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Most CIESIN and SEDAC Web sites and associated services will be unavailable on Wednesday, September 11, beginning at about 5 p.m. US Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (2100 UTC). The shutdown will also affect CIESIN-hosted sites such as the Population-Environment Research Network (PERN), the POPGRID Data Collaborative, AdaptMap, and the Jamaica Bay Water Quality Data Tool. The HazPop mobile apps for iOS and Android versions may also have reduced functionality, due to the lack of access to SEDAC′s open Web services such as the Population Estimation Service (PES). Externally hosted sites such as the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), the Data ANalytics and Tools for Ecosecurity (DANTE) resource, and the SEDAC map gallery on Flickr will not be affected.

We expect Web sites and services to be restored within about 4 hours, but no later than 8 a.m. EDT, Thursday, September 12.

The second Human Planet Forum will be held September 30–October 2, 2019, at the Columbia University Lamont campus in Palisades, New York, organized by the Human Planet Initiative of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Following on the first Forum, which was held in November 2017 at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, the second Forum will bring together a range of experts from around the world who are working to better understand and map human presence on Planet Earth. Key Forum topics include the global definition of cities and rural areas, mapping of secondary and tertiary administrative boundaries, advances in slum mapping, downscaled future scenarios of population and economic activity, validation and intercomparison strategies for human settlement and population data, and continued development of the Human Planet Atlases. The program will include a mix of keynote talks, panel discussions, lightning talks, working meetings, and interactive sessions. Advanced registration is required (see link below).

The GEO Human Planet Initiative was launched as part of the GEO Work Programme in 2017–2019 and is expected to continue as an element of the 2020–2022 Work Programme. The initiative is co-chaired by Martino Pesaresi of the European Commission′s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, and CIESIN director Robert Chen. GEO is a voluntary partnership of more than 100 national governments and in excess of 100 Participating Organizations. Contributing organizations to the second Forum include the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program; the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data; ITC/University of Twente; the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network; and the World Wide Human Geography Data (WWHGD) Working Group. Funding support is being provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the European Commission, and NASA.

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN has begun accepting submissions of scientific data related to human-environment interactions that may be of high utility to the human dimensions research and applications communities. In light of increased recognition of the importance of open access to research data by universities, scientific publishers, funding organizations, and other organizations, SEDAC seeks to increase the accessibility and utilization of important global- or regional-scale spatial data, especially those derived from or complementary to remote sensing data from NASA or other sources. SEDAC will also consider other types of data that meet its acquisition criteria. Priority topics of interest for data acquisition and dissemination include administrative boundaries and other reference layers, population dynamics, human settlements and infrastructure, land use/land cover change, economic development, environmental health, and policy-relevant environmental and sustainable development indicators.

Submission of candidate data sets is a two-step process. In the first step, SEDAC requests basic information on the data (e.g., nature of the data set and its primary purpose) that will help evaluate suitability for SEDAC archiving and dissemination. If the data appear appropriate, a copy of the data will be requested along with additional information for review by the SEDAC User Working Group (UWG). If feasible and appropriate, SEDAC will work with data authors and journal publishers to coordinate data release with publication of a peer-reviewed article. SEDAC will also consider valuable older data sets that may be at risk of loss if not properly archived, as well as national or sub-national data for key countries or regions, on a case-by-case basis.

All CIESIN and SEDAC Web sites, including PERN, POPGRID, the IPCC Data Distribution Center and others,  will be down for scheduled maintenance Monday, July 29, beginning around 5 p.m. US Eastern Daylight Time (2100 UTC). We expect the Web sites to be fully operational by 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 30.

CIESIN associate director for Information Technology Sri Vinay and senior digital archivist Robert Downs participated in several workshops and meetings in July, addressing different aspects of Earth science and geospatial data and software management. In early July, Downs traveled to Frascati, Italy, to participate in the workshop, “Advancing the Understanding and Measurement of the Societal Benefits of Earth Observations,” organized to advance the understanding and measurement of the societal benefits of Earth Observations. He served as rapporteur for the session, “Understanding the Context,” and presented briefings from that session during two roundtable sessions. The workshop was held July 1–3 at the European Space Agency (ESA) Centre for Earth Observation.

Later in the month, Vinay attended the workshop, “Conceptualizing a Geospatial Software Institute (GSI) Workshop 3: Strategic Plan and Governance of GSI,” held July 14–16 at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) and the Westin Hotel in Annapolis, Maryland. Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the workshop aimed to first brainstorm and then draft a strategic plan for a GSI. Vinay was one of the discussion leads for the session, “What Services Should GSI Provide to Enable Broad and Impactful Scientific Advances?” which focused on challenges, opportunities, and strategies for achieving the plan’s first and fifth goals—to combine geospatial data and software at scale for scientists to harness the geospatial data revolution, and to advance high-performance geospatial software while making synergistic contributions to data-intensive and high-performance computing. Vinay, together with CIESIN director Robert Chen and associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman, provided a position paper, "Geospatial Software Governance from an Applied Research Perspective," as an input to the workshop.

During the same week in Tacoma, Washington, Downs attended three different meetings: the DataONE Users Group and Council of Data Facilities meetings on July 16, and the 2019 ESIP Summer meeting, July 16–19. He presented the poster, “Data Lifecycle Opportunities for Improving the Usability of Earth Science Data,” at the DataONE meeting. At the ESIP meeting, he gave the paper, “Socioeconomic Data Citations and Impact,” during the session, “Current Approaches for Tracking and Exposing Research Object Usage Metric,” and also presented the poster, “Understanding the Impact of Global Earth Science Data," during the poster session.

CIESIN staff members display a graphic describing the goals of the GRID3 program, at the Sustainable World Showcase of the 2019 Esri User Conference. Left to right: geographic information specialist John Squires, senior geographic information specialist Linda Pistolesi, senior research assistant Anela Layugan, deputy director Marc Levy, geographic information specialist Olena Borkovska, and former intern Haokai Zhao. Not pictured, senior research assistant Matthew Heaton.

CIESIN staff joined more than 17,000 other geographic information system (GIS) experts at the annual Esri User Conference, held July 8–12 at the Convention Center in San Diego, California. The conference theme was “The Intelligent Nervous System,” emphasizing the fundamental role of GIS in supporting an organization’s capabilities. For the plenary, famed researchers and conservation activists Jane Goodall and E.O. Wilson spoke with Esri founder and CEO Jack Dangermond about the critical importance of preserving biodiversity and the work they are doing towards this goal. Deputy director Marc Levy, senior geographic information specialist Linda Pistolesi, and senior research assistants Matthew Heaton and Anela Layugan took part in the Sustainable World Showcase, highlighting the GRID3 program, which CIESIN coordinates. Geographic information specialists Olena Borkovska, John Squires, and Pistolesi presented a poster in the Map Gallery, describing the development of the Basic Demographic Characteristics data set of SEDAC′s Gridded Population of the World, version 4.11 (GPW4.11) data collection. Former GRID3 intern Haokai Zhao and colleagues from the Population and Development Branch of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) also participated in the conference.

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN has recently released three global data sets that utilize satellite-based remote sensing data to help characterize critical aspects of human-environment interactions: Trends in Global Freshwater Availability from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), v1 (2002 – 2016), Development Threat Index, v1 (2015), and Altimeter Corrected Elevations (ACE2), v2 (1994 – 2005).

The ability to measure trends in global freshwater availability has been made possible by NASA′s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). By measuring small changes in Earth′s gravity field, the GRACE mission was able to track key dynamics of the global water cycle at a spatial resolution of 0.5 degrees during the period from 2002 to 2016. Terrestrial water availability storage is the sum of groundwater, soil moisture, snow and ice, surface waters, and wet biomass, expressed as an equivalent height of water. The data are valuable in helping to evaluate and predict emerging threats to water and food security. Part of SEDAC's Satellite-Derived Environmental Indicators (SDEI) data collection, the data set was developed by researchers from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory and from National Taiwan University.

The Development Threat Index, v1 seeks to map terrestrial global, future development threats resulting from agricultural expansion, urban expansion, and energy development (conventional oil and gas, unconventional oil and gas, coal, mining, biofuels, solar, and wind). Individual threat layers draw on several different data sets derived in part from satellite remote sensing data, including the Global Grid of Probabilities of Urban Expansion to 2030, the Global Roads Open Access Data Set (gROADS), and the Global Reservoir and Dam (GRanD) data sets, all available through SEDAC. The Index has been produced on a 50 square kilometer grid by a team from The Nature Conservancy, the University of Minnesota, and the University of British Columbia. It has been added to SEDAC′s Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) data collection, but shares similar objectives with the Human Footprint data also distributed by SEDAC (e.g., Human Footprint, 2018 Release).

The ACE2 data set is based on a Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) derived primarily from multi-mission Satellite Radar Altimetry in combination with data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). By using data from an altimeter, an instrument that uses radar to measure height, researchers were able to better assess ground elevation in areas with high tree cover. This represents an improvement over the original SRTM data, which only measured the top of the canopy. ACE2 is intended for research and applications such as flood risk assessment, landslide modelling, urban planning, and sea level rise impact assessment. In light of ongoing efforts to improve GDEMs, SEDAC has decided to preserve this version for future analysis and intercomparison as part of a new Digital Elevation Data Collection (DEDC). The data set was developed by a team from the UK and the European Space Agency.

CIESIN bids farewell to Kira Topik, senior research staff assistant, who has moved to the West Coast to pursue other opportunities. Topik began at CIESIN in the summer of 2017 as an intern while pursuing her MA in Columbia University’s Climate and Society program. Previously, she earned a BA in international and intercultural studies, and Spanish, from Pitzer College. Topik supported the communications and coordination needs of the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program, helping to establish and operationalize relationships with various partners and stakeholders around the world.

Tiago Nascimento, a doctoral student hosted by CIESIN since June 2018, has completed his visit, returning to the Center for Development and Regional Planning (Cedeplar) at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil. While at CIESIN, Nascimento conducted research on the spatial mobility of the population in response to the incidence of droughts in Brazil’s Northeast. He has a bachelor’s degree in geography and a master’s degree in demography from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, also in Brazil. CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo served as his host supervisor.

Prof. Sophie Vanwambeke of the Department of Geography at the UCLouvain in Belgium is finishing her 9-month appointment as a visiting senior research scientist at the end of June. While at Columbia, she worked with Maria Diuk-Wasser of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) on the ecology and epidemiology of vector-borne diseases and with CIESIN scientists on spatial heterogeneity of population exposure to hazards. She gave an informal talk about her work June 18 at the Lamont campus.

CIESIN has also gained three interns for the summer. Mairead Milán has returned to CIESIN after working as an Earth Institute intern during the spring 2019 semester. She graduated in May with a BA in sustainable development from Columbia College. Milán is working with senior systems analyst/programmer Kytt MacManus, continuing her work on the fifth version of the Gridded Population of the World (GPW) to be developed and released by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Dorothee Grant is also working with MacManus, helping to integrate population data with night time lights data collected by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. Grant is a Columbia College undergraduate majoring in computer science. Sarah Smith, a graduate student in the Climate and Society program, is working with associate director for science applications Alex de Sherbinin on the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WABiCC) project, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development. She is putting together a manual for adaptation practitioners on incorporating climate information into management strategies. Smith has a BA from Lehigh University in anthropology, with a concentration in physical anthropology.

CIESIN scientists attended a diverse set of scientific meetings in North and South America in June to stay on top of ongoing developments and interact with partners and users. Research sientist Susana Adamo participated in the Science Advisory Committee (SAC) meeting of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and the Belmont Forum’s Scoping Workshop, “Pathways to the SDGs,” June 2–4 in Brasilia, Brazil. CIESIN is one of six Associate organizations of the IAI. June 3–5 in Washington DC, associate director for science applications Alex de Sherbinin participated as an observer in a joint meeting of the User Working Groups of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) and the Land Processes DAAC, which is based at the Earth Resources and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

On June 10, CIESIN director Robert Chen attended a Forum on Disaster Preparedness, Resilience, and Response organized by the Columbia World Projects at the Columbia University Manhattanville campus. He presented a concept for a multi-hazard disaster risk assessment building on a range of global-scale geospatial data sets on hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. Nearby in Princeton, New Jersey, information scientist Xiaoshi Xing participated June 11-13 in Tri-MIP-athlon 2, the second joint meeting of three different Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs) that are supporting phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP-6).

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs traveled to Denver, Colorado June 12-14 for the annual EarthCube meeting, which addressed the theme, “Science in Action.″ He presented a lightning talk and poster, “Data Lifecycle Actions to Improve the Usability of Earth Science Data for Heterogeneous User Communities.″ EarthCube is a community of geoscientists and geoinformatics researchers initiated and supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Harvard University′s Center for Geographical Analysis was the venue June 18 for a symposium, “Geographic Perspectives on Infectious Disease in Humans, Animals and Environment," organized by the World Wide Human Geography Data (WWHGD) working group. Susana Adamo participated in the symposium, which was broadcast live.

Six papers co-authored by CIESIN scientists have recently been released in a new book and in several different high impact journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science of the Total Environment, and Conservation Letters:

• Former CIESIN senior research associate Xue Liu is lead author of the paper, “Mapping Urban Extent at Large Spatial Scales Using Machine Learning Methods with VIIRS Nighttime Light and MODIS Daytime NDVI Data,” in the journal Remote Sensing; Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN associate director for science applications, and Yanni Zhan, senior research staff assistant, are co-authors.
• Alex de Sherbinin is co-author of the chapter, “The Impacts of Climate Change on Ecosystem Services and Resulting Losses and Damages to People and Society,” by Kees van der Geest et al. in the open access book, Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Concepts, Methods and Policy Options (edited by Reinhard Mechler et al. and published by Springer).
• Alex de Sherbinin is a co-author of the letter, “Mapping Global Human Dependence on Marine Ecosystems,” by  Elizabeth Selig et al. in the journal Conservation Letters.
• CIESIN director Robert Chen and information scientist Xiaoshi Xing are co-authors of the paper, “Data Distribution Centre Support for the IPCC Sixth Assessment,” by Martina Stockhause et al. in Data Science Journal, based on a presentation given at International Data Week in Gabarone, Botswana, in 2018.
• Research scientist Susana Adamo is co-author of “Reimagining the Potential of Earth Observations for Ecosystem Services Assessments,” a paper by Carlos Ramirez-Reyes et al. in Science of the Total Environment, based on a set of workshops held in 2018.
• Kevin Tschirhart, project coordinator for the GRID3 program, is a co-author of “Socioecologically Informed Use of Remote Sensing Data to Predict Rural Household Poverty,” by Gary Watmough et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The User Working Group (UWG) of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN met in Washington DC June 6–7. The meeting was chaired for the first time by Barbara Ryan, former executive director of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and winner of the 2018 William T. Pecora Individual Award given by the U.S. Geological Survey. Nine UWG members participated in person, including new members Ryan and Navin Ramankutty of the University of British Columbia. Brian O'Neill of the University of Denver participated remotely in a breakout session. UWG member Dave Jones of StormCenter Communications gave an informal lunch talk, “Creating a Unified Response During Disasters by Sharing Trusted Data Across Platforms in Real-Time.″ The UWG received updates on SEDAC strategic priorities related to global-scale human population and settlement data and support for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Potential new activities to archive and disseminate spatially explicit scenarios of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and to update low-elevation coastal zone (LECZ) data were reviewed in detail, together with plans for expanding training on the integration of remote sensing and socioeconomic data. A new process for third-party submissions of data was also discussed.

The UWG meets in person once per year, typically either at Columbia University in New York City or in Washington DC. More than 10 representatives from NASA headquarters and the Goddard Space Flight Center participated in this year's meeting, including Nancy Searby of the NASA Applied Sciences Program, who has recently been appointed as SEDAC's program scientist. Three other NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) also sent observers. CIESIN participants included director Robert Chen, who serves as SEDAC manager; associate director for science applications Alex de Sherbinin, who serves as SEDAC deputy manager; and research scientist Susana Adamo, who serves as lead SEDAC project scientist.

A new digital game for players of any age, created by the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) and Design I/O, uses theories of playful learning to encourage computational thinking and scientific inquiry. CIESIN was a partner in the project, supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), that sought to develop innovative ways to teach kids about ecological concepts using approaches drawn from the computer sciences.

The interactive game, The Pack, takes place in a futuristic world called Algos, where food and water are scarce. The challenge of the game is to restore ecosystem balance. The player marshalls different creatures to perform a variety of tasks—digging, moving, holding, grabbing, seeking, and bumping—in order to move water around the environment and find seeds. By arranging and repeating tasks in different order, the player can develop, test, and modify new algorithms to achieve specific objectives.

The Pack is an “open world,” meaning players can explore and choose their objectives more freely than in a linear game with directed goals. As players continue in the game, they encounter increasingly complex opportunities to develop and use their algorithmic thinking skills. For young players, the game seeks to develop a problem-solving mindset and to strengthen social and strategic-thinking skills.

The game leverages increased awareness in the education field that children learn best through play, especially in science. The NYSCI is a pioneer of “design-make-play,” an approach that is central to all of NYSCI's exhibits and activities at its museum location in Queens, New York. Based on the two concepts, awareness of the environment and computational thinking, The Pack is meant for both informal and formal settings in support of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing (STEM+C) education.

The Pack was inspired by the award-winning Connected Worlds installation, which came out of a previous NSF-funded collaboration between NYSCI, Design I/O, and CIESIN. This immersive fantastical virtual world lets visitors playfully and tactilely interact with and explore the interdependence of different habitats within a larger ecosystem. The JPB Foundation supported the final production and release of both Connected Worlds and The Pack.

The Pack is free and available for download for Mac OSX, Windows, and iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch). The game is intended for children 4 years old and up. It currently has a rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars in Apple's App Store.

“Earth Observations for Impact” was the theme this year of the annual Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Symposium 2019, held at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) headquarters in Geneva May 27–29. Robert Chen, CIESIN director, and Robert Downs, CIESIN senior digital archivist, participated in the Symposium, which brought together representatives from many different GEO member countries and participating organizations to plan the 2020–2022 GEO Work Programme. CIESIN is contributing to a number of GEO activities, including the Human Planet Initiative, which Chen co-chairs with Martino Pesaresi of the European Commission′s Joint Research Center, and Earth Observations for the Sustainable Development Goals (EO4SDG), which is co-chaired by NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Mexico′s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). During the Symposium, Chen and Downs helped lead discussions about the proposed GEO Knowledge Hub and participated in side meetings to plan coordination between the GEO Data Sharing Working Group and the GEO Data Management Principles subtask, as part of a new Foundational Task in the new Work Programme. They also had the opportunity to meet with Nancy Searby of the NASA Applied Sciences Program, who has begun serving as the NASA Program Scientist overseeing the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, and Betzy Hernandez Sandoval of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, who helps Searby oversee several Human Planet projects supported by NASA, including one led by Chen. 

While at the WMO, Chen and Downs arranged a meeting with Mxolisi Shongwe of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on May 27 to discuss CIESIN′s continued operation of the socioeconomic portion of the IPCC Data Distribution Center (DDC) and its participation in the new IPCC Task Group on Data Support for Climate Change Assessments (TG-Data). They also met with Maxx Dilley, director of the WMO Climate Prediction and Adaptation Branch and a former scientist with the Columbia University International Research Center on Climate and Society, on May 29, to discuss hazard data issues. Chen then stayed in Geneva the morning of May 30, in order to participate in a kick-off meeting of a new initiatve on poverty mapping, held in conjunction with the AI for Good Conference organized by the International Telecommunications Union.

Annapolis, Maryland, was the setting for a National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) workshop May 15–17, “Socio-environmental Systems Indicators for Climate Change Adaptation & Resilience in the US.” The goal of the workshop was to develop indicators of climate change that address both biophysical and social impacts, in support of adaptation and resilience decisions in the United States. Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN associate director for science applications, gave a presentation, “Geospatial Indicators of Global Change,” which featured descriptions of data products from the NASA Socieoeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. He also discussed climate change hotspots and best practices in vulnerability mapping and data visualization. SESYNC, which facilitates interdisciplinary collaborations to develop data-driven solutions to socio-environmental issues, is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and administered by the University of Maryland.  

On May 23, de Sherbinin presented work on climate change-induced migration in Africa at a side event, “Addressing Climate Change, Disasters and Environmental Degradation: Development Solutions for Displacement in Africa,” held at United Nations headquarters in New York City. The event was part of the Africa Dialogue Series 2019, which is focusing on the theme, “Towards Durable Solutions for Forcibly Displaced Persons in Africa.″

Participants in the University of Colorado Boulder conference, “Climate Change, Human Migration, and Health,” May 20–21, 2019. CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo is second from the right in the back row, and former CIESIN research scientist Deborah Balk is third from the right in the second row.

More than 25 experts on climate change, human migration, and health gathered at the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder May 20–21 for a mini-conference, “Climate Change, Human Migration and Health: Integrating Social and Environmental Data to Accelerate Innovative Science.″ Keynote speakers included former CIESIN research scientist Deborah Balk, who is now associate director of the City University of New York (CUNY) Institute for Demographic Research; and Jennifer Balch, assistant professor of geography, and Kris Karnauskus, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, both from CU-Boulder. Each spoke from a particular perspective: Balk, from that of population; Balch, Earth observation; and Karnauskus, climate. The conference was supported and organized by the CU Population Center, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), and CU-Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science, Grand Challenge and Earth Lab.

CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo was one of the invited participants and presented a poster, “An Open Community Platform for Environment and Security Research and Development.” The poster describes the project, Data ANalytics and Tools for Ecosecurity (DANTE), led by Isciences with CIESIN and CASE Consultants International and funded by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). DANTE is developing an open source software toolkit for systematic monitoring, forecasting, and analysis of environmental stressors and their impacts on security. Adamo also serves as lead project scientist for the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), a role previously held by Balk.

Susana Adamo PhD students and professors whose research focus is population dynamics return to New York City after a visit to CIESIN at the Lamont Campus, May 16, 2019. Part of the Leadership for Ecozoic (L4E) network, the group met with CIESIN staff to help gain a broad multidisciplinary understanding of global population issues.

Eleven doctoral students whose research focus is population dynamics visited CIESIN at the Lamont Campus the morning of May 16. The students from McGill University and the University of Vermont are part of the Leadership for Ecozoic (L4E) network, a global partnership that aims to help PhD students better understand global population issues. Leiwen Jiang, senior associate at the Population Council, organized a week-long trip to New York City together with Professors Peter Brown of McGill University, Jon Erikson of the University of Vermont, and Kate Greswold of the TOSA Foundation. At CIESIN the visitors met with research scientist Susana Adamo, who gave an overview of CIESIN’s extensive population-related work, including population data products and services available through the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. Associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman talked about CIESIN’s approach to population modelling and collaborative efforts with external partners such as Facebook's Connectivity Lab. Senior research associate Emilie Schnarr described the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program, for which CIESIN serves as coordinating partner, and the activities under way in five African countries. The L4E network advances its goals through joint courses, lectures, research projects, and service on doctoral committees, and is working towards establishing a global campus.

Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Science Applications, traveled to Beijing, China to participate in a meeting of the Scientific Committee of the International Science Council (ISC) World Data System (WDS), hosted May 9–10 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). At the meeting, de Sherbinin reported on the work of a joint task group of WDS and the ISC Committee on Data (CODATA), Citizen Science Data for the Sustainable Development Goals, which he co-chairs. He also highlighted efforts to develop an online training resource for developing country scholars on research data management. While in Beijing he met with former CIESIN scientist Liu Chuang and former visiting scholar Yuanyuan Yang, both with the CAS Institute for Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR). The WDS Scientific Committee is chaired by Sandy Harrison of the University of Reading in the United Kingdom; de Sherbinin is one of two vice chairs. The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), for which de Sherbinin serves as deputy manager, is a Regular Member of the WDS.

Several different meetings in late April addressed the role of scientific data in finding sustainable solutions to challenging global problems. More than 600 experts gathered in Bern, Switzerland, April 24–26 to examine the theme, “Transforming Land Systems for People and Nature,” at the fourth Open Science Meeting of the Global Land Programme. Greg Yetman, CIESIN associate director for Geospatial Applications, helped organize one of the meeting sessions, “Gridded Population and Settlement Data and Models for Integrative Analysis of Land Systems,” which highlighted the growing variety of population and settlement data sets and their potential use in land-related research and applications. He gave the presentation, “The High Resolution Settlement Layer: Improving Population Allocation Methods,” based on data developed with the Connectivity Lab at Facebook. Yetman was also a co-author on three other presentations in the session. The Global Land Programme is an interdisciplinary community of science and practice fostering the study of land systems and the co-design of solutions for global sustainability.

In Vienna, Austria, April 23–25, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) organized the 4th GEO Data Technology Workshop, hosted by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. The workshop explored how to best make available Earth observations-based knowledge for international policy frameworks, including the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Paris Climate Agreement. CIESIN director Robert Chen, in his capacity as co-chair of the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), gave a plenary talk, “United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: New Technologies for the Sustainable Development Goals.” He also participated in a panel on data ethics and governance on the final day of the workshop, giving the presentation, “GEO Data Sharing—Far Beyond FAIR!,″ which highlighted how the GEO community has supported open data sharing well beyond that promoted by the FAIR Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). GEO is an intergovernmental organizaiton with more than 100 Member Countries and over 125 Participating Organizations, working together to coordinate comprehensive and sustained Earth observations for the public good.

Following the GEO workshop, Chen travelled to Bogotá, Colombia for a working meeting of TReNDS, hosted by the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce April 29-30. The meeting included a public session, “Closing Data Gaps for Sustainable Development,” presented in both Spanish and English. During the meeting, Chen reported on progress in developing the POPGRID Data Collective, which is coordinated by CIESIN, TReNDS, and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The meeting was led by TReNDS co-chairs Shaida Baidee of Open Data Watch, Laveesh Bhandari of the Indicus Foundation, and Chen, and included representatives from CEPEI (Centro de Pensamiento Estratégico Internacional) and DANE (National Administrative Department of Statistics of Colombia).

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) web site will experience some interruptions on May 1st and 2nd. On May 1st between 3 and 4pm EDT the site will be upgraded to https. No major issues are anticipated, but it is possible that existing bookmarks or links may be affected. On May 2nd between approximately 5pm and 11pm EDT, data downloads and other services requiring NASA Earthdata login will be temporarily unavailable from the site. Any concerns, questions, or issues should be reported to user services personnel at ciesin.info@ciesin.columbia.edu.

CIESIN has hired several staff and interns for different projects, and a new scholar is visiting from China. 

Joining the Geo-referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) project are Justine Dowden, Chisimdi Onwuteaka, Matthew Heaton, and Eniko Kelly. Justine Dowden comes to CIESIN from the Earth Institute, now project manager responsible for coordination, reporting, and managing support of activities planned for countries under GRID3. She is also providing technical support during the design and implementation phases of data collection for developing health infrastructure data systems in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dowden has worked with international aid organizations and non-profits that advance women’s rights globally and domestically, and she has co-led related research. She has a BA in sociology, French, and art history, from Brandeis University, and an MPH from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Chisimidi Onwuteaka brings communications expertise from her work in Peace Corps South Africa and Americorps to her new role as communications officer for GRID3. She is helping develop materials to inform and support project stakeholders, as part of a comprehensive GRID3 communications strategy between partners. She has a BA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a double major in global studies and public policy, and a minor in public health entrepreneurship.

Former interns Matthew Heaton and Eniko Kelly are now senior research staff assistants. Matthew Heaton has a dual degree in geography and psychology from the State University of New York at Geneseo. Eniko Kelly recently received her MS in geoinformatics from Hunter College, City University of New York, and has a combined BS and MS in geological engineering and applied geo-sciences from the University of Bucharest, Romania, and the University of Leoben, Austria. 

Several interns have also joined GRID3, assisting with data downloading, documentation, and exploratory data analyses. Jiayi Fan has a BS in managerial economics and a BA in statistics, from the University of California, Davis; and an MA in quantitative methods in social science from Columbia University. Erin Gregoire is a senior at Columbia College, majoring in sustainable development.  

Edna Egal and Mairead Milán are Earth Institute interns for the spring 2019 semester. Egal is supporting the HRSL project, a collaboration with Facebook’s Internet.org, working with geographic information specialist Linda Pistolesi. Egal is a first year student in the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) program, majoring in computer science. Milán is a senior at Columbia College, majoring in sustainable development, and is working on the fifth version of CIESIN’s flagship data product, the Gridded Population of the World (GPW).

Nanshan Li is working with GIS programmer Kytt MacManus and associate director for geospatial applications Greg Yetman on a new project on population modeling using wireless data and nighttime lights data, supported by the Schmidt Futures Foundation. Li is a master’s student in the Data Science Program of the Columbia University Data Science Institute, and has a BS in civil engineering from University of California, Los Angeles.

Visiting from Hohai University in Nanjing, China, for one year is Prof. Yan Sun. She is vice director of the Land Resource Management Institute of Hohai University and consults for the World Bank as a resettlement specialist. While at CIESIN she is working with Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for science applications, focused on her research on the social impact of involuntary resettlement.