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The majority of countries worldwide will fall short of the net-zero goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, according to the 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by researchers at the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (YCELP) and CIESIN. The EPI uses emissions data from the past 10 years as a basis for projecting mid-century levels for 180 countries. For the first time India’s EPI score was the lowest among all countries, reflecting its drastically poor air quality and quickly rising GHG emissions. Intensifying air pollution and increasing GHG emissions also placed China towards the bottom of the 2022 scorecard, at 160. Among rich countries, the US was ranked low at 43; although it has reduced its emissions, its starting rate is so high that it is unlikely to make the 2050 target. Countries beset by conflict or other crises such as Myanmar and Haiti or nations that favored economic growth over environmental concerns—for example, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—also received low rankings.

Denmark was again rated the most sustainable nation, with the United Kingdom and Finland close behind owing to success in cutting GHG emissions. Sweden and Switzerland were among high-scoring countries for air and water quality. Offering insights into the drivers of good environmental performance, CIESIN senior research scientist Alex de Sherbinin, one of the lead authors of the 2022 EPI, explained, “Good governance, policy commitment, and targeted environmental investments separate the nations that are moving toward a sustainable future from those that are not. High-scoring countries have well-thought-through programs to protect public health, conserve natural resources, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.”

The 2022 EPI used 40 performance indicators to rank 180 countries on their proximity to international targets for addressing air and water pollution, waste management, and biodiversity and habitat protection, as well as the transition to a clean energy future. Even with continuing lags in GHG emissions reduction worldwide, over the past decade significant progress has been made on critical environmental health issues like sanitation, drinking water, and indoor air pollution. YCELP and CIESIN have collaborated in producing the EPI biennially since 2006.

Adapted from a press release by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy.

Source: Understanding Flood Vulnerability: A Case Study of Harris County (StoryMap)

Climate change disproportionately affects the poor and socially vulnerable. The scientific community is responding in its commitment to data and services development that can advance environmental justice. A recent NASA Earthdata Backgrounder profiles some of the work the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Application Center (SEDAC) is doing in this area.

The backgrounder describes a research project focused on the low-wealth, predominately Black community of the Hampton Roads region of Norfolk, VA, which is experiencing rising sea level rise in part because the land area is sinking. SEDAC population data was paired with satellite data to reveal high population density combined with anomalously high sea surface height in this area, identifying high vulnerability. Integrating different types of data in this way lets planners and policymakers make better-informed mitigation decisions that take into consideration social as well as physical impacts of sea-level rise, better insuring environmental justice for vulnerable communities.

In a second example, in collaboration with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), SEDAC helped develop an index that assesses flood vulnerability for Harris County, Texas. Taking a multidisciplinary approach to capturing resilience and susceptibility to flooding, 15 indicators were combined into an aggregate index. The tool can visualize flood vulnerability at the block group level for Harris County and analyze relative flood vulnerability across the region, improving prioritization of flood remediation policies and aid.

CIESIN director Robert Chen, with associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin and research scientist Susana Adamo, helped organize and co-lead a NASA Equity and Environmental Justice virtual workshop, in their respective SEDAC roles as manager, deputy manager, and project scientist. The workshop report was released in December 2021.

SEDAC manager Robert Chen, with deputy manager Alex de Sherbinin and project scientist Susana Adamo, helped organize and co-lead the NASA Equity and Environmental Justice virtual workshop held October 20, 2021. NASA Earth Science Division (ESD) director Karen St. Germain opened the event, which brought together 15 invited experts, including SEDAC User Working Group (UWG) chair Barbara Ryan and several other UWG members, ESD staff, and representatives from social science research organizations who engage with environmental justice (EJ) research and communities. Chen, de Sherbinin, and Adamo co-led several breakout groups, working closely with SEDAC program scientist Nancy Searby and other NASA staff. The workshop report is now available.

In early 2021, a Biden administration executive order on equity directed all federal agencies to incorporate achieving environmental justice in their missions. In June 2021, NASA launched Mission Equity, a comprehensive effort to assess expansion and modification of agency programs, procurements, grants, and policies, and examine potential barriers and challenges for historically underrepresented and underserved communities.

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

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

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

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

Users of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) are invited to participate in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey for the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). This annual survey assesses user satisfaction with the data, tools, and support provided by EOSDIS data centers and services. SEDAC, which serves a wide range of basic and applied users interested in the integration of remote sensing and socioeconomic data, is one of the data centers evaluated by the survey. Survey results enable SEDAC to address problems, improve data and services, and identify high priority user needs and concerns. It also helps justify NASA′s continuing investment in EOSDIS data services and support. 

All SEDAC users are encouraged to participate in the survey by October 1. Users with an Earthdata user name registered with SEDAC will receive an e-mail invitation from the CFI Group on behalf of NASA, requesting participation in the brief survey (10–15 minutes to complete). The identity of respondents is not shared with SEDAC or NASA.

This summer has seen a spate of extreme climate-related events, from record high temperatures to forest fires, floods, and severe storms. Climate and other natural and manmade hazards do not affect all populations equally. Some sub-populations are particularly vulnerable to their effects owing to factors such as low income, lower levels of education, poor housing, or historical inequalities. Parsing out the fine-grained layers of social conditions across the strata of society—how much money people make, who makes up their households, minority status, ability to understand English, dwelling places, and access to transport—can provide the fundamental elements needed to quantify social vulnerability to hazards in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), created by the Geospatial Research, Analysis, and Services Program (GRASP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), has long been a key resource for local officials to identify communities that may need support before, during, or after hazardous events or disease outbreaks.

To increase the utility of the SVI data set, the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN gridded the input data and removed uninhabited areas. The resulting data set, the U.S. Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) Grids, enables calculation of the SVI for user-defined areas, facilitating integration with hazard and other geospatial data. The gridded SVI data set uses the same four themes as the CDC/ATSDR index—Socioeconomic, Household Composition and Disability, Minority Status and Language, and Housing Type and Transportation—to rank communities on vulnerability for the entire United States. The SVI data set is based on inputs at the census-tract level for 15 variables for the years 2000, 2010, 2014, 2016, and 2018, and aligns with the Gridded Population of the World (GPW) data set, SEDAC′s flagship data collection.

A map gallery includes an overall SVI map and four maps visualizing each of the themes. Development of the gridded data set and maps was led by Carolynne Hultquist, post-doctoral research scientist at CIESIN.

For the AmeriGEO Week2021 held virtually August 23‒27, Cascade Tuholske, Earth Institute postdoctoral research scientist, gave a pre-recorded presentation, “Urban Extreme Heat Exposure Trajectories in AmeriGEO Countries.” Staff from CIESIN, the International Research Institute (IRI), and Lehman College, and graduate students from Lehman, presented and authored four poster papers. The students are interns working with postdoctoral research scientist Carolynne Hultquist, supported by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by the Center.

For the 2nd Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) Workshop on Data-driven Humanitarian Mapping held virtually August 15, Lehman College student Lauren Carey gave a pre-recorded presentation on extracting street-level flood vulnerability data from Google Street View, based on a workshop paper co-authored with fellow students Raychell Velez, Christopher Aime, and Diana Calderon, together with staff from CIESIN, IRI, and Lehman College.

Photo Credit: Anne-Laure White, GRID3

As face-to-face educational activities have been curtailed or even suspended due to the pandemic, CIESIN continues to be active on diverse educational fronts, in online and hybrid venues ranging from academic settings to video series to workshops and Webinars, in addition to ongoing development of online training and curriculum resources. CIESIN staff regularly teach popular courses at graduate and undergraduate level, in a variety of departments, programs, and schools across Columbia University, including Columbia and Barnard Colleges, the Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) Department, the Mailman School of Public Health, the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and the School of Professional Studies (SPS).

For the past Fall-Winter term, some CIESIN staff taught classes in “hyflex” mode (designated campus classroom, with online participation by students and faculty as needed)—for example, “Environmental Sustainability Indicators,” by associate director of Science Applications, Alex de Sherbinin, and “Data Analysis & Visualization in Sustainability,” by associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman. Both classes are in the Sustainability Management Program of the SPS. Supporting Yetman was postdoctoral research scientist Carolynne Hultquist, who taught the same class in the fall. Also this past semester, in online mode, GIS developer Kytt MacManus taught “Spatial Analysis for Sustainable Development,” and senior geographic information specialist Linda Pistolesi taught “GIS for Sustainable Development,” both for Columbia College. For E3B, research scientist Susana Adamo was instructor for “Human Populations and Sustainable Development.”  

CIESIN is also part of a major new initiative of the new Columbia Climate School. Led by Alex de Sherbinin and Kamal Amakrane, a United Nations diplomat and adjunct professor at SIPA, the Climate Mobility Network is one of nine new “Earth Networks” to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration across Columbia University in the themes of climate, sustainability and the future of the planet. During its initial three-year phase, the Climate Mobility Network plans to develop a trans-disciplinary course, teaching aids, and tools to help build curriculum and pedagogy on climate mobility. The Network will also work on policy research and modeling in support of operational agencies, building on ongoing work with the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, the Platform for Disaster Displacement, UNHCR-The UN Refugee Agency, and the International Organization of Migration, as well as the Columbia Global Centers Committee on Forced Migration.

Online educational activities included an educational Webinar series for a non-technical audience, with modules to date on population modelling, mapping settlements, and mapping subnational boundaries, produced by the Georeferenced Infrastructure and Data for Development (GRID3) program. In a separate effort, several online training modules in English and Spanish were co-developed by Susana Adamo, with Professor Landy Sanchez of the Center for Demographic, Urban, and Environmental Studies at El Colegio de Mexico (COLMEX), released by the Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) and supported by the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) through a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Focused on the fundamentals of spatial data integration and geared towards demographers and other population researchers, the video-based tutorials draw on pre-packaged data and open source geographic information system (GIS) and Web-based tools. This past year, CIESIN senior geographic information specialist Dara Mendeloff participated in Earth Institute Live (EI Live), an online series for K–12 students and educators. Coordinated by the Education and Outreach Office of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), live video lessons were led by experts in a broad variety of scientific disciplines across the EI. In one session, Mendeloff gave an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS); in another, she highlighted select data science tools used in climate research. She also took part in a professional development event for K–12 educators, sponsored by the EI, which focused on teaching climate change in the classroom.

CIESIN scientists remain active in a number of different scientific communities, despite travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 27, at the virtual meeting of the European Geophysical Union, Martin Juckes, co-manager of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Data Distribution Center (DDC), presented a lightning presentation and poster paper, “IPCC Data Distribution Centre: FAIR Data from Climate Research to Mitigation Policy.” Robert Chen and information scientist Xiaoshi Xing were co-authors. CIESIN is one of four organizations that jointly operate DDC; the other three are based in the UK, Germany, and Spain. The IPCC DDC provides access to key data sets used in IPCC assessments and reports. Also participating was Robert Downs, CIESIN senior digital archivist, who co-authored the presentation, “Towards Developing Community Guidelines for Sharing and Reusing Quality Information of Earth Science Datasets,” given by Carlo Lacagnina, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre.

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs participated virtually in the Research Data Alliance (RDA) 17th Plenary Meeting (RDA P17) April 20–23 and the 16th International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC21) on April 19, both coordinated from Edinburgh, Scotland. During RDA P17, Downs presented the poster, “Peer Review of Open Research Data: The Approach of a Scientific Data Center.” He also chaired the joint session, “Collaborating to Improve Platforms and Share Resources among Open Data Repositories,” where he presented, “Improving Repositories through Collaboration.”  At the IDCC21, Downs gave the presentation, “Documentation to Foster Sharing and Use of Open Earth Science Data: Quality Information,” co-authored with Ge Peng of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, David Moroni of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Hampapuram Ramapriyan of Science Systems and Applications, Inc., and Yaxing Wei of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 

As part of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) seminar on April 20, CIESIN postdoctoral research scientist Carolynne Hultquist gave the presentation, “Bringing Vulnerable Populations into the Flood Risk Equation.” Two graduate student interns also participated: Raychell Velez, who is working toward her MS in geographic information systems (GIS) at Lehman College of the City University of New York; and Colleen Neely, an MPA student in environmental science and policy at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Hultquist gave an overview of relevant data and services from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and described ongoing efforts to improve vulnerability data for flood risk assessment. Velez presented work supported by SEDAC to develop high resolution data on building exposure to floods using artificial intelligence (AI) approaches. Neely, an Earth Institute intern with Hultquist and IRI scientist Andrew Kruczkiewicz, discussed work on a high resolution flood vulnerability index for Houston, Texas, designed to support more equitable flood mitigation efforts.

CIESIN associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin teamed up with Prof. Andrew Tatem of the University of Southampton in the virtual event, “Using Big Data to Study Migration Patterns,” organized by the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC) and Columbia’s Data Science Institute (DSI) on April 22. The two researchers discussed the use of novel data streams such as cellphone and device location data to understand mobility patterns. Following the presentation, which drew more than 50 participants, a reception was held for CPRC and DSI affiliates to discuss research collaboration opportunities. Among other activities, de Sherbinin is co-lead of the Climate Mobility Network, a new “Earth Network” established by the Earth Institute. Tatem is the director of WorldPop and a director of Flowminder, and a key collaborator in the GeoReferenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program managed by CIESIN.

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

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

CIESIN is pleased to welcome Lixiang (Tracy) Wen as a finance manager, supporting the GeoReferenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program, the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), and other projects. Tracy comes to CIESIN from the Columbia University Medical Center, where she worked as a financial analyst since 2016. She holds a bachelor of business administration in accounting from Baruch College.

CIESIN bids farewell to Anne-Laure White, research staff assistant, who has begun working at a sustainable farm in the Hudson Valley. A graduate of Columbia University in American Studies, White had diverse roles in the Geospatial Applications Division over the past three years, including co-authoring a recent report on coastal adaptation.

NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET) offered a two-part training course, “Introduction to Population Grids and their Integration with Remote Sensing Data for Sustainable Development and Disaster Management,” on March 30 and April 6. The course was organized by CIESIN research scientist Susana Adamo on behalf of NASA’s Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and the POPGRID Data Collaborative, an international network of data providers, users, and sponsors concerned with georeferenced data on population, human settlements, and infrastructure. In the first session of the course, Prof. Steven Leyk of the University of Colorado and CIESIN associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman provided an overview of gridding population data, from its origins to present day applications in such areas as health, humanitarian response, sustainable development, and environmental management. The second session, organized around case studies of specific applications, featured lectures by CIESIN director Robert Chen, senior geographic information specialist Linda Pistolesi, and Charles Huyck, executive vice president of ImageCat Inc. More than 1,000 people from around the world participated in the course. Each session was given twice during the day, with live question-and-answer periods. Recordings of the sessions are available online via the ARSET web site.

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. 

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

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

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.

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).

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.

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.