The Center for International Earth Science Information Network would like to share the following updates:
Meeting and Workshop Activities
- “Towards the Next Generation of Air Quality Monitoring,” held October 4–5 in Seoul, South Korea, convened leading experts in monitoring and measurement of key pollutants—particulate matter, ozone, persistent organic pollutants, and mercury—to discuss strategies for building more effective monitoring systems. The workshop was sponsored by CIESIN with the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP) and the Asian Institute for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (AIEES) of Seoul National University.
- A user workshop led by CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin, “Data Gaps for Research and Action on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts, and Adaptation,” was held June 1 in Tucson, Arizona, immediately following the Adaptation Futures Conference . Approximately 50 participants from around the world participated in the workshop, which was organized by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) jointly with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation (PROVIA) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (UNU-IHDP).
- · A one-day conference, “Identifying Lessons for Natural Resources Management in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding,” was organized at Columbia University April 25 by CIESIN, the Advanced Consortium for Conflict, Cooperation and Complexity (AC4), the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, and the Earth Institute, in partnership with the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), McGill University and University of Tokyo. The conference was based on a six-volume book series recently published by ELI, UNEP, McGill and University of Tokyo.
Educational Activities
- For the fall 2012 semester CIESIN staff are teaching at Columbia University’s Columbia College, the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the Mailman School of Public Health, and the School of Continuing Education in conjunction with the Earth Institute. Courses include GIS for Sustainable Development, part of a popular two-semester sequence; the Demography of Human Population; Environment, Conflict and Resolution Strategies; Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for International Studies; GIS for Public Health; and GIS for Sustainability Management.
Other news
- CIESIN associate director for geospatial applications, Mark Becker, has been appointed to the Advisory Board of Lehman College's Master of Science in Geographic Information Science (MS-GISc) program. The board, which includes members from the geospatial industry, private sector consulting firms, not–for-profit groups, academic research institutes, and governmental agencies, is expected to guide curriculum, the internship experience, and the program’s research directions.
- CIESIN senior research associate Alex de Sherbinin has been appointed an honorary Fellow of the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). This recognition is related to Alex’s work on the Natural Resource Management Index (NRMI), which includes the eco-region protection indicator. This indicator relies heavily on UNEP-WCMC's World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA).
- CIESIN director Robert Chen has recently begun a three-year term as a member of the Science Advisory Board of the Climate Change Science Institute (CCSI) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The CCSI brings together more than 100 ORNL staff from two divisions to advance understanding of the Earth system, describe the consequences of climate change, and evaluate and inform policy on the outcomes of climate change responses.
- CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy has been appointed to the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Measuring Sustainability. The Council works with the Forum to incubate initiatives advancing global capabilities for measuring sustainability, and to frame related public dialogues.