Climate Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation

An easy-to-use mapping tool increases flood planning capacity in New York State, especially for historically underrepresented communities, and can enhance planning for sea level rise. Developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) at Columbia Climate School’s CIESIN, the New York State Flood Impact Support System Application (NYS FIDSS) visualizes building footprint data for nearly all New York State’s infrastructure, except New York City. It is highly interactive and accessible, requiring only Internet access, ensuring that communities with fewer resources can create comprehensive flood scenarios for planning, response, and policymaking.

The easy interface of the NYS FIDSS mapper aligns with the aims of the new NASA Open Science initiative to more openly share software, data, and knowledge to advance inclusiveness and improve social justice. The Mapper includes a data set, U.S. Social Vulnerability Index Grids, developed by the NASA SEDAC and based on the Centers for Disease Control’s Social Vulnerability Index, which lets users visualize relative “social vulnerability” for areas impacted by flooding. The index displays fine-grained information on social conditions of the population in a particular area, including economic level, who is in the household, minority status, dwelling places, the ability to understand English, and access to transport. This information can be critical to targeting flood planning resources and aid to the areas that most need it—before, during, or after a flood event.

The NYS FIDSS mapper is based on results from the project New York State Building Footprints with Flood Analysis, which provides infrastructure data for all New York State counties excluding New York City. It also includes data on areas bordering the lower Hudson River Valley and Westchester's Long Island Sound shoreline, from the Hudson River Flood Impact Decision Support System, a flood assessment mapping tool developed by CIESIN under support from NYSERDA. The mapper also provides infrastructure, flooding, and socioeconomic data layers at the local level from the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN), whose members from academia, including CIESIN, conducted stakeholder-driven research to reduce climate vulnerability in the urban northeastern United States, supported by NOAA.

The lead developers are CIESIN senior research staff assistant Juan Martinez and senior systems analyst/GIS developer Kytt MacManus. 

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) held its annual User Working Group (UWG) meeting May 30‒31 at the Manhattanville campus of Columbia University. UWG chair William Easterling and five other members attended in person, and other members participated remotely. Additional participants included Nancy Searby, program manager for the NASA Earth Science Applied Sciences Capacity Building Program; Cerese Albers and Joel Scott from NASA Headquarters; NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) engineers Frank Lindsay, Sandra Blevins, Sara Lubkin, and Nathan James; Tammy Walker of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory DAAC; and Wade Albright of the Alaska SAR Facility (ASF). The UWG reviewed the final draft of the updated SEDAC Strategic Plan, reviewed new impact metrics developed by SEDAC, and approved a range of new data sets, pending receipt of final comments. The meeting included a panel discussion of NASA’s efforts related to environmental and climate justice, moderated by SEDAC manager Robert Chen with panelists Albers, Easterling, Searby, and UWG member Catherine Nakalembe. SEDAC deputy manager Alex de Sherbinin, systems engineer Sri Vinay, project scientist Susana Adamo, systems programmer Kytt MacManus, and other SEDAC staff presented and participated in the meeting. 

African Shifts: Addressing Climate-Forced Migration

A new report from the Africa Climate Mobility Initiative (ACMI), African Shifts: Addressing Climate-Forced Migration depicts African people’s experience of climate vulnerability and presents possible scenarios for movements due to climate impacts on the continent between now and 2050. Finally, it presents eight key recommendations to be implemented between now and 2030 that focus on constructive, adaptive responses to climate mobility, in alignment with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

CIESIN contributed to the report by producing spatially explicit projections of both internal and international mobility that may occur from climate impacts, within and among African countries, up to the year 2050. This modelling builds on the innovative approaches of the World Bank’s Groundswell series of reports, for which CIESIN worked with City University of New York and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research on the modeling. The modeling work was complemented with findings from field research conducted by the Mixed Migration Centre.  

The ACMI is a joint undertaking between the African Union Commission, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the World Bank. The CIESIN team was led by Alex de Sherbinin, deputy director and senior research scientist, and included Fabien Cottier, postdoctoral research scientist; Susana Adamo, research scientist; Briar Mills, former geographic information specialist; Greg Yetman, associate director for Geospatial Applications; Tricia Chai-Onn, senior geographic information specialist; and John Squires, geographic information specialist.

CIESIN-Columbia University

Several new data products have been released under CIESIN’s NASA-funded Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Foremost among them, the Global Gridded Relative Deprivation Index (GRDI) measures relative poverty and deprivation using subnational data on human development, infant mortality, and child dependency, as well as satellite-derived data on built-up areas, nighttime lights, and change in nighttime lights. It is the first product of its kind that covers the entire world at a 1 kilometer spatial resolution. Other new data sets from the NASA SEDAC include:

—Daily and Annual Air Quality Data Sets for the Contiguous U.S. support research in environmental epidemiology, environmental justice, and health equity by linking with ZIP Code-level demographic and medical data sets.

—Country Trends in Major Air Pollutants, a framework of public-health-focused air quality indicators that measures more than 200 countries' trends in exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5), ozone (O3), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Developed by an interdisciplinary team from Yale University with NASA SEDAC.

—Urban and Land Backscatter Time Series. Based on satellite microwave backscatter, the data set traces trends in urban settlements from 1993 to 2020. Developed by a team led by Steve Frolking, University of New Hampshire.

—Twentieth Century Crop Statistics, a crop yield data set spanning the period 1900‒2017 provides national and subnational data on production, yield, and harvested area of maize and wheat for many of the world’s major bread baskets. Developed by W. Anderson and others.

—Water Security Monthly Grids. Monthly surpluses and deficits of freshwater, computed on a 0.25 degree grid for 1948‒2014. Developed with ISciences.

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.

Tuholske et al., PNAS, 2021 Annual municipality-level increases in the rate of urban population exposure to extreme heat, 1983–2016.

Rising air temperatures associated with climate change are a threat to cities throughout the world, but especially to the urban poor. The poor generally have fewer adaptive resources and less protective shelter; they have greater health vulnerability to extreme heat, and lower ability to evacuate. These conditions can be exacerbated by the urban heat island effect, where closely spaced structures with lots of pavement and limited green space, common to poorer neighborhoods worldwide, retain heat more readily and for a longer duration. Better understanding of patterns of local exposure to extreme heat is critically needed to design adaptive measures and improve health outcomes. However, until now, global, fine-resolution data on the intersection of extreme heat and population distribution in urban settings have been limited.

A new study published in the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), “Global Urban Population Exposure to Extreme Heat,” is the first to combine temperature, relative humidity, and population data to provide a more detailed and comprehensive view of how extreme heat exposure is likely to impact many more people in cities around the world in the coming decades. Lead author is Earth Institute Fellow Cascade Tuholske, based at CIESIN, with co-authors Kelly Caylor, Chris Funk, Andrew Verdin, Stuart Sweeney, Kathryn Grace, Pete Peterson, and Tom Evans. The team used new, fine-resolution temperature, relative humidity, and population data to assess urban extreme heat exposure in more than thirteen thousand cities, from 1983 to 2016. Using a daily maximum wet bulb globe temperature threshold of 30°C (86°F)—which accounts for a combined impact of both temperature and humidity on human health and wellbeing—global exposure was seen to increase nearly 200% from 1983 to 2016. Total urban warming elevated the annual increase in exposure by approximately 50% compared to urban population growth alone. Exposure increased for nearly half of urban settlements worldwide, which in 2016 comprised 1.7 billion people.

The authors also found that how total urban warming and population growth drove the trajectory of exposures was not evenly distributed, thus reinforcing the importance of crafting adaptation measures that address local needs. Their findings further suggest that previous research has underestimated extreme heat exposure, underscoring the necessity for improved data to support the development of targeted adaptions such as early warning systems to reduce harmful effects, especially on the urban poor. Visualize the Data/Associated Press  

CIESIN through its NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) has released two new data sets, one characterizing historical air quality over the period 1998–2016, and the second projecting urban land extent into the future through 2100 under different shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). The first data set, “Annual PM2.5 Concentrations for Countries and Urban Areas, 1998–2016,” provides annual mean estimates of levels of particulate matter (particles with diameters of 2.5 microns or less) in the atmosphere, derived from observations from satellite-based sensors, for countries and urban areas. The national averages are population-weighted. This data set is based on a gridded data set developed by van Donkelaar et al., also available from SEDAC.

The data set “Global One-Eighth Degree Urban Land Extent Projection and Base Year Grids by SSP Scenarios, 2000–2100” was developed by Jing Gao of the University of Delaware and Brian O’Neill, now director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland. The data set characterizes global, spatially explicit urban land scenarios consistent with the SSPs, projected from the base year 2000 to the year 2100 at ten-year intervals, with a spatial resolution of one-eighth degree (7.5 arc-minutes). Such projections are key inputs for analyses of land use, energy use, and emissions and assessments of climate change vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation.

A new article in Frontiers in Climate, “Perspectives on Citizen Science Data Quality,” offers a data lifecycle approach for improving data quality. Senior digital archivist Robert Downs is lead author, with co-authors Hampapuram Ramapriyan, Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI); Ge Peng, University of Alabama Huntsville; and Yaxing Wei, of the ORNL DAAC.

CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo and associate director for Science Applications Alex de de Sherbinin are among co-authors of the article, “Food Security among Dryland Pastoralists and Agropastoralists: The Climate, Land-use Change, and Population Dynamics Nexus,” appearing in The Anthropocene Review. Lead author is Illan Stavi, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.  Adamo is also one of the guest editors of the Special Issue of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), “Bridging Science and Policy through Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Global Change Research in the Americas,” in the journal Environmental Development.

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN has released several new data sets related to hazards, infant mortality, and future socioeconomic scenarios. The Geocoded Disasters (GDIS) Dataset is a geocoded extension of a selection of natural disasters from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED) Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). The data set includes nearly 40,000 locations for almost 10,000 disasters worldwide for the 58-year period spanning 1960–2018. It encompasses all EM-DAT-recorded floods, storms, earthquakes, landslides, droughts, volcanic activity and extreme temperatures, some at administrative level 3 (district/commune/village) but most at 1 (typically state/province/region). GDIS facilitates geospatial analysis of past hazard events.

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) Literature Database consists of biographic information, abstracts, and analysis of 1,360 articles published 2014–2019 that make substantial use of the SSPs. The database was developed by Carole Green et al. as the basis for a recent article in Nature Climate Change that analyzes use of the Climate Change Scenario Framework and associated scenario data sets in diverse application areas and in assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The International Committee on New Integrated Climate Change Assessment Scenarios (ICONICS) is planning to extend the literature database. SEDAC User Working Group member Brian O'Neill of the Joint Climate Change Research Institute and CIESIN director Robert Chen are members of ICONICS.

Global Subnational Infant Mortality Rates (IMR), Version 2.01, provides more recent and higher-resolution infant mortality data, including estimates of births and infant deaths. The estimates are for 234 countries and territories, 143 of which include subnational units and are benchmarked to the year 2015 (versus year 2000 for the first version). IMR data are drawn from national offices, Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), and other sources covering 2006–2014. The birth and infant death data can be aggregated or disaggregated to calculate IMRs at different scales or resolutions. Boundary inputs are derived primarily from the Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4) data collection. National and subnational data are mapped at a spatial resolution of 30 arc-seconds (~1 km at the equator), facilitating integration with demographic, environmental, and other spatial data. Data set development was led by senior geographic information specialist Dara Mendeloff and research scientist Susana Adamo.

The data set, Georeferenced U.S. County-Level Population Projections, Total and by Sex, Race and Age, Based on the SSPs, 2020–2100, contains county-level population projection scenarios of total population, and by age, sex, and race in five-year intervals for all US counties 2020–2100. These data can serve as inputs for addressing questions involving sub-national demographic change in the United States in the near, middle- and long-term. 

Due to the ongoing pandemic, many international conferences have shifted to online, virtual platforms in 2020, opening up opportunities for CIESIN staff to interact remotely with new communities and showcase recent work and new resources. For example, associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin recently gave a remote keynote address, “Groundswell Model Results for South Asia,” November 25 at the International Conference on Building Resilient and Sustainable Societies, organized by Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. The address discussed ongoing work with the World Bank to model how climate impacts may induce migration out to 2050. He and research scientist Susana Adamo also participated in the virtual meeting of the Platform for Disaster Displacement’s Data and Knowledge Working Group November 24, where they gave the respective presentations, “Novel and Big Data Approaches to Identifying Disaster Displacement,” and “Migration, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Climate in Central America’s Northern Triangle.”

During the International CODATA FAIR Convergence Symposium 2020 held virtually November 27–December 4, CIESIN director Robert Chen presented in a panel session, “Synergies between Citizen Science Data and the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicators,” organized by Dilek Fraisl of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. Chen then led a breakout group within this session. Alex de Sherbinin also contributed to the session, “Citizen Science in Africa for the SDGs,” giving closing remarks. The Symposium was organized by the Committee on Data (CODATA) of the International Science Council and the GO FAIR initiative.

On December 1 Chen gave a short presentation, “Open Data Sharing Across the Disaster Lifecycle," in the community session, "A Call to Action for Resilience: Moving from Research to Practice,” held as part of the World Bank’s 2020 Understanding Risk Forum (UR2020) December 1–3. The session was organized by Charles Huyck of ImageCat, Inc. and Shanna McClain of NASA. Chen highlighted the importance of open data access and reuse throughout the disaster management lifecycle, not just in the immediate aftermath of an extreme event.

During August and September, CIESIN scientists contributed to numerous online meetings and Webinars focused on diverse issues related to citizen science data, data quality and stewardship, geospatial data development and applications, and climate migration modeling and data.

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs gave the presentation, “Improving Data Stewardship Based on the TRUST Principles for Digital Repositories,” at the #WeMissiPRES virtual meeting on 23 September. The annual International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPRES) was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was replaced by a virtual event consisting of three half-day sessions September 22–24. Downs′ presentation focused on the ongoing implementation of the TRUST Principles (transparency, responsibility, user focus, sustainability, and technology) at the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. Downs also presented, “NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC): Current Status, Road Map and Challenges,″ during a virtual meeting of the World Data System (WDS) Harvestable Metadata Services (HMetS) Working Group on September 9.

Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Science Applications, gave the talk, “Data for the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa: The role of citizen-generated data,” at a Technical Validation Workshop on September 16 for the project, Standardizing City-Level Data-Gathering for Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11 in Africa (SCiLeD). On 14 September, he also served as a panelist during the 2020 Global Shifts Colloquium, organized by the Perry World House at the University Pennsylvania, where he presented work on climate migration modeling and data sources. 

August 26–27 and September 4, CIESIN participated as an observer organization in the virtual Tenth Session of the United Nations Group of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM). CIESIN′s delegation was led by director Robert Chen. The UN-GGIM promotes international collaboration on geospatial  data and information and reports on all matters relating to geography, geospatial information, and related topics to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). CIESIN has been a non-governmental organization with special consultative status recognized by ECOSOC since 1995.

At the 2020 Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Summer Meeting Highlights Webinar on August 13, Robert Downs gave a lightning talk summarizing the ESIP Information Quality Cluster session, “Citizen Science and Data Quality.” The Webinar provided an overview of plenary and breakout sessions from the Summer Meeting, and is available for viewing on YouTube.

Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Science Applications, is guest editor of a special Issue of the journal Sustainability on climate risk and vulnerability mapping, with co-editor Stefan Kienberger of the University of Salzburg. He is also a co-author of one of the papers in the special issue, on using flood disaster data to validate components of social vulnerability to floods. The paper’s lead author is Earth Institute Fellow Beth Tellman.

The article, “Still in Need of Norms: The State of the Data in Citizen Science,″ has been published in the journal Citizen Science: Theory and Practice. Anne Bowser of the Wilson Center is lead author, and de Sherbinin is a co-author. The article is a major output of the CODATA-World Data System (WDS) Task Group on Citizen Science and the Validation, Curation, and Management of Crowdsourced Data, which de Sherbinin co-chaired in 2016-2018.

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs is a co-author of the report, “Laying the Groundwork for Developing International Community Guidelines to Effectively Share and Reuse Digital Data Quality Information—Case Statement, Workshop Summary Report, and Path Forward,” published in Open Science Foundation (OSF) Preprints. Ge Peng of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Information Quality Cluster is lead author. The report, which stems from a pre-workshop held in July 2020 prior to the ESIP Summer Meeting, describes the approach that will be taken to develop community guidelines for preparing and sharing data quality information.

The Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program managed by CIESIN has released the white paper, “Harmonizing Subnational Boundaries,” on GRID3 efforts to support the harmonization, production, and use of digitized legal/administrative units, operational units, and statistical areas. This work addresses three primary areas: improving and harmonizing operational units; fostering improved collaboration on boundary harmonization among disparate government bodies; and using boundaries harmonization to support census efforts. The paper focuses on case studies in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia.

Cascade Tuholske has joined CIESIN for a two-year appointment as an Earth Institute postdoctoral research scientist. Tuholske is a geographer specializing in the integration of global-scale human and environment geospatial data to examine the relationship between urbanization and climate change. At CIESIN, he has begun working with director Robert Chen and associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin to construct a globally extensive, longitudinal, and fine-scale synthesis of extreme heat events, urban population growth, and the urban heat island effect. His goal is to inform adaptation strategies that reduce the harmful and inequitable impacts of urban exposure to extreme heat. He will also contribute to another NASA-funded project on the use of gridded population and settlement datasets to assess progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Tuholske received his PhD in geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he focused on the nexus of climate change, urbanization, and food security in Africa under the guidance of Prof. Kelly Caylor.

The Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) held an online cyberseminar May 18–25 on analysis of the population-climate change-food security nexus. The cyberseminar was moderated by Raya Muttarak of the University of East Anglia and included statements by seven expert panelists from a range of disciplines. A webinar launching the cyberseminar May 18 was led by Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Science Applications. He and CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo are co-coordinators of PERN, which is a panel of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and a sustained partner of Future Earth. PERN is supported by the NASA Socioeonomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. A YouTube video of the webinar is available online, and background materials from the cyberseminar are posted on the PERN website.

CIESIN scientists have recently published A Living Manual for Climate Information for Adaptation Planning. This online manual is intended for those preparing National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) or specific adaptation interventions, offering guidance in using climate information in the context of adaptation planning. The material was developed as part of a coastal adaptation project in West Africa, the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). CIESIN has been providing technical assistance to WA BiCC on coastal climate resilience, as part of a team led by Tetra Tech ARD. The Web-based resource is termed a “living manual” since the contents have been updated based on the feedback of participants in a series of country workshops held in the West Africa region. CIESIN associate research scientist Sylwia Trzaska, senior research associate Emilie Schnarr, and associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin are co-authors.

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs is one of the co-authors of a new paper, “The TRUST Principles for Digital Repositories,″ appearing in the Nature journal Scientific Data. Dawei Lin of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the lead author. The open access paper discusses a set of guiding principles to represent digital repository trustworthiness (transparency, responsibility, user focus, sustainability and technology), developed by stakeholder organizations representing diverse segments of the digital repository community.

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) managed by CIESIN has released several new datasets valuable in assessing future global energy development and land use and in characterizing potential long-term future population distribution in the context of climate change.

One dataset, Global One-Eighth Degree Population Base Year and Projection Grids Based on the SSPs, was developed by Bryan Jones of the City University of New York and Brian O’Neill of the University of Denver. The dataset consists of global urban, rural, and total population data for the base year 2000, and population projections at ten-year intervals for 2010-2100 at a resolution of one-eighth degree (7.5 arc-minutes). These are consistent both quantitatively and qualitatively with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) that were developed in support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. A second dataset, Global 1-km Downscaled Population Base Year and Projection Grids Based on the SSPs, provides a downscaled version of the first dataset, at 1-km resolution (about 30 arc-seconds). This dataset was developed by Jing Gao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Spatial demographic scenario data are key inputs for the analysis of future land use, energy use, and emission patterns together with potential future climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation.

A third dataset, Global Development Potential Indices (DPI), was developed by James Oakleaf of The Nature Conservancy, and colleagues. This dataset ranks global land suitability in the sectors of renewable energy, fossil fuels, mining, and agriculture, to aid in setting priorities for development and conservation efforts. Each sector-based DPI is a 1-km spatially-explicit, global land suitability map that has been validated using locations of current and planned development.

SEDAC is one of NASA′s Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) in the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System. SEDAC seeks to improve access to and use of key socioeconomic and interdisciplinary data that are or can be integrated with remote sensing data. SEDAC datasets have been cited in more than 5,000 different scientific publications during the past 20 years.

Associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin is a co-author of the open access article, “A Systematic Review of Coastal Vulnerability Mapping,” appearing in the journal Sustainability. The paper, by Anamaria Bukvic of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Guillaume Rohat of the University of Geneva, Alex Apotsos of Williams College, and de Sherbinin, evaluates the state of coastal vulnerability assessment mapping efforts and recommends improvements in methodological rigor, policy relevance, and alignment with other vulnerability assessment paradigms. The paper stems from previous work supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation. The paper is dedicated to the memory of second author Rohat, who passed away unexpectedly in October 2019.

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs is also co-author of the open access paper, “Risk Assessment for Scientific Data,” published in the CODATA Data Science Journal. Authors of the paper are Matthew Mayernik of the National Center for Atmospheric Research; Kelsey Breseman of the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI); Downs; Ruth Duerr of the Ronan Institute for Independent Scholarship; Alexis Garretson of George Mason University; Chung-Yi (Sophie) Hou of the Ronin Institute; EDGI; and the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Data Stewardship Committee. The paper presents an analysis of data risk factors that scientific data collections may face, together with a data risk assessment matrix to support risk assessment and mitigation efforts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently established a new Task Group on Data Support for Climate Change Assessments (TG-Data) to provide guidance to the IPCC’s Data Distribution Centre (DDC) on curation, traceability, stability, availability, and transparency of data and scenarios related to the reports of the IPCC. CIESIN has operated the socioeconomic element of the IPCC DDC through its NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) for more than 15 years. CIESIN director Robert Chen serves as co-manager of the DDC, and he and information scientist Xiaoshi Xing have been appointed as ex officio members of TG-Data.

On November 6–8 Xing traveled to Montreal, Canada, to participate in the first face-to-face meeting of TG-Data. The meeting focused on the group′s new terms of reference established by the IPCC and on the evolving data needs and issues associated with the sixth IPCC assessment now under way. The meeting also marked the transition from the previous Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis (TGICA), which was represented at the meeting by former co-chair, Timothy Carter of the Finnish Environment Institute.

CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo, right, participated in a panel discussion, “Ending Poverty through Multilateral Cooperation: Global Actions and Local Impacts,” October 15 at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in New York City. Daniel Naujoks is to her left; Luis Felipe López-Calva is to the far left.

CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo attended the conference, “Demographic Responses to Changes in the Natural Environment,” organized by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Demography & Ecology/Applied Population Laboratory October 24–25 in Madison, Wisconsin. She presented a poster highlighting the report, Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Migration, on the influence of longer-term climate impacts on internal migration. The report was produced by World Bank staff and a team of researchers at CIESIN, the City University of New York Institute for Demographic Research, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Earlier in the month Adamo participated in the panel discussion, “Ending Poverty through Multilateral Cooperation: Global Actions and Local Impacts,” at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York City October 15. Adamo described SEDAC’s poverty mapping collection, highlighting the recently updated Global Subnational Infant Mortality Rates v2 data set. She also discussed the importance of geospatial data for meeting and monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

CIESIN has successfully teamed with scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and with external partners on several new project awards and initiatives. Associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin is one of the co-investigators on a new four-year “convergence“ research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), related to climate change, food security and migration. The principal investigator of the grant is Lamont Research Professor Richard Seager, and other participants include Wolfram Schlenker of Columbia′s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and Michael Puma, director of the Earth Institute's Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR).

Associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman is the lead of a sub-award to ImageCat, Inc. on a NASA-funded disasters project on critical infrastructure data. CIESIN has had numerous collaborations with ImageCat on hazard data research and development in the past, and ImageCat is active in several CIESIN-led initiatives such as the POPGRID Data Collaborative and its NASA-supported Human Planet project.

Senior systems analyst/GIS developer Kytt MacManus has been awarded a project from the World Resources Institute, in which he is contributing to the development of new sea-level rise estimates to a new report by the Coalition for Urban Transition on addressing urban climate change issues. MacManus is also the principal investigator of a new “flexible contract” with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) that allows for small non-competitive awards on energy and climate activities.