CIESIN director Robert Chen traveled to Geneva May 2–6 for a meeting organized by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the conference, “GIS for a Sustainable World,” sponsored by Esri. GEO held its annual Work Programme Symposium, aimed at furthering its 2016 activities and planning its 2017–19 work programme. Chen reported on activities of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group (DSWG), which he co-chairs, and gave a presentation on data related to human settlements, infrastructure, and population in support of a proposed GEO Human Planet Initiative. He also participated in planning a GEO initiative on Earth Observations in service of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. While in Geneva, Chen gave a presentation, “Integrating Population and Infrastructure Data in Support of Climate Services,” in the session, “Climate Services and the SDGs″ at the Esri conference May 4. He then co-chaired a working meeting of the GEO DSWG May 5.
Greg Yetman, associate director for Geospatial Applications, also traveled to Geneva to participate in an expert meeting on the use of space technologies for environmental monitoring and humanitarian affairs, organized by the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) May 11–13. He gave a presentation, “Integrating Sensor and Socioeconomic Data,″ highlighting a range of geospatial data sets developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) that may be useful in disaster management and environmental applications. He also attended the UNOOSA/GEO Discovery Day May 13 at the World Meteorological Organization, supported by DigitalGlobe.