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CIESIN scientists have recently published a number of articles and reports on diverse topics, including citizen science data, data versioning and policies, coastal adaptation, and population mapping. Associate director of Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin is lead author of the article, “The Critical Importance of Citizen Science Data,” published in Frontiers in Climate and co-authored with members of the CODATA-WDS Task Group on Citizen Science Data, including CIESIN postdoctoral research scientist Carolynne Hultquist. 

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs is co-author of two recent articles in the CODATA Data Science Journal. The lead author of the first paper, “A Review of Open Research Data Policies and Practices in China,″ is Lili Zhang, a research scientist at the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who was a visiting scholar at CIESIN 2017–18. The second paper, “Versioning Data Is About More than Revisions: A Conceptual Framework and Proposed Principles,” was part of a Special Collection on Research Data Alliance (RDA) Results and stems from work by the RDA Data Versioning Working Group. The paper proposes six foundational principles for version of datasets: Revision, Release, Granularity, Manifestation, Provenance, and Citation. 

CIESIN has contributed to a new report, Seizing the Urban Opportunity, the second in a series by the Coalition for Urban Transitions on how governments can transform urban frameworks to increase shared prosperity. The report features updated population estimates from the forthcoming NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) Urban Rural Population Estimates version 3 data set. Kytt MacManus, senior systems analyst/GIS developer, is leading the update in collaboration with former CIESIN research scientist Deborah Balk of Baruch College and others.

MacManus is also a co-author of a recent paper in the journal Remote Sensing, authored by Daniela Palacios-Lopez of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany. The paper examines the use of DLR’s 2019 World Settlement Footprint Impervious Surface Layer (WSF-Imp) for the dasymetric mapping of population in Africa.

A report led by CIESIN, published under contract with Tetra Tech for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) project, reviews best practices for coastal adaptation in developing countries. Authors are Sylwia Trzaska, CIESIN associate research scientist; Emily Boytinck, project coordinator; Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Science Applications; Sarah Smith, senior research staff assistant; and Anne-Laure White, research staff assistant.

CIESIN joins the broad earth science and informatics communities in mourning the sudden passing of Peter Fox, who was widely respected as a key scholar, thinker, and mentor across a wide range of interrelated fields. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Fox was Tetherless World Constellation Chair and director, Information Technology and Web Science Program, as well as professor of earth and environmental sciences, computer science, and cognitive science. He was a past president of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), which, together with the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Research Data Alliance (RDA), the Committee on Data (CODATA), and other organizations, characterized Fox as a “titan” in the Earth Science informatics community.

Fox interacted regularly with many CIESIN staff members in different organizations, including ESIP, AGU, RDA, CODATA, and the International Science Council (ISC) World Data System (WDS). CIESIN director Robert Chen served with him on the ISC Strategic Coordinating Committee on Information and Data from 2009 to 2011, which helped guide the modernization and reorganization of the WDS. Fox was an active and valued member of the User Working Group (UWG) of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, serving a four-year term from 2009 to 2013. He was a leading proponent of the value of interdisciplinary scientific data stewardship to advance science and societal benefits. Fox was especially known as a strong and supportive mentor for many different scholars and practitioners across a wide range of fields.

Fox′s colleagues and friends at CIESIN, together with former and current members of the SEDAC UWG, are deeply saddened by this untimely loss and will greatly miss his wisdom, warmth, and wit. We extend our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues around the world. 

On March 25, CIESIN senior systems analyst/GIS developer Kytt MacManus moderated a Webinar organized by the Global Forum for Geography and Statistics (GFGS), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), on the topics of defining urban areas and modelling urban area data. The first presentation was given by Lewis Dijkstra of the European Commission (EC) and former CIESIN research scientist Deborah Balk of Baruch College, and the second by Thomas Kemper and Marcello Schiavina of the EC Joint Research Centre. MacManus is a member of the GFGS steering committee.

The fourth Webinar in a series designed for a non-technical audience has been produced by the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) managed by CIESIN. The Webinar, “Principles and Applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS),” focuses on how GRID3 uses GIS tools and principles to inform its work, with an example from GRID3 activities with Ghana using GIS tools to support census modernization efforts there. Presenters include former CIESIN senior research staff assistant Anela Layugan; Frankline Echerue, technical specialist at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); and Alina Game, GIS analyst at the Flowminder Foundation.

On February 19, senior digital archivist Robert Downs co-authored the lightning talk, “Toward Improving Representation of Data Quality Information,” which was presented by David Moroni of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) during the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Winter Meeting Highlights Webinar.

Associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin gave welcoming remarks February 24 at session one of the Second Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Scientific Data Management Workshop. He then presented on the World Data System (WDS) of the International Science Council, for which he chairs the Scientific Committee. WDS convened the workshop in collaboration with the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), and the Research Data Alliance (RDA).

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. 

Two side events held in preparation for the United Nations Statistical Commission 52^nd Session included discussion of the use of georeferenced population data in supporting efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at global, national, and subnational levels. On February 16, CIESIN director Robert Chen served as a panelist in the virtual event, “Working to Improve Timeliness and Granularity of SDG data: Progress Made in the Data for Now Initiative.” Organized by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the side event drew more than 190 participants from around the world. Chen highlighted progress made by the POPGRID Data Collaborative to improve access to timely, internationally comparable data on human population, settlements, and infrastructure by National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and other users.

On February 25, Prof. Forrest Stevens of the University of Louisville participated in the side event, “The SDGs Geospatial Roadmap,″ organized by the UN Working Group on Geospatial Information (WGGI). The event included a panel on the launch of the Earth Observation Toolkit for Sustainable Cities, organized by UN-Habitat and the Earth Observations for the Sustainable Development Goals (EO4SDG) initiative of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Stevens discussed contributions of the GEO Human Planet Initiative (HPI) to the new toolkit, which features a range of data, tools, and services developed by several HPI participants, such as the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and a NASA-funded project led by CIESIN in collaboration with the University of Louisville and ImageCat, Inc.

Established in 1947, the United Nations Statistical Commission is the highest body of the global statistical system, bringing together the chief statisticians from member states from around the world. Its 52nd Session was held virtually March 1–5.

Five experts from academia, government, and the private sector have joined the User Working Group (UWG) of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) for four-year terms. The new members are Nita Bharti, assistant professor of biology at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics of Penn State University; Mariel Borowitz, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Lola Fatoyinbo, research physical scientist in the Biospheric Sciences Lab at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC); Charlie Frye, chief cartographer at Esri; and David Van Riper, director of spatial analysis for the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota. The UWG is chaired by Barbara Ryan, former executive director of the Group on Earth Observations who is now serving as executive director of the World Geospatial Industry Council. Ryan chaired a virtual briefing for the new members February 5, with participation by Nancy Searby, SEDAC program scientist from NASA Applied Sciences, and Francis Lindsay, SEDAC Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) engineer from NASA GSFC. Updates on SEDAC activities and plans were provided by SEDAC manager Robert Chen, deputy manager Alex de Sherbinin, and project scientist Susana Adamo. The UWG provides guidance to SEDAC and NASA on user needs and priorities related to the human dimensions data, and associated tools and services, developed and managed by SEDAC, one of 12 DAACs in NASA′s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

“Countryside, The Future,” an exhibit at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for innovative art and architecture in New York City, features a prominent wall-size display of interactive maps that visualize how humans have transformed the countryside−the surface of Earth not occupied by urban growth. Many of the maps are based on data from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, as well as other remote-sensing data sets from NASA and other sources. The installation was created by urban architect Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal, director of AMO, the think tank of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). Also contributing were students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design; the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Wageningen University, Netherlands; and the University of Nairobi. The exhibit originally opened in February 2020 for three weeks, but closed due to the pandemic along with the Museum, until its reopening in October 2020. The exhibit has been extended through February 15, 2021.

The 2021 winter meeting of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), held online January 26–29, addressed the theme, “leading innovation in earth science data frontiers.″ CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert Downs co-chaired the January 28 session, “Toward Improving Representation of Data Quality Information,” and gave the presentation, “International Collaboration on Data Quality” during the session. During the Research Showcase on January 27, he presented the poster, “Adopting the TRUST Principles for Digital Repositories with the GEOSS Data Management Principles and the GEOSS Data Sharing Principles.” Downs also presented the ESIP Martha Maiden Lifetime Achievement Award for Service to the Earth Science Information Community to Hampapuram Ramapriyan, research scientist at Science Systems and Applications, Inc., who has made significant contributions to data management and stewardship at NASA and in national and international networks over multiple decades. Robert Chen, CIESIN director and manager of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), also participated in the meeting, which included diverse sessions on such topics as managing model-related data, air quality data user needs, development of analysis-ready data, implementation of Google′s data search tool, and use of data during response to California wild fires. SEDAC has been a Type 1 ESIP partner since 1999.

New publications from CIESIN include an article authored by senior digital archivist Robert Downs and the latest newsletter in a series by the Geo-referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program. The paper by Downs, ″Improving Opportunities for New Value of Open Data: Assessing and Certifying Research Data Repositories,″ was published in the Data Science Journal.  It describes how meeting data repository certification standards, such as CoreTrustSeal, contributes to new value that can be attained for society through the use of open data products and services. The GRID3 newsletter features progress in the organization's partnership with Nigeria, including management of the data and portal and population data modelling to support the COVID-19 response there; use of GRID3 data to help the government of Liberia save more than one million dollars in its recent purchase of high-resolution satellite imagery; and in-country training to increase geospatial capacity in African countries.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has released the 2020 edition of the Atlas of the Human Planet, focused on open geoinformation for research, policy, and action, under the auspices of the Human Planet Initiative of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). This year′s Atlas features more than 30 applications of the georeferenced human settlement and population data in four thematic areas: disaster risk management, urbanization, development, and environment and sustainability. Two of the applications showcased were developed by CIESIN: the Global COVID-19 Viewer operated by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), in “Mapping the COVID-19 Pandemic and Potential Risk Factors,″ and a summary of an update to a 2007 data set available from SEDAC, in “New Estimates of Global Population and Land in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone Using GHSL-based Data Sets.″ The first showcase was prepared by CIESIN director Robert Chen, GIS programmer Kytt MacManus, and associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin. The second was authored by MacManus, former SEDAC project scientist Deborah Balk of Baruch College, staff associate Hasim Engin, UK demographer Gordon McGranahan, former research staff assistant Rya Inman, and intern Alexandra Hayes.

The JRC organized a virtual launch event January 21 that drew more than 90 participants. The event included 4 short presentations on selected applications, including the Global COVID-19 Viewer example, described by Chen. The Viewer, developed and enhanced in 2020, helps users visualize a range of data on COVID-19 cases and mortality in relationship to spatial data on demographic and environmental factors that may affect exposure and vulnerability, such as age structure, degree of urbanization, air quality, and elevation. Chen and Martino Pesaresi of the JRC are co-leaders of the GEO Human Planet Initiative.

CIESIN senior geographic information specialist Dara Mendeloff was an invited rapporteur for select sessions of the OGC Location Powers Urban Digital Twins virtual summit held January 12–14. The focus of the conference was how “digital twins” at the urban scale use location and geospatial technology to transform how cities are planned, built, and managed to better deliver services in order to create more livable, inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable urban environments. Mendeloff represented both OGC members CIESIN and the NYC Geographic Information System and Mapping Organization (GISMO), where she is a member of the Board of Directors. In consideration of the international audience of the virtual summit, the OGC aimed to make presentations available in both east and west time zones and to build on each other, so she also presented her summary report of the 1W session to sessions 1E and 2W. Her report will be included in a final document that summarizes discussion on the status of Digital Twins and recommends future technology innovations, best practices, and standards development. The OGC is the Open Geospatial Consortium, an international organization committed to improving access to geospatial and location information, including the development of free, publicly available geospatial standards that enable new technologies.

On January 21, Mendeloff reprised her role as an instructor for the Earth Institute (EI) Live K–12 science education video series, when she offered a session aimed at grades 9–12, “Climate Data—The Numbers Behind the Numbers.” The 45-minute video, available on the EI Live channel, explains the data science tools used in climate research by scientists to understand geographic data, perform spatial analysis, and visualize data while communicating a story. 

Associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin gave a talk December 18 on the intersection of climate change impacts and migration to the Uncommon Schools, a network of charter schools serving minority students in New York City. Earlier in the month, he also served on a panel, “In Crowding Climate Danger Zones, Seeking Paths to Managed Retreat,” held December 16 as part of the Sustain What? Webcast series. The panel, moderated by journalist Andrew Revkin, founding director of the Earth Institute's Initiative on Communication and Sustainability, also included colleagues Lisa Dale and Radley Horton, who with de Sherbinin are on the organizing committee for an upcoming 2021 conference on managed retreat.  

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs recently posted a blog entry for the World Data System (WDS) of the International Science Council (ISC) on data citation practices. The December 15 post summarizes an opinion piece published November 16 in EOS, with lead author Suresh Vannan and co-authors Walt Meier, Bruce Wilson, and Irina Gerasimov. The article argues that concerted efforts by the research community are needed to expand appropriate citation of data sets, in order to improve the provenance and reproducibility of research and thereby its credibility and value.

In another WDS blog post, released December 4, de Sherbinin discusses current data practices in citizen science, based on an article co-authored with lead author Anne Bowser of the Wilson Center that was recently published in the journal Citizen Science: Theory and Practice. Improving data management practices in citizen science is critical to ensuring that these efforts produce useful data for scientific research or policy applications. The article was an output of a joint Task Group on the Validation, Curation, and Management of Citizen Science and Crowdsourced Data established by the ISC Committee on Data (CODATA) and the WDS, which de Sherbinin co-chaired. He is also the current chair of the WDS Scientific Committee and a co-chair of a new CODATA-WDS Task Group, “Citizen Science for the SDGs.”

An online version of the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting brought together nearly 29,000 scientists and other experts for more than two weeks of online presentations, sessions, and exhibits December 1–17. CIESIN experts organized or co-chaired seven sessions and presented or co-authored twelve invited, oral, e-lightning, and poster papers, on a range of topics in multiple AGU tracks, including Global Change, Natural Hazards, Earth and Space Science Informatics, and Science and Society. Oral sessions included pre-recorded video talks of up to 15 minutes, combined with a one-hour live session with five-minute summaries and a moderated discussion. E-lightning sessions combined an online, interactive “iposter” with a one-hour live session with three-minute summaries and a discussion period. Posters consisted of an iposter made available for 24 hours within a designated visit period. This unique format enabled participation by scientists all over the world, albeit often at unusual hours of the day or night depending on time zones.

Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Science Applications, presented an e-lightning paper on the Global COVID-19 Viewer, a mapping tool for data related to the coronovirus pandemic developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Senior digital archivist Robert Downs gave two different e-lightning talks: “A Data Lifecycle Approach to Enabling Use by Capturing Data Provenance and Attribution” and “Advancing Open Data Sharing Across the Earth, Social, and Health Sciences for Pressing Societal Challenges.” CIESIN director Robert Chen presented the e-lightning paper, “Why People Matter: Better Data on Population and Infrastructure to Assess SDG Progress.”

Cascade Tuholske, an Earth Institute Postdoctoral Fellow hosted by CIESIN, gave an oral paper, “Global Urban Population Exposure to Extreme Heat,” and an e-lightning presentation, “A Comparison of Gridded Population Data Products in Disaster Response.” Another CIESIN postdoctoral research scientist, Carolynne Hultquist, gave an oral presentation, “Developing Flood Risk Maps for Multi-Level Humanitarian Decision Making.”

Many CIESIN staff members were also co-authors on numerous papers given by colleagues from the Earth Institute or external partners such as the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ), ImageCat Inc., ISciences LLC, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). Chen, de Sherbinin, and Downs also convened and/or co-chaired multiple sessions on topics such as environmental intelligence, remote sensing applications in disaster management, trustworthy digital repositories, and open data sharing. Although the AGU′s online format limited the extent of informal networking and scientific discussion normally possible with an in-person conference, it did seem to allow wider participation from those who might otherwise not be able to attend, and generated a valuable set of prerecorded presentations and online posters that can be made available to a wider audience.

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.

Professor Stefan Leyk of the University of Colorado organized and led a virtual workshop November 30, “Gridded Population Data for the Sustainable Development Goals,” for experts from Colombia's National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) and Paraguay's General Directorate of Statistics, Surveys, and Censuses (DGEEC). The workshop provided an overview of the development and sources of gridded population data, hands-on technical training in working with selected data, and a forum for obtaining feedback on user needs. CIESIN Director Robert Chen gave introductory remarks during the opening session, and in the final session research scientist Susana Adamo provided an update in Spanish on progress and plans for the fifth version of the Gridded Population of the World (GPW) data set. Associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman, and research staff assistant Juan Martinez also attended.

The workshop was organized by Leyk and Maryam Rabiee of the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), under the auspices of the POPGRID Data Collaborative. Funding for the workshop was provided by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. POPGRID is an initiative launched by CIESIN in 2017 to bring together both developers and users of global georeferenced population data in support of development applications. POPGRID activities and resources are supported in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Leyk is also a member of SEDAC′s User Working Group.

CIESIN experts helped to celebrate GIS Day as part of several events held virtually on November 18. For a “Lunch and Learn” Webinar organized by NASA and Esri, Greg Yetman, associate director for Geospatial Applications, gave a 10-minute talk on how geographic information systems (GIS) facilitates the integration of socioeconomic and biophysical data to support interdisciplinary research and applications. He noted CIESIN’s long history in developing gridded population data products, extending back more than 25 years when GIS software was still in its infancy.

Later in the day, CIESIN and the New York City (NYC) Geospatial Information System and Mapping Organization (GISMO) held the online event, “Discover the World Through GIS in NYC.” The event featured presentations by students and researchers from CIESIN and Columbia University, Lehman College of the City University of New York, and the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Nearly 80 people from around the world learned about efforts to map the movement of refugees and COVID-19; plan for disaster housing; evaluate bike paths in the Bronx; implement interactive mapping in the NYCHA; and prioritize tiger habitats in India’s wildlife corridors. The event was hosted by senior geographic information specialist Dara Mendeloff, in coordination with senior geographic information specialist Tricia Chai-Onn. Mendeloff is a member of the Board of Directors of GISMO, a volunteer organization founded in 1990.

CIESIN has recently released the preliminary 2020 version of the Natural Resource Protection and Child Health Indicators (NRPI and CHI) in support of the country selection process conducted by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The MCC bases its selection criteria for foreign assistance on a variety of quantitative governance, social, economic, and environmental indicators, including the NRPI and CHI. The USAID has also begun utilizing the CHI in 2020 to chart progress on the Journey to Self-Reliance, an initiative that fosters sustained self-reliance on the part of developing countries. The NRPI assesses whether a country is protecting at least 17% of all of its biomes (e.g., forests, grasslands, aquatic ecosystems, and tundra). The CHI incorporates three underlying indicators—Access to At Least Basic Sanitation, Access to At Least Basic Water, and Child Mortality, ages 1–4—and serves a useful proxy for key environmental conditions.

The 2020 version of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), developed by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and CIESIN, has also been released. The EPI ranks 180 countries in two major components, environmental health and ecosystem vitality, based on 32 indicators. Produced every two years since 2006, the EPI is archived and disseminated by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) managed by CIESIN. The 2020 release includes a report, data sets for download, and an extensive map gallery of nearly 100 maps visualizing changes in performance over more than two decades.

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs participated in the 16th Plenary meeting of the Research Data Alliance (RDA P16) held virtually November 9–12. The meeting, which was organized by CONARE Costa Rica, RDA United States, and Research Data Canada, had the theme, “Knowledge Ecology,” focusing on how open science can support the diversification, expansion, reuse, and constant creation of knowledge, as in healthy ecological systems. On November 9, Downs led the joint breakout session of the Repository Platforms for Research Data Interest Group (IG) and the Domain Repositories IG, “Approaches for Selecting Research Data Repository Platforms and Sharing Resources to Facilitate Open Science.″ During this session, he gave two presentations, “Selecting Research Data Repository Platforms for Open Science,” and “Opportunities for Sharing Resources among Research Data Repositories.” Downs also presented the poster, “Simultaneously Leveraging Principles to Improve Capabilities for Using Research Data,” as part of the P16 poster session. Recordings from RDA P16 are now available online to meeting registrants.

The RDA was established in 2013 as an international community of data experts and users. It now has more than 10,000 members from more than 145 countries.

A major milestone for CIESIN′s main program, the  NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), has been reached: 100,000 registered users since implementing the registration system back in February 2015, or about 17,000 per year. Note that this includes only the users registering to download data; the SEDAC Web site receives more than 50,000 visitors a month. SEDAC users constitute about 10% of the registered users in the wider NASA Earthdata Login (EDL) system, which includes 11 of the other sister data centers (DAACs) in the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), and various other elements and components.

Users who participated in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index survey gave SEDAC an overall positive evaluation again. The survey assesses user satisfaction with the data, tools, and support provided by the NASA EOSDIS data centers and services, of which SEDAC is the only one to focus on the integration of remote sensing and socioeconomic data.

CIESIN has developed a collaboration with the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Geospatial Sciences at Lehman College of the City University of New York to develop and enhance hazards data, working initially with five Lehman graduate and undergraduate students. Supervised by CIESIN alumnus Yuri Gorokhovich, associate professor in the Department, the students are Christopher Aime, Diana Calderón, Nira Rahman, and Raychell Velez from Lehman's Master′s program in Geographic Information Science; and Hadja Doumbouya, a senior majoring in environmental sciences. CIESIN associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman is assisting the students in using machine learning methods to develop improved data on the exposure and vulnerability of buildings and other infrastructure to hazards, extending recent work for the State of New York supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Carolynne Hultquist, CIESIN postdoctoral research scientist, and Andrew Kruczkiewicz, senior staff associate at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), are also working with the students to apply the data to flash flood hazard assessment.

The collaboration is supported by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) as part of SEDAC's efforts to achieve small business purchasing goals established by NASA, which include collaboration with Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Outputs of the collaboration will be made available via SEDAC after appropriate review. Based in the Bronx, Lehman is one of the only MSIs (or HBCU′s) in the US to offer a master of science degree in geographic information science.