When natural disasters hit developing countries, lack of clean water can lead to a health crisis. Instead of responding after the fact, it may be more effective to prepare local communities by providing them with water sanitation kits (WatSan-Kits), along with training in their use.
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.
This article explains the methodology developed by one NASA Applied Sciences DEVELOP team to investigate the use of the CALIPSO lidar (CALIOP) level 2 version 3.01 night-time aerosol products and the HYSPLIT model to monitor aerosols and dispersants over the ocean resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on April 20, 2010.
This article outlines on-going activities involving Canadian RADARSAT as well as other EO satellite data acquisitions to-date over selected Caribbean sites in British Virgin Islands (BVI), Grenada, Jamaica and St. Lucia that are engaged in coastal disaster management and emergency response. It highlights some image maps and information products that were produced as part of several trials during the 2010 hurricane season. From this trial phase, the participants expect constructive feedback and further improvements, particularly with regard to operational usefulness of detailed EO satellite data.
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.
Earthzine Issues Call for Papers on Disaster Management 21 December 2010 – 20 March 2011.Theme issue focuses on improving our understanding and management of natural and human-induced disasters, from the factors at their inception to the process of recovery and rehabilitation.
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.
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.
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.
