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A new report from the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) provides guidance on the use of gridded population datasets from the POPGRID Data Collaborative. The report, Leaving No One Off the Map: A Guide for Gridded Population Data for Sustainable Development, reviews population data products from POPGRID members, including CIESIN, Esri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the WorldPop Project, among others. The report was written by Hayden Dahmm and Maryam Rabiee, with input from Jessica Espey, all of SDSN TReNDS. CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo, associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin, and CIESIN director Robert Chen also contributed to the report, along with other POPGRID participants and CIESIN staff members. POPGRID was launched in 2017 through an Earth Institute seed grant led by Chen and is supported in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.

On May 18 a live virtual debate hosted and moderated by SciDev.net and SDSN TReNDS featured panelist Alex de Sherbinin; Jessica Espey, TReNDS director; Andrea Gaughan of the University of Louisville and contributor to the WorldPop Project; and Idris Jega, assistant director with the Strategic Space Applications Department at Nigeria‘s National Space Research and Development Agency. Jega is also a member of the Nigeria secretariat for the GRID3 program managed by CIESIN. The panel discussed the importance of gridded population data and their utility in helping to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in 2015 by the United Nations.

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.

CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert Downs participated in the 15th Plenary of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), which was held virtually from March 18 to April 10 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Downs gave the presentation, “Repository Implementation Approaches: Choices and Decisions,” co-authored with Kerstin Lehnert of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) and others, in a March 31 session he led in his capacity as a co-chair of the RDA Repository Platforms for Research Data Interest Group. Downs also served as a co-chair of the RDA Data Versioning Working Group, which concluded its activities during the session, “Data Versioning WG: Final Report and Next Steps,″ held March 26. RDA is a grassroots community of data scientists, users, and producers with more than 10,000 members from over 140 countries. The 15th RDA Plenary was originally scheduled to be held March 18–20 in Melbourne, Australia.

A new mapping tool shows the density of population in relationship to reported coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases at national and sub-national levels, and permits users to obtain custom estimates of the number of people by age and sex living in an area of interest, including areas not currently reporting large numbers of cases.

Developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), the SEDAC Global COVID-19 Viewer: Population Estimates by Age Group and Sex lets users quickly access relevant population information without having to download and analyze large amounts of spatial population data. The Viewer’s unique capability is that it allows users to obtain population estimates for specific age and sex categories for any area, such as a metropolitan region that cuts across multiple jurisdictions or countries. The Viewer displays age and sex structure charts and pyramids in response to a user-drawn circle or polygon. Data on COVID-19 cases from the Johns Hopkins University are updated multiple times per day.

The SEDAC Global COVID-19 Viewer is meant for researchers, educators, and policymakers who are interested in visualizing key population characteristics such as high concentrations of elderly individuals in urban or rural areas that are, or may become, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Viewer may be especially helpful for regional analyses or for countries with limited access to spatial population data. The underlying population data are from SEDAC’s Gridded Population of the World (GPW) Basic Demographic Characteristics, v4.11, for the year 2010, with estimates to 2020. The COVID-19 data are from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center. SEDAC is one of the NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) and is operated by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

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.

Due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, all CIESIN staff are working remotely until further notice. All of our Web sites and online services remain fully operational. CIESIN and SEDAC User Services staff are working regular hours, Monday through Friday, 9 am–5 pm US Eastern Daylight Time, except on major US holidays. For the quickest response to questions, problems, or requests for assistance, please contact us via the SEDAC Help Desk (https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/help) or send an email to ciesin.info@ciesin.columbia.edu. Please note that access to Columbia University′s campuses is restricted to essential personnel, and that domestic and international travel for business purposes is currently prohibited.

CIESIN director Robert Chen participated in a March 3 briefing for media representatives organized by the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Solution Network (SDSN), held in conjunction with the 51^st Session of the UN Statistical Commission in New York City. During the briefing, which included journalists from Springer Nature, Devex, Inter Press Service, and Bloomberg’s QuickTake, Chen discussed the accessibility and use of gridded population data for sustainable development applications. He subsequently attended a UN Statistical Commission side event, “The Data for Now Initiative,” at UN Headquarters, and was interviewed by the UN News Centre. His interview, released March 6, focused on the use of satellite imagery and gridded population data to support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including applications such as monitoring of the impacts of epidemics.

Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN's associate director for Science Applications, has been promoted to senior research scientist. The promotion recognizes de Sherbinin’s significant contributions to research on population-environment interactions, his global leadership in a range of scientific, policy, and data initiatives, and his central role in CIESIN′s continuing success. Senior research scientists are officers of research at Columbia, whose qualifications and contributions to their fields of research are equivalent to those of a full professor. The promotion comes after a thorough review by Earth Institute faculty and Columbia University’s Office of the Provost.

Alex de Sherbinin originally joined CIESIN in October 1999 as a senior staff associate and became associate director of CIESIN′s Science Applications Division in January 2015. Since 2006, he has served as deputy manager of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. He has been a lecturer in the Sustainability Science Program in the School of Professional Studies since fall 2018. In 2015, he was appointed to the Scientific Committee of the International Science Council (ISC) World Data System, became vice chair in 2018, and was elected as chair in January 2020. He coordinates the Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) under the auspices of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and Future Earth. He has also served on a range of task groups and advisory committees on diverse topics, including citizen science data, the value of Earth Observations, population displacement, and conservation. He has published widely in leading journals such as Science, Scientific American, WIRES Climate Change, Climatic Change, The Geographical Journal, and Global Environmental Change, and co-authored high-impact policy-focused reports such as the 2018 World Bank report, Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration.

He holds a PhD in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation from the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) at the University of Twente in The Netherlands. He also holds a MA in geography from the University of Syracuse and a BA in geography from Dartmouth College. Prior to joining CIESIN, he worked for the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in Switzerland and the Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC, and served in the Peace Corps in Mauritania in 1984–1986.

Robert Chen gives a NASA Hyperwall talk at the AAAS annual meeting in Seattle, Washington, on February 15, 2020.

Scientists, students, journalists, and others from around the world met February 13–16 in Seattle, Washington, for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), focusing on the theme, “Envisioning Tomorrow's Earth.″ The meeting addressed a broad range of topics about Earth′s future, including tracks dealing with biomedical and health futures, digital futures, future Earth systems and climate, and urban futures. As part of a session, “Artificial Intelligence and Big Earth Data to Support Urban Sustainability,″ CIESIN director Robert Chen gave a presentation on harmonized global gridded population data, highlighting how machine learning approaches applied to diverse new sources of remote sensing data are helping to transform our ability to map human settlements and urban development around the world. The session was moderated by Prof. Kristie Ebi of the University of Washington and also included presentations by Daniele Ehrlich of the European Commission′s Joint Research Centre and Io Blair-Freese of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Chen also gave a talk, “Our Human Planet: Mapping Population and Infrastructure Today and Tomorrow,″ at NASA′s “Viewing the Earth from Space” Hyperwall, in the meeting′s exhibit hall. Highlights of the AAAS meeting included a plenary address by AAAS president Steven Chu, a Nobel Laureate and former U.S. Secretary of Energy, and by Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The mission of the AAAS is to advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people.

Seven scholars from diverse disciplines have joined the User Working Group (UWG) of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. The UWG provides strategic guidance to SEDAC on user needs and priorities for interdisciplinary data and services that support research and applications on human-environment interactions. The new members are: Sara Curran, director of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington; Keith Garrett, senior geographer with the Geospatial Operational Support Team at the World Bank; Laura Kurgan, director of the Center for Spatial Research (CSR) at Columbia University; Stefan Leyk, associate professor of geography at the University of Colorado; WenWen Li, head of the CyberInfrastructure and Computation Intelligence Lab at Arizona State University; Julie Sweetkind-Singer, interim assistant university librarian for Science and Engineering Resources (SERG) at the Stanford University Libraries; and Danielle Wood, lead of the Space Enabled Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. The new members are expected to serve for four years. The UWG is chaired by Barbara Ryan, former executive director of the Group on Earth Observations, and currently includes ten other members from the public and private sectors. Nancy Searby of NASA′s Applied Sciences Program recently became SEDAC′s program scientist.

The POPGRID Data Collaborative, an initiative launched by CIESIN in 2017 to improve the quality, access, and use of global-scale spatial data on human population, settlements, and infrastructure, has recently updated its Web site and announced an international Webinar to be held February 4 in collaboration with Geospatial World.

The POPGRID Web site helps users learn about the many different gridded population data sets now available, providing detailed background information and documentation, and direct links to the data and data sources. In addition, the POPGRID Viewer lets users easily compare different data products for their specific regions of interest. The updated site now includes links to recent publications and recorded Webinars about gridded population data, together with updated information from the data providers. POPGRID is collaboratively managed by CIESIN, the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, and is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and NASA. More than 20 different groups from both the public and private sectors are active in the POPGRID Data Collaborative. The POPGRID Viewer was developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.

On February 4, CIESIN director Robert Chen and Maryam Rabiee of TReNDS presented the Webinar, “Leaving No One Off the Map: Gridded Population Data for Decision Making,″ in coordination with Geospatial World. It attracted 150 participants from around the world. The Webinar focused on how gridded population data can help decision makers and other applied users improve efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the international community in 2015, and in particular to help reach those who might otherwise be left behind. Recent advances in mapping make it possible to better determine the location and characteristics of human settlements and households, allowing for more effective and efficient assistance, e.g., for vaccination campaigns, development assistance, and humanitarian relief. However, the proliferation of different data sets utilizing different methods and sources may confuse users about which data sets are the most appropriate to use in different situations. The Webinar discussed ongoing efforts by the POPGRID Data Collaborative to address this issue, and ways in which the geospatial community can both benefit from, and participate in, POPGRID activities. A recording is available here.

Carolynne Hultquist has joined CIESIN’s Science Applications division as a postdoctoral research scientist beginning January. Hultquist specializes in the fusion and validation of spatial data sources to better understand complex environments, especially during disasters. Her current research focuses on developing computational methods to assess flood risk. She is working collaboratively with Alex de Sherbinin, associate director of the division; Marco Tedesco of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO); and Andrew Kruczkiewicz of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). Hultquist has a PhD from the Pennsylvania State University in geography and social data analytics, and previously worked as a postdoctoral scientist with Prof. Guido Cervone at the GeoInformatics and Earth Observation Lab. Cervone is a member of the User Working Group (UWG) of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.

CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert Downs traveled to Bethesda, Maryland, January 7–9 for the winter meeting of the Earth Science Information Partners, a nonprofit, volunteer, and community-driven organization that advances the use of earth science data. The ESIP theme for 2020 is “Putting Data to Work,” focusing on the importance of building public-private partnerships to increase resilience and enhance the socioeconomic value of data. During a session organized by the ESIP Disaster Cluster, Downs presented “Global and Local Population Data for Community Lifeline Decision Making,” co-authored with CIESIN director Robert Chen, who participated remotely. Downs also presented the poster, “Meeting Evolving Practices for Sharing and Managing Earth Science Data.” The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN is a Type 2 member of ESIP, which was established in 1998. Other partners include federal agencies and data centers, government research laboratories, research universities, education resource providers, technology developers, and various nonprofit and commercial enterprises.

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN has released two new data sets, one focused on a new approach for assessing urban extent in the continental U.S. and a second that estimates the potential exposure of major food crops around the world to selected chemicals used in pesticides.

Urban Extents from VIIRS and MODIS for the Continental U.S. Using Machine Learning Methods is a highly accurate urban settlement layer at a spatial resolution of 500 meters that is based in part on nighttime lights data from NASA’s Black Marble project. Machine learning methods were used to provide a more consistent, quantitative measure of urban extent, drawing on observations collected at high temporal frequency by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) remote sensing instruments. The data set was developed by former CIESIN scientist Xue Liu, now at Harvard University′s Center for Geographic Analysis, together with SEDAC deputy manager Alex de Sherbinin and former staff member Yanni Zhan. The derivation of the data set is described in a recent open access article by Liu et al. in the journal Remote Sensing.

The Global Pesticide Grids (PEST-CHEMGRIDS) data set was developed by Federico Maggi of the University of Sydney and colleagues, to assess human and ecosystem exposure to potential and recognized toxic chemicals, for the purposes of environmental modelling and assessment of agricultural chemical contamination and risk. PEST-CHEMGRIDS includes comprehensive data on the 20 most-used pesticide active ingredients, on six dominant crops and four aggregated crop classes, at 5 arc-minute resolution (about 10 kilometers at the equator), estimated for the year 2015 and projected to 2020 and 2025. The data set includes 200 data quality maps for each active ingredient on each crop. The data set is described in detail in a recent open access paper by Maggi et al. published in the journal Scientific Data. 

These data are distributed as part of SEDAC′s mission to archive and disseminate key socioeconomic and related environmental data sets that either utilize or complement satellite-based remote sensing data, in support of scientific research, applications, and education. Data selection is overseen by SEDAC′s User Working Group (UWG). Data set authors are invited to submit their data for possible SEDAC archiving and open dissemination; for the submission criteria and form, please see the SEDAC Data Submission page.

CIESIN scientists have recently contributed to a diverse set of publications dealing with climate change, population and human settlement data, and data science and management issues. Associate director for science applications Alex de Sherbinin is a contributing author to Chapter Two, “High Mountain Areas,” in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere, first released in September 2019. The report highlights both past and projected impacts of climate change on the world′s oceans, polar regions, and high mountain regions, including potential sea level rise. This was the third Special Report produced during the IPCC′s sixth assessment cycle, and like all IPCC reports underwent extensive international scientific peer review.

Research scientist Susana Adamo and de Sherbinin are co-authors of the article, “People and Pixels Revisited: the Current Data Landscape and Research Trends Blending Population and Environmental Data,” in the journal Population & Environment. Tracy Kugler of the University of Minnesota is the lead author. The article cites a range of remote sensing resources for social scientists from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). With lead author David J. Wrathall of Oregon State University, de Sherbinin is also co-author of the article, “Meeting the Looming Policy Challenge of Sea-level Change and Human Migration,” appearing in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Robert Downs, senior digital archivist, is a co-author of the article, “A Discussion of Value Metrics for Data Repositories in Earth and Environmental Sciences,” recently published in the Data Science Journal. The lead author is Cynthia Parr of the United States Department of Agriculture. Downs is also a co-author of the Earth Science Information Partners Report, “Understanding the Various Perspectives of Earth Science Observational Data Uncertainty,” by David Moroni of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and others. Downs is lead author of the technical note, “Reuse Readiness Assessment of Data Quality Software Products (ESDS-RFC-039),” co-authored with Hampapuram Ramapriyan of Science Systems and Applications, Inc. and Yang Wei of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The note provides recommendations that were adopted by NASA's Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Standards Office in September 2019.

The largest international Earth and space science conference in the world, the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting, brought more than 25,000 scientists and other experts to San Francisco December 9–13. CIESIN staff members organized or co-organized seven sessions; presented more than twelve invited, oral, e-lightning, and poster papers; and served as co-authors on at least nine other papers. CIESIN director Robert Chen convened three sessions on exposure and vulnerability assessment for hazard, coastal, climate, and health risks and served as co-chair of one of them. Associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin also co-chaired the poster session in this series. Senior digital archivist Robert Downs co-organized a session on improving use of the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable), as well as several sessions on the use of earth and space science data.

Also attending the conference were associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman, GIS developer Kytt MacManus, and Columbia College student Dorothee Cleophee Grant, a former summer intern. Yetman gave an oral presentation on population data models for settlement extents and a NASA Hyperwall talk, “Are You at Risk? Linking Hazard and Exposure Data for Research and Applications.” MacManus gave an oral presentation on new sources for the updated version of low-elevation coastal zone data, expected to be released in early 2020. He also presented a poster paper on a nighttime lights dataset recently released by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), to which Grant had contributed.

While at the conference, de Sherbinin gave invited talks and served as a panelist in three different sessions on open data digital repositories for developing countries, climate vulnerability mapping, and managed retreat due to climate change. Chen gave presentations on the FAIR principles and open data and on the use of Earth Observations to operationalize the fundamental geospatial data themes established by the United Nations. Downs gave an e-lightning talk on citing open data and presented a case study on data sharing and data management guidance developed by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Both Downs and Chen also served as judges on student papers.

CIESIN staff members presented two online webinars during the week of December 2, for which recordings are now available.

The webinar, “Gridded Population and Settlement Data for Human Dimensions Research—An Introduction to the POPGRID Data Collaborative,″ was held December 3 as part of NASA′s EarthData Webinar Series. The POPGRID Data Collaborative is a coalition of data providers, users, and other stakeholders that aims to improve the quality, accessibility, and utility of global-scale spatial data on human settlements, infrastructure, and population. The Webinar provides an introduction to the growing diversity of gridded data, including many that utilize new sources of remote sensing data, as well as an overview of gridding approaches. CIESIN associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin and GIS developer Kytt MacManus also demonstrated the SEDAC POPGRID Viewer, which enables users to easily compare different data products for their specific regions of interest. The Viewer was developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. The POPGRID Data Collaborative is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and is co-led by CIESIN, the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data.

On December 6, CIESIN director Robert Chen presented in a second Webinar, “Data Management Principles,″ part of the monthly NextGEOSS Webinar Series and co-organized by the Open Geospatial Consortium. He gave an overview of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) Data Sharing and Data Management Principles (DSDMPs), which have been developed by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). NextGEOSS is a centralized European Earth Observation data hub and platform, supported by the European Commission as a contribution to GEOSS. The Webinar also included a presentation by Sylvie Jourdain of METEO France on application of the GEOSS Data Management Principles to the rescue of historical climate data, and a discussion of the relationship between the GEOSS DSDMPs and the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) Principles. CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert Downs co-authored the presentations. Both Chen and Downs are members of the GEO Data Sharing and Data Management Working Group, which was recently formed at the GEO-XVI Plenary and Ministerial Summit in Canberra, Australia.

For the Expert Group Meeting on Population Data for the 21st Century: Advances in Data Collection Methodologies, held at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York City December 4–6, more than 80 population experts from government, academia, and industry from around the world convened. Associate director for geospatial applications Greg Yetman presented, “Combining Census and Satellite Data: The High-Resolution Settlement Layer,” and director Robert Chen served as discussant, in the plenary session, “Hybrid Census Innovations in Insecure Settings and Fragile Contexts.” Research scientist Susana Adamo also participated in the meeting. The workshop was organized by the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and UNFPA. The workshop was livestreamed, and a recording is being made available through the workshop Web site. CIESIN has had a long-standing collaboration with IUSSP, as the host of the Population-Environment Research Network (PERN), a scientific panel of IUSSP. CIESIN and UNFPA are also partners in the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) Program.

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs was among 28 experts in earth and space data science and education who travelled to West Virginia recently to participate in the workshop, “Network for Earth-space Research Education and Innovation with Data (NEREID),” sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The workshop, which was inspired by NSF’s Convergence Accelerator initiative, took place at the Green Bank Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, November 20–22. Downs gave a presentation, “Enabling Diverse Learners to Use Integrated Earth Science Data.” Participants jointly helped identify the current state of geosciences and space sciences data practice and education; discussed the design of tools and techniques to support scholarly discovery and democratization of data science tools for teachers and lifelong learners; and made recommendations relevant to academia, government, industry and policy regarding the design of more effective data science approaches integrating Earth and space data.

The Nigeria GEO Human Planet Workshop was held November 14–15 at the NAF Conference Centre and Suites in Abuja, Nigeria. The workshop was co-organized by CIESIN and the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), with support from NASA and the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program. More than 40 experts from NASRDA, agencies and organizations across Nigeria, CIESIN, and other partners participated in the workshop, which immediately followed the annual meeting of the Geoinformation Society of Nigeria (GEOSON). The SERVIR West Africa node was also represented. Workshop participants discussed needs and opportunities for bringing geospatial data, tools, and resources to bear on pressing sustainable development challenges, especially in relationship to the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). CIESIN director Robert Chen, associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman, senior research associate Emilie Schnarr, and data and program analyst Jolynn Schmidt actively participated in the workshop, leading sessions and giving several presentations and demonstrations. Charles Huyck of ImageCat, Inc., a partner in the NASA grant that supported the workshop, also gave a presentation on infrastructure data and applications. Workshop participants identified opportunities to advance the use of Earth Observations to support achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria, as well as a range of technical, institutional, and resource challenges. The workshop was conducted as a contribution to the Human Planet Initiative of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), which Chen co-leads.