resources, SEDAC has redesigned its Web site with enhanced search tools, interactive mapping tools, a map gallery, topical views of SEDAC content, and examples of uses of SEDAC data in research, applications, and education. The new site builds on the latest Internet technologies, including a content management system, Flickr, open source Web mapping services, and social networking tools. During the user testing period in July, users are encouraged to provide feedback on the site’s organization and ease of use and suggestions about new features and content. Comments may be submitted anonymously through a tool available on the lower right corner of each Web page.

TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer, a map viewer and standalone software application, has been updated for 2011 with the addition of several new SEDAC data sets, including climate change scenario data and indicator collections with hundreds of variables. TerraViva! contains map data and GIS functions in one package, compatible with the Microsoft Windows operating system. An excellent tool for educators, as well as for researchers and analysts working in a variety of disciplines, TerraViva! has a library of maps organized by theme and a built-in gazetteer, and can create dynamic color-coded maps and customizable maps and charts, among other features. It was produced through a collaboration between ISciences and the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. For more information or to order a free DVD, go to http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/terraVivaUserWeb/.

Senior geographic information specialist Malanding Jaiteh participated recently in two international workshops at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, that focused on methodologies for producing landcover maps and efforts to enhance the quality of such maps. The first, “Characterizing and Validating Global Agricultural Landcover,” took place June 13–15 and was co-hosted by IIASA and the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The second, “CalVal Workshop: Global Land Cover Validation and Accuracy Assessment for Land Cover Change and Area Estimates: Updates, Progress, Next Steps,” was held June 16–17 and organized by the Global Observation of Forest and Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) panel of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) and the Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS).

The invitation-only workshops addressed an identified need for consistent specifications for landcover maps, and ultimately, the development of a body of global reference maps. Jaiteh contributed insights into what users of the data need, not just in terms of land cover mapping but also applications of the data products, in particular, where helping identify limitations of the data set may guide accurate uses.

Gridded Population of the World (GPW), the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), and the Last of the Wild/Human Footprint collection are just a few of the many SEDAC data holdings that can now be found through Reverb—NASA's Next Generation Earth Science Discovery Tool. Reverb is an improved search interface for accessing the EOS ClearingHouse (ECHO), a metadata catalog of NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) data and a registry for related data services. It aims to make it easier for users to discover relevant Earth science data and online visualization and analysis tools, leveraging an improved technology platform and modernized interface. The dynamic filtering feature lets users quickly sort through more than 2,400 data sets and thousands of individual images and files by specifying time periods and areas of interest, as well as search terms, platforms, instruments, field campaigns, processing levels, and science keywords.

SEDAC, the NASA Socioeconomic Economic Data and Applications Center, is operated by CIESIN as one of 12 NASA Earth Science Data Centers (ESDCs) in the EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

Screenshot of interactive 3-D World Population Globe showing year 2000 population distribution. CIESIN/Google.

Differences in population density around the world are dramatically illustrated in a new interactive 3-D globe developed by the Google Data Arts Team and available on Google's Chrome Experiment site. Based on the Gridded Population of the World version 3 (GPWv3) data set available from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center at CIESIN, the World Population Globe illustrates population distribution and changes between 1990, 1995, and 2000 on a 1-degree latitude-longitude grid. The globe was developed using WebGL, the Web-based Graphics Library, which enables 3-D graphics without the use of a plug-in. Browsers that currently support WebGL include Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox 4, and development releases of Safari and Opera. A compatible graphics card may also be needed.

The second annual conference of the Initiative on Climate Adaptation Research and Understanding through the Social Sciences (ICARUS II) was held May 5-8 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This year’s conference theme was “Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation: Marginal Peoples and Environments.” CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin chaired a panel session, “Geospatial Analyses of Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation” and gave a paper in the session, “Spatial Data Integration and Data Gaps for Climate Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation.” He also conducted a training session on the latest release of the TerraViva! SEDAC Viewer, the map viewer and analytical tool. Still in its formative stages, the Initiative was founded in 2009 with the aim to bring together scholars, researchers, students, decision makers, and activists to work on issues around adaptation to climate variability and change. “Writeshops” typically follow throughout the year—smaller meetings to work on papers addressing themes that emerged from the conference.

A screen shot of the nuclear plant proximity analysis combined with the interactive global population density Google Earth map. CIESIN/Nature.

A new study in Nature News, “Residents, Reactors, and Risk,” finds that that many of the world’s nuclear power plants are surrounded by large numbers of people. The analysis, carried out by staff from Nature and from CIESIN, combined a database of nuclear reactors with population data from the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP), developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center operated by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). The interactive maps accompanying the article permit more detailed exploration of population exposure to nuclear reactor accident risk.

Among other findings, the study shows that two-thirds of the world’s power plants have a higher population living within a 30-kilometer radius than the 0.17 million living within 30-kilometers of the site of the recent Fukushima nuclear accident; with some populations totaling as much as 3 million. The plant with the greatest population (8.2 million) within the 30 kilometer radius is in Karachi, Pakistan. Next greatest is in Taiwan, with one plant surrounded by 5.5 million people and another with 4.7 million; the capital city, Taipei, falls within the zones of both plants. Extending the radius to 75 kilometers, the study finds 152 nuclear power plants with more than one million people, including the Indian Point plant in upstate New York, with 17.3 million people.

Associate research scientist Susana Adamo participated in the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in Washington, D.C., held March 30–April 1. She presented a poster, “Integration of Demographic, Climate, and Epidemiological Factors in the Modeling of Meningococcal Meningitis Epidemic Occurrence in Niger,” that examines preliminary results of an ongoing project quantifying the relative influence of these different factors in Niger, part of Africa’s Meningitis Belt. The authors include Gregory Yetman, senior geospatial developer at CIESIN; Sylwia Trzaska, John del Corral, and Madeleine Thomson of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI); and Carlos Perez of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). They integrated climate, demographic and epidemiological data in a single, district-level database, and analyzed these data using exploratory data analysis and regression techniques. Adamo was also a discussant in a session, “Environmental Influence on Population Dynamics.”

In response to the need to measure sustainability with reliable long-term indicators, a growing body of scientific literature has emerged addressing the issue from multiple perspectives. A panel presentation, “The Challenge of Measuring Sustainability,” at the Annual Meeting of the AAAS February 17–20 in Washington, D.C., addressed recent developments in measuring sustainability, best practices, and policy implications. The panel took a comparative look at a number of high-profile indicator initiatives, including The Ecological Footprint, Genuine Savings, The Happy Planet Index and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Among the speakers were CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy and Jay Emerson of Yale University, who lead development of the EPI, which ranks countries’ environmental performance. Released every two years, the EPI is based on twenty-five indicators grouped within ten core policy categories—including environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change—in the context of two objectives: environmental health and ecosystem vitality.

Several CIESIN staff participated in the final advisory group meeting of a NASA Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) feasibility project to investigate using satellite remote sensing data in constructing indicators. The meeting was held January 18 at the offices of Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. The project, led by CIESIN deputy director and principal investigator Marc Levy and senior research associate and co-principal investigator Alex de Sherbinin, focused on three application areas: air quality (using MODIS aerosol optical depth and MISR data), coastal water quality (using SeaWiFS data), and emissions from biomass burning (using MODIS active fire and burn scar data). Selected results will likely be released in the coming year via the NASA-funded Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) managed by CIESIN.

SEDAC data on population, poverty, the Human Footprint, and natural hazards are available for visualization, along with a variety of NASA and other remote sensing data, in a new iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch application, the Earth Observer, developed by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. The application enables overlay of thematic content on a base map with adjustable opacity, at a horizontal resolution of up to 10 meters for the United States, 30 meters elsewhere, and 4 meters in some U.S. coastal harbors and estuaries. The application includes detailed metadata and citation for each data set. See http://www.earth-observer.org/ or download the application directly from Apple’s iTunes store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/earthobserver/id405514799?mt=8#. Currently the application is available for free, but $3.99 will be charged in the near future.