2008 News & Events

December 19, 2008

Night-time light imagery from remote sensing data sources offers a uniquely “human” view of the Earth’s surface, as it is due almost entirely to some form of human activity. This illustrated guide introduces users to the types of night-time light data available, the characteristics, and the limitations. The second part of the guide examines how the data source has been and may be used to derive useful information about human presence and activities on Earth. Topics range from population and light pollution to economic activity, greenhouse gas emissions, and using night-time lights to help with disaster management. The ecological ramifications of night-time lighting are also considered. The final section of the guide explores other potential sources of night-time light data and how future systems may enhance existing capabilities for understanding the human environment through the observation of lights at night. The Guide was developed by former Earth Institute Fellow Christopher Doll, with support from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN.

See: Night-time Light Remote Sensing and Its Applications Web site

December 18, 2008

The annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco held December 15–19 was the venue for high-level discussion of collaboration between libraries and data centers on digital data preservation, and of recent institutional and technical improvements in interoperability between different types and sources of geoscience data. In a prominent Union Session on the Library-Data Center Alliance in Earth and Space Sciences held December 15, Columbia University vice president for Information Services and University Librarian James Neal gave an invited presentation on the central role of libraries in long-term stewardship of digital scientific data, information, and ultimately, knowledge. In a follow-up session December 16, a poster on CIESIN´s collaboration with the Columbia Libraries developing a long-term digital data archive was presented, authored by CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert Downs, CIESIN director Robert Chen, and library staff members Robert Cartolano and Rajendra Bose. On December 17, Chen gave an oral presentation on proposed implementation guidelines for the data sharing principles of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS), focusing on how the geoscience community can promote institutional cooperation in data sharing. Downs was co-convener of the poster session, Challenges for Earth Science Software Reuse, offered December 15, and was a co-author, with James J. Marshall, Lawrence J. Gilliam, and Robert E. Wolfe, of another poster presented during the session on reuse.

See: “Collaborative Establishment of a Long-Term Archive...”
       “Progress in the Development of a Prototype Reuse Enablement System”
       CU Press Release

December 14, 2008

CIESIN associate director for Geospatial Applications, Mark Becker, and geographic information specialist, Kytt MacManus, presented a preview of the forthcoming Hudson River Watershed Mapping Application at the grand opening of the Beacon Institute Center for Environmental Innovation and Education (CEIE). The event took place December 12 in Denning’s Point State Park in Beacon, New York. The application, a project of the National Biological Information Infrastructure Northeast Information Node (NBII-NIN), is being developed as part of a school curriculum focused on the Hudson River Watershed. The Mapper will display many of the social, physical, regulatory, and environmental features of the area in order to engage school-age children to interactively explore both the watershed itself and the communities that depend on it.

Future iterations of the application will make use of data from the River and Estuary Observation Network (REON), a joint effort between the Beacon Institute and IBM. Currently in the process of being deployed, REON is a first-of-its-kind sensor network able to capture physical, chemical, and biological information in real time. It can then sort that information and visualize the resulting data. The Hudson River Watershed Mapping Application will act as a central forum for the presentation of REON data in education, and to the general public.

See: Beacon Institute/CEIE Web site

December 7, 2008

Associate director for Geospatial Applications, Mark Becker, represented CIESIN at the Meningitis Environmental Risk Information Technologies (MERIT) meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia December 1–3. The meeting featured representatives from the IRI, the World Health Organization, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and health ministries from countries throughout Africa. The meeting’s purpose was to look at ways to use information from climate forecast models to better understand onset of meningitis outbreaks, and to use this knowledge to design better vaccination programs. Becker demonstrated how CIESIN data products might play a role in the process, using as examples CIESIN’s poverty mapping studies and its Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP), which gives insights into urban population distribution and the global extents of human settlements.

December 6, 2008

The use of remote sensing in the context of environmental policy and law enforcement was examined at a University College London (UCL) workshop at which CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin presented a paper, “Remote Sensing in Support of Multilateral Environmental Agreements.” The workshop, held December 5, brought together remote sensing researchers, policy experts, and judges from Europe and the United States, including CIESIN fellow and former director, Roberta Balstad, who also chaired a session of the workshop.

See: UCL Centre for Law & the Environment Web site

December 4, 2008

“Radical Sharing: Transforming Science” was the theme of the 4^th International Digital Curation Conference held December 1–3 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The term “radical sharing” refers to possible new ways of doing science using such approaches as large-scale research networks, mass collaboration, dynamic publishing tools, wikis, blogs, social networks, and visualizations and immersive environments. CIESIN director Robert Chen helped kick off the discussion as moderator of the opening plenary session on the conference theme, which included papers on new e-Science approaches in ecology, neuroscience, and biomolecular sciences.

The UK Digital Curation Centre (DCC) supports UK institutions that store, manage, and preserve scientific data, helping to ensure their enhancement and their continuing long-term use. The DCC has recently become the UK member organization of CODATA, the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology.

See: 4th International Digital Curation Conference

December 3, 2008

Source: Karl Rabe/Poughkeepsie Journal Marc Levy at the State University of New York at New Paltz December 2, speaking on links between climate and world security.

CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy was at the State University of New York, New Paltz, the evening of December 2 to speak about climate change and world security. The event was sponsored by the Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach; the World Affairs Council of the Mid-Hudson Valley; and the Gillespie Forum. Pointing to CIESIN-made maps of socioeconomic and environmental data to visualize his subject, Levy noted that the erratic nature of climate change made it easy to disrupt the delicate balance for populations already living in vulnerable situations, and possibly give rise to conflict. He said that Sudan’s Darfur conflict coincided with the nation’s most serious drought in centuries. He also discussed security pressures arising from water scarcity and the emergence of new infectious diseases, both of which can be exacerbated by climate change. An organization similar to the International Monetary Fund should be set up, Levy said, in order to monitor and respond to the environmental impacts on human security.

See: Full Story
       SUNY-New Paltz Article

November 24, 2008

CIESIN hosted a two-day workshop for the Earth Institute Cross-Cutting Initiative on Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and Urbanization in Modern China, November 20–21. This study is led by Andrew Moran, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Susana Adamo, associate research scientist with the Science Applications Division at CIESIN. The project involves the development of a computer model that simulates rural to urban migration, and the national-scale health consequences among permanent urban migrants of changing to higher calorie-, higher fat-diet, and to lower physical activity. CIESIN is providing data and methodological expertise on the spatial distribution of populations, and thus changes in the population CVD risk, in light of North-South, rural-urban, and urban-urban migration trends.

November 21, 2008

The headquarters of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland was the venue for the 15^th meeting of the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis (TGICA) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on November 19-21. CIESIN director Robert Chen attended the meeting in his capacity as co-manager of the IPCC Data Distribution Center (DDC). CIESIN senior staff associate Xiaoshi Xing also participated. Chen and Xing reported on recent work to make available a database on observed climate change impacts, developed by an international team co-led by Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and to develop a new system to encourage submission of new observed impact studies in support of the fifth IPCC assessment. They also contributed to a set of recommendations about the next phase of the TGICA’s work, which will be reconstituted by the new IPCC Bureau in 2009.

See: IPCC Socioeconomic Data Distribution Centre Web site

November 19, 2008

At the fifth plenary meeting of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO-V) in Bucharest, Romania, a proposed set of data sharing guidelines were reviewed and discussed in a special side event held November 18 co-chaired by CIESIN director Robert Chen and prof. Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz of the University of Mississippi and the International Institute for Space Law (IISL). GEO, a major international initiative to develop and implement a Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS), adopted a strong set of data sharing principles in 2005. CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology of the International Council for Science (ICSU), accepted lead responsibility for developing a white paper and proposed guidelines for implementing these principles.

The side event, held in the Romanian Parliament building, drew more than 30 representatives of GEO members and participating organizations. Chen provided an overview of the current status of the data sharing guidelines and a tentative timeline for potential acceptance of the guidelines at the next GEO Ministerial meeting in 2010. Gabrynowicz moderated a panel of experts drawn from several of the GEO cross-cutting committees. She also presented a progress report on data sharing in the Plenary session on November 19.

See: GEO Data Sharing Principles Implementation
       GEO-V plenary

November 14, 2008

Source: IRIN Photo of flooding in Lahore, Pakistan. It was used in one of several simulation scenarios created by CIESIN as part of a day-long exercise for a workshop in Prague October 11-14 on new environment-security linkages.

Governments are increasingly concerned about non-traditional security threats such as climate change, water scarcity, population movement, and emerging infectious disease epidemics. These threats were the focus of the National Defense University's (NDU) Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies Senior Executive Alumni Symposium held in Prague from October 11 through October 14. The symposium was attended by twenty-five high ranking diplomats and military officials from eleven countries.

CIESIN designed and facilitated a one-day simulation exercise in order to expose symposium participants to the complex set of security challenges such events might pose. A series of mock news broadcasts confronted participants with a range of cascading emergencies including a sharp spike in food prices, severe flooding, and the outbreak of a highly contagious new disease. Drawing on its core competence in environmental data integration and visualization, CIESIN developed several regional maps highlighting possible migration routes, disaster vulnerability, and potential spread of the disease outbreak. The simulation allowed participants to reflect on their countries’ preparedness levels and to share management techniques learned from previous emergencies.

The mock news broadcast was produced by CIESIN in collaboration with Columbia University School of Journalism and Modern Metro Studios. This simulation can be run in multiple workshop formats and for longer durations, and is one of a number of educational and training exercises on environment and security linkages currently under development at CIESIN.

November 13, 2008

CIESIN convened members of the User Working Group (UWG) for the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) for a meeting in New York November 13-14 to advise SEDAC on the most pressing needs for new integrated data products, improved data tools and services, and user training and capacity building. Key areas of discussion included the need for more detailed demographic data in gridded forms to support interdisciplinary research and applications and for expanded data and services useful for assessing vulnerability and adaptation to climate change.

On November 13, the UWG discussed African data needs with Pedro Sanchez, head of the Earth Institute's Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program, and reviewed SEDAC's efforts in support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Data Distribution Center (DDC) and the planned Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). UWG members Chris Elvidge of NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center and Dale Quattrochi of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center gave updates on two proposed satellite missions that could significantly improve observations of human-environment interactions. On November 14, the UWG met with James Neal, Columbia’s vice president for Information Services and university librarian, to discuss SEDAC's interactions with the Libraries on long-term digital data stewardship.

The UWG is led by Prof. Harlan Onsrud of the University of Maine and includes leading experts from the social, natural, health, and information sciences. Several representatives from NASA also participated in the meeting.

See: SEDAC User Working Group

October 30, 2008

The use of socioeconomic data for research into climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation assessment was the subject of a presentation given by CIESIN senior staff Associate Alex de Sherbinin at the 3rd NCAR Community Workshop on GIS in Weather, Climate, and Impacts. The workshop, held October 27-29 in Boulder, Colorado, focused on the integration of socioeconomic data with weather and climate data via GIS applications. It brought together 65 experts from the climate, meteorological, GIS, and social science communities.

See: NCAR Weather, Climate, and Impacts Workshop
       Socioeconomic Data for Climate Change Impacts Presentation

October 23, 2008

CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert R. Downs has received the 2008 Peer-Recognition Software Reuse award, given by the NASA ESDS Software Reuse Working Group during the 7th Joint Earth Science Data Systems Working Group Meeting held October 21–23 in Philadelphia. The award was made in the category of Peer-Education, in recognition of Downs’ contributions to education and public outreach on the reuse of software by the Earth science data community. Downs has co-authored numerous papers on the subject; contributed to studies, documentation, and development of protocols; and participated actively in all stages of development of the working group’s Web site.

See: 2008 Peer Recognition Award Recipients

October 20, 2008

Research into the human factors that affect emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) will continue as part of a new four-year award to CIESIN and the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM), from the National Science Foundation’s Human and Social Dynamics program (award 0826840). This interdisciplinary study will integrate global-scale socioeconomic and environmental data sets with biogeographic data on wildlife, human and livestock populations, and pathogen distributions. The integrated data collection will be used as a basis for developing spatial mathematical models to identify and predict areas with high potential for disease emergence at local scales and for pandemic (global) spread. CIESIN’s project will be led by deputy director Marc Levy and associate research scientist Susana Adamo. This project represents a deepening of the collaboration with CCM, where the team is led by Peter Daszak, building on an exploratory NSF grant (award 0525130) to the two organizations. The first study established that EIDs are on the rise and that zoonoses—diseases from wildlife—are the prime threat; the February 2008 publication in Nature summarized those results.

See: Human-Related Factors Affecting Emerging Infectious Diseases (Abstract)

October 13, 2008

Source: KPI CODATA’s newly re-elected secretary general, Robert Chen (right), with Gordon Wood, CODATA vice president.

CIESIN director Robert Chen was re-elected to a second four-year term as secretary general of CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology of the International Council for Science (ICSU), at the organization’s 26th General Assembly in Kyiv, Ukraine October 9–10. A major role of the CODATA secretary general is oversight of the activities of CODATA’s Secretariat, which is based at the ICSU offices in Paris. The secretary general also helps to manage CODATA task groups and working groups, which tap experts from around the world to tackle pressing scientific data issues across a wide range of disciplines. During his initial term, Chen led the development of a strategic plan for CODATA and coordinated its efforts to develop implementation guidelines for the Data Sharing Principles of the planned Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS).

In conjunction with the General Assembly, Chen also participated actively in the 21st CODATA Conference, which drew some 500 scientists and students to the campus of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute for more than five days of workshops and symposia. He presented papers on CIESIN’s recent work on the International Polar Year (IPY) and GEOSS and on a long-term data archive, and reported on the GEOSS data policy task and the CODATA Global Roads Data Working Group. He also chaired a session on natural disaster data and a round-table discussion on CODATA’s collaboration with other ICSU bodies concerned with Earth and environmental data.

See: CODATA Web site
       CODATA GEOSS paper (PDF 388 KB)
       CODATA2008 WDC paper (PDF 2.51 MB)
       Creating A Trustworthy Digital Repository paper (PDF 838 KB)
       Global Roads Data presentation (PDF 486 KB)

October 8, 2008

Xiaoshi Xing, with Chunzhen Liu, conducts a colloquium on observed climate change impacts.

Xiaoshi Xing, information scientist at CIESIN, together with Chunzhen Liu, a lead author of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), conducted a colloquium in Beijing October 8 on the IPCC Data Distribution Centre (DDC). The colloquium, which took place at the Water Resource Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), focused on observed climate change impacts. Xing described the development of the IPCC observed impacts database and plans for its expansion. Also discussed was a possible workshop on observed impacts at a global or regional level in 2009. About 60 scientists, researchers, and students from diverse backgrounds attended the meeting and engaged in a question-and-answer period with the presenters.

The IPCC DDC is a shared data management operation between the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN; the UK’s British Atmospheric Data Centre; and the World Data Center Climate at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. SEDAC’s section of the DDC provides online access to observed impacts and baseline and scenario data on population, economic development, technology, and natural resources for climate impact assessments.

See: IPCC
       IPC DDC

October 8, 2008

Dr. Liu Chuang receives the 2008 CODATA Prize, symbolized by a reproduction of the Louvre's Winged Victory of Samothrace.

The 2008 CODATA Prize was awarded to Dr. Liu Chuang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the 21st CODATA Conference in Kyiv, Ukraine. The CODATA Prize is given out every other year in recognition of outstanding achievements in the development of data science.

Dr. Liu was recognized for her significant efforts over two decades to open up data access in China, promote data access and capacity building in developing countries, and develop new scientific data products on land use and land cover change. She led the development of the Global Alliance for Enhancing Access to and Application of Scientific Data in Developing Countries (e-SDDC) under the umbrella of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID). She played a lead role in the expansion of the World Data Center System in China and was instrumental in the adoption of open data access policies by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST). She continues to serve as user co-chair of the Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS) of the Committee on Earth Observing Systems (CEOS) and to contribute to other international data initiatives, including CODATA’s Task Group on Preservation and Access to Scientific and Technological Data in Developing Countries, which she co-chaired for the past six years.

Dr. Liu was a staff scientist with CIESIN from 1994 to 1998, where she had lead responsibility for developing CIESIN’s widely-used China Dimensions data collection. When CIESIN relocated to Columbia University in 1998, she returned to China to join the Institute of Geography and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Previous winners of the CODATA Prize include Dr. John Rumble, former CODATA President and former director of the Standard Reference Data Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Prof. Jean Bonnin of the Institute of Physics of the Earth in Strasbourg, France. CODATA is an interdisciplinary committee of the ICSU, with the mission to strengthen international science for the benefit of society by promoting improved scientific and technical data management and use.

October 4, 2008

Deputy director Marc Levy and postdoctoral fellow Sandra Baptista participated in a conference, Tough Choices: Land Use Change Under a Changing Climate, held October 2–3 in Berlin and sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation, German Research Foundation, and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Levy gave a keynote address, “Ecosystem Service Tradeoffs: Global Examples Involving Biodiversity Conservation, Poverty Reduction and Disease Prevention,” which presented the results of two recent research projects that shed light on the nature of difficult tradeoffs among competing ecosystem services. He summarized the findings of a study looking at the relationship between the distribution of human poverty and biodiversity, and of a study identifying driving forces (one of which is biodiversity) of emerging infectious diseases. Both studies illustrated the need for more sophisticated approaches to understanding and managing tradeoffs.

Baptista presented a poster, “Climate Hazards and Adaptation to Climate Change in Metropolitan Florianópolis.” The poster details a case study of land use decision making and institutional adaptation to climate variability and change at the local/regional scale in metropolitan Florianópolis, which is situated in the low elevation coastal zone of Santa Catarina State. The study explores how knowledge of local institutions (and their multiscale social and land use contexts) can support cross-site comparisons and can contribute to analyses at broader spatial and organizational scales.

See: Climate Hazards Poster

October 3, 2008

CIESIN will highlight its work on the impacts of climate change, vulnerability to natural disasters, and the sustainability of the Hudson River Watershed, as part of the theme, “Science to Sustain the Planet,” at the annual Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Open House, Saturday, October 4 from 10am to 4pm. The entire Lamont campus will be host to a projected turnout of more than 4,000 teachers, students, parents, and members of the general public from the greater New York metropolitan area. The Open House was started soon after Lamont’s inception in 1949 to communicate current developments in the Earth sciences to the public, and how increased understanding of the Earth helps preserve its future. CIESIN has participated in the Open House annually since 1998. This year CIESIN will feature a new Web portal and interactive mapping tool for the Hudson River watershed, as well as a quiz for students.

See: Open House at LDEO

October 1, 2008

Tan Kun, a graduate student in the School of Environmental Science and Spatial Informatics from the China University of Mining and Technology, will spend about a year in residence as a visiting scholar at CIESIN. Mr. Tan will be working with CIESIN staff to use remote sensing data and image processing techniques to identify and characterize intercity roads and related infrastructure. Accurate data on roads are especially poor in developing countries, but important for both research and applications in a variety of fields such as disaster management, conservation, public health, and development.

September 29, 2008

CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy and senior staff associate Alex de Sherbinin traveled to Beijing for meetings to develop a provincial-level Environmental Performance Index (EPI). The meetings, held September 27 and 28, included an international workshop on environmental performance assessment and side meetings with colleagues from Yale University, with whom CIESIN developed the global EPI; and counterparts at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, a division of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

September 26, 2008

Recent activities by CIESIN staff include participation by senior staff associate Meredith Golden in a consultancy forum,“The Public Health Impacts of Drought: Guidance for State, Local, and Tribal Health Departments,” that was held in Atlanta September 17–19. Sponsored by the NCEH at the CDC in partnership with the EPA, the AWWA, and the NOAA, the forum gathered together more than 30 national experts from a wide range of organizations. Participants offered information and best practices for the development of a guidance document to address the public health impacts of drought.

CIESIN senior digital archivist Robert R. Downs presented a paper co-authored with CIESIN director Robert Chen, “Exploring Collaborative Models for Sustainable Governance of Digital Collections of Scientific Data,” at DAPS ‘08 workshop held September 22 in Baltimore, Maryland. The workshop was given in conjunction with the MSST2008 and supported by the NSF. Later in the week, Chen and geographic information specialist Greg Yetman participated in two meetings concerned with international sharing of remote sensing and other spatial data, held in Boulder September 22–26. In his capacity as secretary-general of the CODATA, Chen presented an update on the development of implementation guidelines for the Data Sharing Principles to the GEO Architecture and Data Committee. Yetman then participated in the kickoff workshop for the second phase of the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP-2), which will demonstrate interoperability between different data systems, analytic services, map clients, and portals. CIESIN plans to provide both data and client services to the pilot effort.

See: GEOSS Workshop Information

September 19, 2008

Deputy director Marc Levy participated in a joint forum, “Managing Natural Resources in Post-Conflict Societies: Lessons in Making the Transition to Peace.” The two-day forum, held at Columbia University on September 17-18, was part of a research project involving the Environmental Law Institute, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the University of Tokyo, and the World Conservation Union. The project seeks to understand how effective natural resource management can assist in peacebuilding. Levy is a member of the project advisory committee and is writing a paper with former CIESIN post-doctoral scholar Christian Webersik, now at the United Nations University in Yokohama, Japan. CIESIN researchers Sandra Baptista, Lauren Berry, and Alex Fischer also participated in the forum. CIESIN served as local host for the forum as part of a broader partnership between UNEP’s Post-Conflict and Natural Disaster Management Branch and the Earth Institute. Within that partnership CIESIN is working with UNEP on graduate training curriculum development, student internships, and other initiatives.

See: Meeting report

September 18, 2008

Staff and students from Brazil's University of Campinas pose with Alex de Sherbinin (back row, 2nd from left) and Susana Adamo (back row, 4th from right).

CIESIN senior staff associate Alex de Sherbinin and associate research scientist Susana Adamo travelled to the University of Campinas (Unicamp) in São Paulo state, Brazil to lead a workshop on spatial data integration September 15-17. The workshop was offered to a group of staff members and graduate students at the university’s Population Studies Unit (NEPO). A variety of data integration methods developed by CIESIN were presented, accompanied by hands-on training exercises using ArcMap and Geoda software packages.

Unicamp is one of the public universities of São Paulo. Created in 1962, its original aim was to promote science education. Unicamp is now responsible for about 15% of all Brazilian research.

See: University of Campinas
       NEPO

September 12, 2008

Human activities have contributed to habitat loss for a large number of species worldwide. In response, species mapping has become an increasingly important tool for conservation priority-setting and ecological modeling. Now a consortium of conservation organizations—NatureServe, IUCN, Conservation International, and World Wildlife Fund-USA—has developed a vast digital library of the distribution of birds and mammals of the Americas and amphibians of the world. To make these data more useful for a wide range of applications, CIESIN’s NASA-funded Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) converted the entire collection of shapefiles to raster format at 1-km grid-cell resolution. Basic or advanced searches may be undertaken for species in each of the three classes—amphibia, aves, and mammalia—using any number of criteria including class, family, genus, and endangerment status according to the IUCN Red List. Users may download the search results as zip files, with a readme file explaining how to use the data and a full metadata record of each of the data sets bundled in the file. The Web site provides the original vector data (in ESRI shape file format), the original grids (a raster version of the vector data), and presence grids (raster data depicting the presence or absence for each species). The grids are distributed in GeoTIFF format. In addition, SEDAC has created “richness grids” that describe the number of species by class and family found in each grid cell. Data sets include:

• 5,810 species of amphibia
• 4,166 species of aves
• 1,716 species of mammalia

Users may download maps showing species richness at continental and global scales for each of the three classes.

See: Species Distribution Grids Web site

September 10, 2008

Sandra Baptista, a new Earth Institute postdoctoral fellow, has begun a two-year appointment at CIESIN. Baptista plans to expand on her doctoral research on demographic change, urbanization, vegetation dynamics, and environmental governance in southern Brazil, including the examination of vulnerabilities and adaptation to climate change in Brazil’s coastal city-regions. She will also provide scientific expertise on the integration of social science, ecological, and remote sensing data to the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) hosted by CIESIN. Her master’s and PhD degrees are in geography from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; and she received an interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and Portuguese and Brazilian studies from Brown University.

September 4, 2008

CIESIN senior staff associate Alex de Sherbinin gave a presentation, “Designing A Data Commons for Sustainability Science: Lessons Learned from a World Data Center,” at the InterAcademy Panel Workshop on Open Access to Scientific Literature and Other Digital Scientific Information Resources in Central America and the Caribbean offered September 3–4 in Havana, Cuba. The workshop focused on providing greater access to scientific information and data over the Internet in ways that benefit sustainable development. Representatives from the Cuban Academy of Sciences and other academies in the region were present, together with representatives of the Science Commons and other international participants in the growing area of the “information commons.”

See: Presentation
       Workshop Program