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CIESIN has released a new Web site and mapping tool designed to help users learn about the growing number of gridded population data sets, and make decisions about which data sets may be the most useful for their needs. The POPGRID web site and viewer were developed under the auspices of the POPGRID Data Collective, an initiative launched by CIESIN in 2017 with support from the Earth Institute, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). The POPGRID web site provides users with detailed background information and documentation, as well as direct links to the data and data sources.

The POPGRID Viewer incorporates a four-panel display of population count data available from six different data sets: the Gridded Population of the World (GPWv4.10) 2015 count developed by SEDAC; Landscan 2015 developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory; WorldPop Estimates 2014 from the WorldPop project; Global Human Settlement Population Grid 2015 (GHS-POP) developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and CIESIN; the Esri World Population Estimate 2016 (WPE); and the High Resolution Settlement Layer (HRSL) developed by the Facebook Connectivity Lab and CIESIN. Users may zoom in on a location of interest anywhere in the world and see the population estimates for four of the six data sets at the same time. A single-panel mode lets users compare national-level metadata across the data sets and draw a polygon or rectangle to obtain an intercomparison table and chart containing customized estimates from all six population data sets (when available). Users of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) may also supply a shapefile to obtain the population estimates for a specific region with a complex shape.

Direct comparison of these data sets is important because they are based on different data sources and methodologies that may affect their usability for different purposes. For example, the GPWv4.10 data are based solely on Census data for subnational administrative units, assuming a uniform distribution of population even in large rural districts. Other data sets utilize high-resolution remote sensing data combined with machine-learning algorithms to allocate population to built-up areas. In addition, some data sets use additional inputs such as distance from roads, slope, and other factors to model population distribution at high resolution. The data sets also differ in the time periods covered, the quality and consistency of inputs in different regions, and the demographic characteristics estimated (e.g., age groups). These differences may make the data more useful for some applications, such as assessing potential exposure to extreme events or climate change, but less useful for others, such as estimating the number of vaccines needed in an area of interest.

The POPGRID Data Collective was established to bring together and expand the international community of data providers, users, and sponsors concerned with georeferenced data on population, human settlements, and infrastructure. POPGRID seeks to promote cooperation and reduce overlap in producing data, and to encourage trans-disciplinary use and development of data, among other related goals. CIESIN led the initial phase of POPGRID, and is working with the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) and the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UNSDSN) to initiate a second phase of POPGRID with support from BMGF. POPGRID is also contributing to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Human Planet Initiative, which aims to improve the quality and accessibility of data needed for assessing humanity’s impact on the planet, access to resources, and exposure to risk.

Photos by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth Robert Chen, CIESIN director, far right, served as a panelist for the session, “Earth Observation Applications for the Sustainable Development Goals: Opportunities for Scaling Successful Methods,” at the Second United Nations World Data Forum October 23 in Dubai. The other panelists were (L-R): Argyro Kavvada, Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Earth Observations for the Sustainable Development Goals Initiative; Robert Ndugwa, UN Human Settlements Programme; Jillian Campbell; UN Environment; Enrique Ordaz, National Institute of Statistics and Geography, Mexico; and Marc Paganini, European Space Agency.

CIESIN director Robert Chen, deputy director Marc Levy, and associate director for Science Applications Alex de Sherbinin joined nearly 2,000 delegates from around the world in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) October 22–24 for the second United Nations (UN) World Data Forum. The Forum brought together representatives from national statistical offices, UN agencies, development organizations, civil society groups, industry, academia, and other stakeholders to assess critical data challenges in efforts to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to collaborate in applying rapidly evolving data science approaches to meet these challenges. Chen co-organized two parallel sessions on population monitoring and geospatial data issues, including one focused on the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) project for which CIESIN is the coordinating partner. He also discussed the growing use of remote sensing and population data in sustainable development applications in two panels, highlighting new data and services available from CIESIN and other organizations. In a session on data innovation for migration and development interventions, de Sherbinin reported on recent efforts led by the World Bank to model climate-induced migration and displacement.

The Forum served as a focal point for a range of complementary meetings and networking opportunities. On October 21, Chen, de Sherbinin, and Levy participated in a pre-meeting of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD), in which CIESIN is an Anchor Partner. Chen remained in Dubai through October 26 to co-chair a meeting of the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). TReNDS provides an important avenue for facilitating involvement and knowledge sharing by the global academic community in addressing sustainable development data challenges.

Both the Forum and the TReNDS meeting were hosted by the UAE’s Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Agency (FCSA). The First World Data Forum was held in January 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa; the next Forum is expected to be held October 18–21, 2020, in Bern, Switzerland. Summaries of the discussions at the Forums have been provided by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

A screen capture from the updated Population Estimator mapping tool for an area along the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina, affected by Hurricane Florence in fall 2018, displays estimates of the distribution of males and females by 5-year age group. The tool accesses data from the Gridded Population of the World version 4 (GPWv4.10) data collection via the Population Estimation Service (PESv3).

The Population Estimation Service (PES) and associated Population Estimator mapping tool have recently been updated to provide users with the ability to visualize changes in total population over multiple decades together with basic demographic characteristics (age and sex) in the year 2010, for a user-defined geographic region. Version 3 of the Population Estimator enables users to draw a circle or polygon on a world map, which then produces a graph of estimated population for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, and a projection to the year 2020. The Population Estimator also provides a “population pyramid” for the year 2010, with estimated population counts by five-year age groups for males and females. Users may save the graphs in selected image formats and download the tabular data for further analysis.

These detailed demographic estimates may be highly useful to those interested in assessing how different areas of the world vary in terms of their population growth between 2000 and 2020, and in comparing the relative shape and structure of their population pyramids. The data may be used to estimate important demographic characteristics such as the sex ratio, median age, dependency ratios, and the number of women of child-bearing age. Estimated totals for specific age  groups (children under five or the elderly) may be useful as indicators of potential vulnerability to natural, technological, or human health hazards or of the type and level of specific social or health services needed in an area. However, it should be noted that in many parts of the world, censuses have been infrequent, and detailed demographic data at subnational levels are not always available; therefore, population and age-sex data for small subnational areas should be used with caution and the documentation should be consulted.

Behind the scenes, the PESv3 draws on the latest version of the Gridded Population of the World data collection (GPWv4.10), which is based on the most current national census data available. Through open web service protocols, any client developer can send queries to the PES to obtain customized estimates for a specified circle or polygon. Links to the service descriptions are available online. Further information is available through SEDAC User Services. PESv3 and the Population Estimator are supported by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), operated by CIESIN as part of the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

Credit: Chandranath Basak

CIESIN senior research associate Pinki Mondal has been featured in a NASA Earthdata user profile published online May 24. The user profile is part of a regular series about users of NASA earth science data. Mondal combines remotely-sensed data with census and other data to study the effects of climate change on agricultural systems and communities. Her current research focuses on smallholder farms in tropical countries that can be especially vulnerable to climate variability and to impacts from socioeconomic factors such as urbanization and government policies. She utilizes microwave satellite data, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, and high-resolution optical satellite data from a variety of sources to help characterize land use/land cover changes over time in relationship to climate and other factors.

For the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, Mondal has had lead responsibility for establishing the India Data Collection, which currently consists of the India Village-Level Geospatial Socio-Economic Data Set:1991, 2001 and the India Annual Winter Cropped Area, v1 (2001–2016). She also led development of the Global Summer Land Surface Temperature (LS) Grids, v1, and helped develop the Global Urban Heat Island (UHI) Data Set, v1 (2013), as well as other SEDAC data sets.

In August, Mondal will begin a position as assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware.

As part of festivities worldwide celebrating Earth Day, CIESIN participated in a fair at St. Thomas Aquinas College (STAC) in Sparkill, New York, April 17, co-hosted by STAC and Columbia University′s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The free event, held for the third year, was attended by both undergraduate and K-12 students and  educators, together with members of the general public. Senior research staff assistant Alyssa Fico coordinated CIESIN’s participation in the event, with the assistance of geographic information specialist Linda Pistolesi, staff associate Emilie Schnarr, and CIESIN director Robert Chen. They demonstrated the Hazards Mapper and HazPop mobile app developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center operated by CIESIN. They also engaged attendees in an interactive data gathering exercise using online geographic information system (GIS) software to locate nearby areas of interest such as eateries, parks, and schools. The fair featured environmental science projects conducted by STAC students as well as a range of hands-on science education activities offered by other scientists from around the Lamont campus.

Geographers from across the U.S. and the world met in New Orleans April 10–14 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), to present and discuss recent and ongoing research on diverse geographic topics, including hazards, urbanization, public engagement. Several sessions on human settlement and population mapping were organized, including two on high-resolution population modeling and a session on advancements in detecting and projecting population and the footprint of human settlements. CIESIN director Robert Chen gave a presentation at the latter session on the ongoing efforts of the POPGRID Data Collective to advance the use and impact of geospatial settlement, infrastructure, and population data in sustainable development and other applications. Greg Yetman, associate director for Geospatial Applications, discussed mapping green infrastructure and impervious surfaces in New York City, in a session, “Making the City Green.″ His presentation was co-authored with John Squires, senior research staff assistant, and was based on work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation as part of the project, Developing High Performance Green Infrastructure Systems to Sustain Coastal Cities, led by Patricia Culligan of the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and the Urban Design Lab. POPGRID activities are supported in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.

Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN associate director for Science Applications, participated in a National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) Pursuit event March 28–29 that focused on populations displaced by sea level rise and coastal extremes. The workshop was hosted by the University of Maryland in Annapolis and led by David Wrathall of Oregon State University and Valerie Mueller of Arizona State University. Twenty researchers from a variety of academic and government institutions in the United States and abroad were invited to participate. Funded by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, SESYNC facilitates interdisciplinary collaborations to develop data-driven solutions to socio-environmental issues.

The most recent update to the fourth version of the Gridded Population of the World data collection, GPW version 4.10, contains the first global data set on the spatial distribution of population broken down into different age groups by sex (male and female). The data were developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.

Prior versions of GPW  provided estimates of the total population in each latitude-longitude grid cell. Now with the inclusion of age and sex information drawn from the 2010 round of national population censuses, it is possible to map specific demographic subgroups such as elderly populations, school-aged children, young adults, and women of childbearing age. This enables users to better understand spatial variations in age structure and sex ratios within countries for specific regions of interest. The age and sex data expand GPW’s usefulness in many research and application areas, including vulnerability and risk mapping, urbanization and migration studies, and emergency response and public health applications. In addition, gridded age and sex data can help in monitoring and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially with respect to efforts to disaggregate data to support the objective to “leave no one behind,” e.g., the elderly, the young, and other subgroups who may be geographically isolated.

The new downloadable data consist of population counts and density rasters for 5-year age groups and for selected age categories (0–14, 15–64, 65 and older), as totals and by sex. A raster data set of women of childbearing age (15–49) is also available. All of the GPWv4.10 raster data sets are now available in ASCII and netCDF formats as well as GeoTiff. Files with coarser resolution (2.5, 15, 30, and 60 arc minutes) may be selected to enable faster raster processing and compatibility with data sets from other scientific domains. A vector data set, “Administrative Unit Center Points,” has been updated to include age and sex attributes.

First developed in 1994, GPW provides population estimates on a latitude-longitude grid for all land on the planet except Antarctica, created through analysis of census and administrative boundary data from every country in the world. The gridded format permits easy integration with a wide range of data, supporting research, planning, and applications in energy and water management, disaster and humanitarian response, agriculture and food security planning, public health interventions, transportation and communications development, urban and coastal zone planning, and many other aspects of sustainable development.

The free, downloadable data and descriptions, including documentation and maps, are available at http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/collection/gpw-v4/whatsnewrev10. The data are disseminated using the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0) license, which permits free sharing, adaptation, and use of the data for both commercial and noncommercial purposes, so long as appropriate credit is given.

Participants in the launch of a new project, “Geo-referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3),″ at at a side event of the 49th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission held March 7 in New York City. Left to right: Roger Shulungu Runika, director general, Ministry of Planning, National Statistics Institute, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Rachel Snow, chief, UNFPA; Homere Ngoma Ngoma, census coordinator at the Central Bureau of the Census, National Statistics Institute, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Marc Levy, deputy director, CIESIN; Linus Bengtsson, executive director and co-founder, Flowminder;  and Tapiwa Jhamba, technical advisor, UNFPA.

A new project, “Geo-referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3),” was launched at a side event of the 49th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission held March 7 in New York City. The side event featured a panel presentation on project objectives and applications by representatives of core GRID3 partners, including Marc Levy, CIESIN deputy director; Linus Bengtsson, executive director and co-founder of Flowminder; Rachel Snow, chief, Population and Development Branch, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); and Tapiwa Jhamba, technical advisor, also of UNFPA. Joining the core partners as a panelist was Homere Ngoma Ngoma, census coordinator at the Central Bureau of the Census, National Statistics Institute, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who made a presentation on the 2019 DRC census and the potential impact of GRID3 involvement. Also attending were CIESIN senior research staff assistants Olena Borkovska and Kira Topik, and project coordinator Kevin Tschirhart. A lively question-and- answer session followed the presentations.

GRID3 is facilitating the collection, analysis, integration, dissemination, and utilization of high-resolution population, infrastructure, and other reference data in support of national sectoral development priorities, humanitarian efforts, health, and sustainable development goals (SDGs). The project aims to increase developing countries’ capabilities for mapping population distribution as a way of ensuring that everyone, especially the most vulnerable, is counted, refining development priorities and extending and improving the scope and efficacy of countries’ development efforts. The project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdom′s Department for International Development (DFID). Sandra Baptista, senior research associate, is a co-project investigator, with Marc Levy.

Air quality is the leading environmental threat to public health, according to the 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) released January 23 at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The biennial report, which ranks 180 countries on 24 performance indicators across 10 issue categories covering environmental health and ecosystem vitality, was produced by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (YCELP) and CIESIN. Switzerland is ranked first in environmental performance, followed by France, Denmark, Malta, and Sweden. In 2016, France and Sweden also made the top five.

In spite of strong scores on sanitation and air quality, the United States places only 27^th in the 2018 EPI, thanks to weak performance on deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, among other issues. This puts the United States near the back of the industrialized nations, behind France (2^nd), the United Kingdom (6^th), Germany (13^th), Japan (20^th), and Canada (25^th).

Of the large emerging economies, China and India rank 120^th and 177^th respectively, due to pressures on the environment from high population densities and rapid economic expansion. “The strain on resources from past and current population growth, and the challenges of raising two billion people out of poverty, has meant that these countries face particular challenges,” according to co-author Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for science applications at CIESIN. “From nitrogen pollution, inadequate waste water treatment, air pollutant emissions and concentrations, China and India face severe environmental challenges.” 

In addition to rankings, the EPI identifies important environmental trends. For example, the report finds that fisheries continue to deteriorate in most countries, and air pollution—a problem largely “solved” in advanced developed countries—is still a critical problem in many developing countries, especially in India, China, and Pakistan. And some countries are failing to address critical problems. Deforestation, for example, has been a significant issue for Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia for the past five years, reflecting broad policy failures, according to the report.

NASA has recently released the 2017 edition of Sensing Our Planet, free in print or for download at the Earthdata Web site. The publication highlights the use of earth science data in a range of scientific research areas, from hazard prediction to public health to water resource management. One of this year′s articles, “Zika Zone,” focuses on mapping the spread of the Zika virus. Researchers Moritz Kramer from the Harvard Medical School and Janey Messina from the University of Oxford combined environmental data about the Zika virus—for example, preferred habitat, temperature and rainfall requirements, and need for stagnant water to lay eggs in and heavily populated urban environments—with population data to create maps showing environmental suitability for the transmission of the virus. Data sources included the Gridded Population of the World (GPW) data collection from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN and a vegetation index based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data from the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC). Mapping the transmission in this way let the scientists estimate the number of people globally at risk—more than two billion—and anticipate areas of potential Zika outbreaks, helping to inform public health decisions. GPW data were also used together with gravity and radar data and land surface models from several other DAACs to assess groundwater resources in Mexico, as described in the article, “Closed Season.″

Sensing Our Planet highlights data from the twelve DAACs of the NASA Earth Observing Data and Information System (EOSDIS). The publication has been produced since 1994 by the Snow and Ice DAAC at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.

CIESIN staff and colleagues have capped the end of 2017 and launched 2018 with several new publications on a range of topics. Senior research associate Pinki Mondal is a lead author of a study on long-term changes in mangrove extent in Sierra Leone. The West African country lost 25% of its mangroves between 1990 and 2016, the span of the analysis. Using remote sensing data, the study focuses on four estuaries—Scarcies, Sierra Leone, Yawri Bay, and Sherbro—to provide insight into mangrove management strategies that can support local livelihoods. Sylwia Trzaska, associate research scientist, and Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for Science Applications, are co-authors. The work was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and conducted in collaboration with Tetra Tech. The paper appears in the journal Sensors, as part of a special issue, “Remote Sensing of Mangrove Ecosystems,” edited by Chandra Giri, an alumnus of CIESIN now with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Alex de Sherbinin is also co-author of a new global study of heat waves appearing in Environmental Research Letters, among the first research to include humidity as a critical factor in assessing heat stress impacts. The lead authors are Ethan Coffel and Radley Horton of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The study utilizes data available from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN—Global Population Projection Grids Based on SSPs, v1 (2010 – 2100)—to quantify the number of people who may be exposed to extreme heat stress in the latter half of this century under different scenarios of development (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, or SSPs).

Senior digital archivist Robert Downs has three new publications on various data management topics. He authored the chapter, “Enabling the Reuse of Geospatial Information,” in the book, GeoValue: The Socioeconomic Value of Geospatial Information, edited by Jamie B. Kruse, Joep Crompvoets, and Francoise Pearlman and published in November 2017 by CRC Press. He is also a co-author, with Devan Ray Donaldson, Ingrid Dillo, and Sarah Ramdeen, of a peer-reviewed article in the International Journal of Digital Curation on the perceived value of acquiring “data seals of approval,” an international standard for trusted digital repositories. Finally, he has authored the conference paper, “Implementing the Group on Earth Observations Data Management Principles: Lessons from a Scientific Data Center,” in The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. This was based on his presentation at the 37th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment in Tshwane, South Africa in May 2017 about how the emerging set of data management principles developed by GEO applies to interdisciplinary data management at SEDAC.

This image showing Central Park in New York City contrasts the impervious surfaces in dark blue, surrounding the park, which in lighter blue. Screenshot from the Data Visualization and Access Tool, which was developed to use with the data sets Human Built-up and Settlement Extent (HBASE) and Global Man-made Impervious Surface (GMIS).

With more than half of the world’s population living in urban areas today, the mapping and monitoring of urbanization are critical to better understanding development patterns, and their potential impacts. Addressing this need are two new high resolution data sets released through the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN that map global, man-made impervious surfaces and urban extents in unprecedented detail. The companion data sets, Human Built-up and Settlement Extent (HBASE) and Global Man-made Impervious Surface (GMIS), are among the first global, 30-meter spatial resolution data sets of their kind that are derived from the 2010 Global Land Survey (GLS) free Landsat archive. The data sets are expected to have a broad range of uses for those wishing to study the fine details of the urban fabric from local to global scales at full resolution, and those modeling climate and environmental impacts of man-made surfaces at continental to global scales. The production of HBASE and GMIS resulted from a collaboration between the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland and was funded through the NASA Land Cover Land Use Change Program. The data sets are available for free download, with four representative maps illustrating the data layers.

Using the Data Visualization and Access Tool, users may view and download the GMIS and HBASE data sets by country, tile, shapefile, rectangle or polygon. Data are available at 30m, 250m, and 1km resolutions in either geographic or UTM projection. Users may also explore map layers from the GMIS and HBASE data sets, including the uncertainty layers, in a four-panel map view. Different map layers may be compared, or different areas of the same map layer. Features include the ability to zoom in to the native data resolution of 30-meters; to query pixel values; to display a layer full-screen; and more.

Sylwia Trzaska Fisherman off the coast of Sierra Leone, West Africa. CIESIN led a vulnerability assessment of the fishing communities of Sierra Leone for the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA-BiCC) project.

Awareness is growing of the vital importance of evidence-based decision making in Africa, for example, in agricultural development, natural resource management, and climate vulnerability assessment. CIESIN continues to work actively to address key African data needs through a number of different projects and initiatives, including the Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and operated by Rothamsted Research; the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA-BiCC) project of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); and the West Africa SERVIR hub being established jointly by USAID and NASA.

AfSIS is helping several African countries establish national soil information systems and services based on a range of new technologies. Senior research scientist Markus Walsh and deputy director Marc Levy manage CIESIN’s component of AfSIS, which is utilizing soil infrared spectroscopy, remote sensing, crowdsourcing, and other methods to accelerate development of digital soil maps. Such maps support efforts in partner countries Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania to intensify agricultural production sustainably. Ethiopia, for example, has been able to formulate five fertilizer blends and target their use geographically, which is more effective and less harmful than the single blend formerly in use. Swetha Ramaswamy, education and outreach coordinator for AfSIS, is spending more than two months in Africa this spring, working to develop an eLearning course based on AfSIS field and laboratory protocols. The course will be made available in multiple languages through low bandwidth Internet connections.

CIESIN associate director for science applications Alex de Sherbinin and associate research scientist Sylwia Trzaska are leading CIESIN’s activities on improving climate analyses and assessing vulnerability to climate change in Africa. This past spring Trzaska participated in several workshops and meetings for the United Kingdom’s Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) program, in collaboration with colleagues from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). These meetings addressed a range of climate information issues, including the use of seasonal climate forecasts and “downscaling” of data to meet local needs. For the WA-BiCC project, Trzaska led a vulnerability assessment in the coastal areas of Sierra Leone, involving field data collection on household poverty, livelihoods, and environmental perceptions as well as mangrove data collection. She also led the data analysis, which involved several CIESIN staff members. Senior research associate Pinki Mondal is also contributing to the project, through an analysis of mangrove degradation along the coast of Sierra Leone using remote sensing data. For the new West African SERVIR node, CIESIN is assisting the prime contractor, Tetra Tech ARD, in developing technical capacity among consortium members and providing technical expertise on geospatial data acquisition, analysis, and application in support of national and regional decision making in the region.

Building on more than 20 years of effort to improve mapping of human population, the fourth version of the Gridded Population of the World (GPWv4) data collection has been released. This new version provides scientists, applied users, and the general public with a more detailed and consistent view of the spatial distribution of population over two decades, designed to support interdisciplinary understanding and analysis of the interactions between human and environmental systems.

GPWv4 includes population estimates and projections at five-year intervals from 2000 to 2020 at a higher resolution than previous versions: 30 arc-seconds, or approximately 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) at the equator. GPWv4 reflects data from the 2010 round of national censuses, which occurred mainly between 2005 and 2014. The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN collected and carefully matched population and boundary data for more than 13 million subnational administrative units, a 31-fold increase over version 3. Improved data were obtained for more than 100 countries including many small-island nations.

Grids of population counts and density, land area, water area, and data quality indicators are available for free download. Two different sets of population grids have been produced, one reflecting population totals reported by each country and another adjusted to national statistics developed by the United Nations (UN). Files may be downloaded for use in Geographic Information System (GIS) software or other analysis packages. The collection also includes a data set of the central point locations for subnational administrative units, for users needing tabular or vector (point) data.

In addition, SEDAC offers a range of map services and clients to visualize and access GPWv4 data, including the SEDAC Map Viewer, the Population Estimation Service, and the Hazards and Population (HazPop) mobile app for iOS devices. Several of these clients enable users to estimate the population residing within a user-defined circle or polygon, based on GPWv4 data for the year 2015.

GPWv4 is unique in characterizing population distribution based only on national census results, which enables it to be compared and combined with other types and sources of data. Other gridded population data products such as those available from the WorldPop project, the European Commission′s Joint Research Centre (JRC), and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) utilize additional data layers to model population distribution, which may preclude their use for some research and applications. CIESIN has been collaborating with the JRC, Facebook′s Connectivity Lab, WorldPop, and other groups to produce complementary gridded products consistent with GPWv4, such as the Global Human Settlements Population Grid (GHS-POP), the High Resolution Settlement Layer (HRSL), and the planned WorldPop global layer. Gridded population products are useful in diverse applications such as estimating population exposure and vulnerability to natural and technological hazards, determining accessibility to markets or services, and managing land, water, and ecosystem resources.

SEDAC is working to add additional gridded variables to the GPWv4 data collection, including data on age structure, gender, and urban vs. rural population, which should be available by mid-2017. GPWv4 data are made available openly at no cost under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0). Users are asked to register using a NASA Earthdata login when downloading data from the SEDAC site. SEDAC is one of the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) in NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), and has the mission to develop and operate applications that support the integration of socioeconomic and earth science data and to serve as an “Information Gateway″between the earth and social sciences.

The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center has recently released new versions of several different interactive mapping tools that provide users with new ways to visualize, analyze, and utilize geospatial data on population, environment, hazards, and related topics. These tools enable users to compare different data sets at local to global scales, to identify the number of people exposed to natural hazards or environmental extremes, and to utilize their mobile devices to assess their location relative to recent hazard events.

Version 2 of the SEDAC Map Viewer now implements an innovative four-window map view to make it easier to compare data layers from SEDAC’s diverse data holdings. Users may arrange the windows to show different maps for the same geographic region, focus in on different parts of the world for a single map layer, or illustrate changing spatial patterns over time. For example, a user could compare current population, land use, and urban expansion potential across Europe or Asia, visualize air quality levels in different urban areas around the world, or utilize the Anthropogenic Biomes data collection to visualize long-term land use change over three centuries, 1700–2000. The viewer supports toggling between the four windows and a more traditional single-window view, as well as direct links to download data for interest.

The SEDAC Population Estimation Service, which provides estimates of the number of people residing in an area of interest without having to download and analyze large amounts of spatial data, has been updated with data from the new Gridded Population of the World Version 4 (GPWv4) data set, including estimates for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. The SEDAC Population Estimator Web App enables users to draw a polygon or circle around an area of interest, and then calls on the Population Estimation Service to obtain an estimate of the population in 2015 living in that area. Those who develop their own mapping tools are free to access and utilize the Service through open international standards.

SEDAC′s mobile application for iOS devices, the Hazards and Population Mapper (HazPop), has also been updated with GPWv4 data. The app displays recent data on hazards such as earthquakes, tornados, and fires, and selected remote sensing imagery from NASA satellites, in conjunction with population and infrastructure data. It also supports location-based services such as estimating the total population near a user′s current location, a recent hazard event, or other point of interest or setting monitoring areas and proximity alerts. HazPop version 1.3 is available free of charge through the Itunes store.

The updated Population Estimation Service uses data from the Gridded Population of the World version 4 (GPWv4) data collection to quickly obtain estimates of the number of people residing in an area defined by the user.

If you've ever wondered how many people might be affected by an earthquake or tsunami, or what the total population is in a major metropolitan region, the new version of the Population Estimation Service (PES) can provide you with those answers. The PES is a Web-based service that enables mapping tools to quickly obtain estimates of the number of people residing in an area of interest, without having to download and analyze large amounts of spatial data. The latest version of PES, available through the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, draws on data from SEDAC′s recently released Gridded Population of the World, version 4 (GPWv4) data collection. It provides population estimates and associate statistics for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. A new client application, the SEDAC Population Estimator, enables users to draw a polygon or circle around an area of interest, and then obtain an estimate of the population in 2015 living in that area. Other SEDAC mapping tools such as the HazPop mobile app also utilize the updated PES, supporting analysis and visualization of population data in conjunction with remote sensing imagery and other types of data such as the location of critical infrastructure. The PES was first released in 2010.

Countries with high economic dependence may have a strong incentive to negotiate benefit-sharing agreements and implement integrated river basin management.

International river basins are under growing pressure from water stress related to human activities, impoundments, poor governance, and climate change, a new report finds. The report, Transboundary River Basins: Status and Trends, is an outcome of the Global Environment Facility Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme, led by the UNEP-DHI Center on Waste and Environment, CIESIN, and other partners. The report documents a baseline assessment of all transboundary water resources on Earth, the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date. A team from CIESIN led by Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN associate director for Science Applications, and Valentina Mara, senior research associate, authored the chapter on socioeconomic indicators, calculating three indicators of risk: economic dependence on water resources; societal well-being levels; and the risk of climate-related hazards. CIESIN geographic information specialist Malanding Jaiteh and deputy director Marc Levy were contributing authors. Findings include that climate-related risk is linked to high economic dependence on transboundary water resources and low well-being; and well-being is linked to governance capacity to address climate-related disasters. In addition to the Final Technical Report and the Summary for Policy Makers, an interactive results portal provides access to global maps of assessment results and indicator metadata sheets. All assessment results, analyses, and supplementary data may be freely downloaded.

More deaths globally occur from poor air quality than from water, and more than half the world’s population is subject to unsafe air—these are some of the findings of the 2016 Performance Environmental Index (EPI) released January 23 at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The biennial report, produced this year by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (YCELP), Yale Data-Driven Environmental Solutions Group at Yale University, and CIESIN, in collaboration with the Samuel Family Foundation, McCall MacBain Foundation, and the World Economic Forum, ranks country performance on high-priority environmental issues in two broad policy areas: protection of human health from environmental harm and protection of ecosystems. The 2016 EPI measures the performance of 180 countries in nine categories of environmental concern.

A major goal of the EPI is to organize the best available information to make it as relevant as possible.  “Even when data exists, policymakers often struggle to apply this information appropriately,” notes Marc Levy, CIESIN deputy director. “The EPI works to identify and address these blind spots within existing policy goals. For instance, a new biodiversity indicator weeds out protected areas that do not intersect with species’ habitats, showing where national parks may be ineffective at protecting species.”  

The 2016 version of the EPI awards Finland the top slot, followed by Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Slovenia. These five environmental leaders have policies that target protections to natural and built environments, with strong commitments to renewable energy. Finland’s top rank indicates its commitment to achieving a carbon-neutral society that will not exceed nature’s carrying capacity by 2050. Countries performing poorly—such as lowest ranked Somalia, Eritrea, Madagascar, Niger, and Afghanistan—are reminders that stable governance is necessary for effective environmental management and conflict disrupts environmental performance. Around one-third of countries that were scored on Climate and Energy are reducing their carbon intensity, and globally, trends in carbon intensity show a slight decline.

A new online mapping tool, the SEDAC Hazards Mapper, enables users to easily display recent natural hazard data in relationship to population, human settlements, major infrastructure, and satellite imagery. Hazards data include the location of active fires over the past 48 hours; earthquake alerts over the past seven days; flood and tornado warnings in the U.S. in near real-time; and yesterday′s air pollution data measured from space. The mapper shows the location of major dams and nuclear power plants and provides more detailed information and imagery for these facilities where available. By drawing a circle or polygon around a point or area of interest on the map, users can obtain an estimate of the total population and land area enclosed within.

Developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center operated by CIESIN, the SEDAC Hazards Mapper combines layers from various sources including NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) and Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Esri, and others, using a variety of open Web mapping services. The population and settlement data are based on SEDAC′s Gridded Population of the World, version 3 (GPWv3) data for 2005 and the Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP) data collection. The custom population estimates are provided by the SEDAC Population Estimation Service (PES). SEDAC plans to add more hazard and infrastructure layers and update the population data in early 2016.

The mapper is designed to be used by disaster risk managers, humanitarian response organizations, public health professionals, journalists, and others needing a quick assessment of the potential dangers posed by a major hazardous event or developing emergency. For example, a disaster response agency can obtain a rough estimate of the population and major facilities near a recent earthquake or a predicted flood as an input into response planning. Journalists or students can explore the location of recent wildfires relative to human settlements, dense populations, roads, terrain, and water bodies. Due to the coarse resolution and varying quality of some of the data, the mapper is not intended to support in-depth risk assessment or location-specific response needs.