The United Nations General Assembly has officially declared 2011 as The International Year of Forests, to encourage awareness and discussion about management and preservation of the world’s forests. Find out about a celebration near you.
Earthzine.org is soliciting articles of 800-3,000 words for its 3rd Quarter Theme Issue on Urban Monitoring. About half of the planet’s 6.6 billion people now live in urban areas, which occupy less than 3% of the land area. By the year 2025, the global population is expected to reach 8 billion, of which 5 billion are expected to reside in urban areas. Now is an opportune time to examine trends and developments in urban monitoring.
In Portugal, the fire season of 2003 was the worst on record. Satellite imagery was used to study the post-fire vegetation response. The results contribute to our understanding of the impact of management strategies and can ultimately improve allocation of firefighting resources.
What’s the difference between drought duration and magnitude, and what methods can be used to plan for dry periods in drought-stricken areas? This paper analyzes research done in the Tel watershed of Odisha, India.
This article focuses on a NASA Applied Sciences National DEVELOP assistance to the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management (NCDCM) with the assessment of coastline changes and habitat loss in coastal wetlands utilizing satellite remote sensing. The Hyde, Tyrrell, and Dare counties in eastern North Carolina occupy the coastlines of the Albemarle and Pamlico Sound estuaries. The Pamlico Sound is the largest estuarine lagoon along the East coast of the United States.
The Biodiversity Information and Monitoring System for Northern Portugal (SIMBioN) is a regional initiative in support of GEO and GEOSS that aims to harmonize processes; standardize data collection, systematization and flows; create a collaborative structure that promotes capacity building and normative support; and promotes organizational dynamics that allow information dissemination and help ensure the fulfillment of institutional, political and reporting commitments.
Using the latest technologies to take highly accurate measurements of the Earth’s ice sheets collected on expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica, scientists with NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge are currently working to improve the models polar scientists around the world rely on for predictions about the future of sea level rise. This article shows how these models will provide the science to enable establishment of realistic and effective climate change policies that will not only help to lessen the effect humans are having on the climate, but also prepare us for the changes that are already coming.
In 1972, Gregory Bateson introduced a theory that proposed the need to change not just our actions, but our thoughts as well—to think about how we think. This essay proposes “ecology of mind” as a means to focus and invigorate public awareness and action to avert the ecological crises facing the world’s population.
The authors of this article present an overview of their research to develop a forest carbon monitoring system prototype in Borneo to contribute to the Forest Carbon Tracking task of GEOSS.
Mr. Arjun Thapan is Special Senior Advisor to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) President for Infrastructure and Water. ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. In this opinion essay, he discusses Asia’s impending water crisis, exacerbated not just by the environmental consequences of economic and population growth, but now also by climate change.
