Paper by Tendai Musvuugwa, Muxe Gladmond Dlomu and Adekunle Adebowale: “Despite best efforts, the loss of biodiversity has continued at a pace that constitutes a major threat to the efficient functioning of ecosystems. Curbing the loss of biodiversity and assessing its local and global trends requires a vast amount of datasets from a variety of sources. Although the means for generating, aggregating and analyzing big datasets to inform policies are now within the reach of the scientific community, the data-driven nature of a complex multidisciplinary field such as biodiversity science necessitates an overarching framework for engagement. In this review, we propose such a schematic based on the life cycle of data to interrogate the science. The framework considers data generation and collection, storage and curation, access and analysis and, finally, communication as distinct yet interdependent themes for engaging biodiversity science for the purpose of making evidenced-based decisions. We summarize historical developments in each theme, including the challenges and prospects, and offer some recommendations based on best practices….(More)”.
Mapping Africa’s Buildings with Satellite Imagery
Google AI Blog: “An accurate record of building footprints is important for a range of applications, from population estimation and urban planning to humanitarian response and environmental science. After a disaster, such as a flood or an earthquake, authorities need to estimate how many households have been affected. Ideally there would be up-to-date census information for this, but in practice such records may be out of date or unavailable. Instead, data on the locations and density of buildings can be a valuable alternative source of information.
A good way to collect such data is through satellite imagery, which can map the distribution of buildings across the world, particularly in areas that are isolated or difficult to access. However, detecting buildings with computer vision methods in some environments can be a challenging task. Because satellite imaging involves photographing the earth from several hundred kilometres above the ground, even at high resolution (30–50 cm per pixel), a small building or tent shelter occupies only a few pixels. The task is even more difficult for informal settlements, or rural areas where buildings constructed with natural materials can visually blend into the surroundings. There are also many types of natural and artificial features that can be easily confused with buildings in overhead imagery.
In “Continental-Scale Building Detection from High-Resolution Satellite Imagery”, we address these challenges, using new methods for detecting buildings that work in rural and urban settings across different terrains, such as savannah, desert, and forest, as well as informal settlements and refugee facilities. We use this building detection model to create the Open Buildings dataset, a new open-access data resource containing the locations and footprints of 516 million buildings with coverage across most of the African continent. The dataset will support several practical, scientific and humanitarian applications, ranging from disaster response or population mapping to planning services such as new medical facilities or studying human impact on the natural environment….(More)”.
Crowdsourced Sensor Data Powers Smoke Map
OpenGov: “The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) have released updates to the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map to help protect communities from the effects of wildfire smoke. Started as a pilot project last year, the map pulls data from three sources: temporary monitors such as those the Forest Service and other agencies have deployed near fires; crowdsourced data from nearly 10,000 low-cost sensors nationwide that measure fine particle pollution, the major harmful pollutant in smoke; and monitors that regularly report to AirNow, EPA’s one-stop source for air quality data.
The agencies announced improvements to the map, including a dashboard that gives users quick access to information that can help them plan their outdoor activities, the current Air Quality Index (AQI) category at the monitor or sensor location, data showing whether air quality is improving or worsening, and information about actions to consider taking based on the AQI.
EPA and USFS developed the map-pilot to provide information on fire locations, smoke plumes and air quality in one place. It had more than 7.4 million views in its first three months. The map imports data from almost 10,000 sensors from an air quality sensor network that crowdsources data on particle pollution, providing real-time measurement of air quality on a public map. This was a logical addition to two other projects already underway.
The extra data points the sensors provided proved useful in characterising air quality during the 2020 fire season, and we had positive reception from state, local and tribal air agency partners, and from the public. The map is intended for individuals to use in making decisions about outdoor activities based on air quality, but the unique fire, smoke and concentration data can help increase awareness of the significant impacts of wildfires across all levels of government — federal, state, local and tribal — and provide a valuable tool to assist agencies as they work to protect public health from wildfire smoke during these emergencies….(More)”.
Have behavioral sciences delivered on their promise to influence environmental policy and conservation practice?
Paper by Maria Alejandra Velez and Lina Moros: “After four decades of refining our understanding of decision-making processes, a form of consensus has developed around the crucial role that behavioral science can play in changing non-cooperative decisions and promoting pro-environmental behaviors. However, has behavioral science delivered on its promise to influence environmental policy and conservation practice? We discuss key lessons coming from studies into the dual process theory of thinking and the presence of cognitive biases, social norms and intrinsic motivations. We then discuss the empirical findings by reviewing relevant research published over the past five years, and identify emerging lessons. Recent studies focus on providing feedback, manipulating framing, using green nudges, or activating social norms on urban contexts, mainly energy and water. Interventions are needed in the context of common pool resources in the global south. We end by discussing the great potential for scaling-up programs and interventions, but there are still challenges for research and practice….(More)”
Fighting Climate Change: The Role of Norms, Preferences, and Moral Values
Paper by Armin Falk: “We document individual willingness to fight climate change and its behavioral determinants in a large representative sample of US adults. Willingness to fight climate change – as measured through an incentivized donation decision – is highly heterogeneous across the population. Individual beliefs about social norms, economic preferences such as patience and altruism, as well as universal moral values positively predict climate preferences. Moreover, we document systematic misperceptions of prevalent social norms. Respondents vastly underestimate the prevalence of climate- friendly behaviors and norms among their fellow citizens. Providing respondents with correct information causally raises individual willingness to fight climate change as well as individual support for climate policies. The effects are strongest for individuals who are skeptical about the existence and threat of global warming…(More)”.
Realtime Climate
Climate Central …:”launched this tool to help meteorologists and journalists cover connections between weather, news, and climate in real time, and to alert public and private organizations and individuals about particular local conditions related to climate change, its impacts, or its solutions.
Realtime Climate monitors local weather and events across the U.S. and generates alerts when certain conditions are met or expected. These alerts provide links to science-based analyses and visualizations—including locality-specific, high-quality graphics—that can help explain events in the context of climate change….
Alerts are sent when particular conditions occur or are forecast to occur in the next few days. Examples include:
- Unusual heat (single day and multi-day)
- Heat Index
- Unusual Rainfall
- Coastal Flooding
- Air Quality
- Allergies
- Seasonal shifts (spring leaf-out, etc.)
- Ice/snow cover (Great Lakes)
- Cicadas
- High local or regional production of solar or wind energy
More conditions will be added soon, including:
- Drought
- Wildfire
- and many more…(More)”.
How volunteer observers can help protect biodiversity
The Economist: “Ecology lends itself to being helped along by the keen layperson perhaps more than any other science. For decades, birdwatchers have recorded their sightings and sent them to organisations like Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, or the Audubon society in America, contributing precious data about population size, trends, behaviour and migration. These days, any smartphone connected to the internet can be pointed at a plant to identify a species and add a record to a regional data set.
Social-media platforms have further transformed things, adding big data to weekend ecology. In 2002, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York created eBird, a free app available in more than 30 languages that lets twitchers upload and share pictures and recordings of birds, labelled by time, location and other criteria. More than 100m sightings are now uploaded annually, and the number is growing by 20% each year. In May the group marked its billionth observation. The Cornell group also runs an audio library with 1m bird calls, and the Merlin app, which uses eBird data to identify species from pictures and descriptions….(More)”.
Help us identify how data can make food healthier for us and the environment
The GovLab: “To make food production, distribution, and consumption healthier for people, animals, and the environment, we need to redesign today’s food systems. Data and data science can help us develop sustainable solutions — but only if we manage to define those questions that matter.
Globally, we are witnessing the damage that unsustainable farming practices have caused on the environment. At the same time, climate change is making our food systems more fragile, while the global population continues to rapidly increase. To feed everyone, we need to become more sustainable in our approach to producing, consuming, and disposing of food.
Policymakers and stakeholders need to work together to reimagine food systems and collectively make them more resilient, healthy, and inclusive.
Data will be integral to understanding where failures and vulnerabilities exist and what methods are needed to rectify them. Yet, the insights generated from data are only as good as the questions they seek to answer. To become smarter about current and future food systems using data, we need to ask the right questions first.
That’s where The 100 Questions Initiative comes in. It starts from the premise that to leverage data in a responsible and effective manner, data initiatives should be driven by demand, not supply. Working with a global cohort of experts, The 100 Questions seeks to map the most pressing and potentially impactful questions that data and data science can answer.
Today the Barilla Foundation, the Center for European Policy Studies, and The Governance Lab at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, are announcing the launch of the Food Systems Sustainability domain of The 100 Questions. We seek to identify the 10 most important questions that need to be answered to make food systems more sustainable…(More)”.
Deepfake Maps Could Really Mess With Your Sense of the World
Will Knight at Wired: “Satellite images showing the expansion of large detention camps in Xinjiang, China, between 2016 and 2018 provided some of the strongest evidence of a government crackdown on more than a million Muslims, triggering international condemnation and sanctions.
Other aerial images—of nuclear installations in Iran and missile sites in North Korea, for example—have had a similar impact on world events. Now, image-manipulation tools made possible by artificial intelligence may make it harder to accept such images at face value.
In a paper published online last month, University of Washington professor Bo Zhao employed AI techniques similar to those used to create so-called deepfakes to alter satellite images of several cities. Zhao and colleagues swapped features between images of Seattle and Beijing to show buildings where there are none in Seattle and to remove structures and replace them with greenery in Beijing.
Zhao used an algorithm called CycleGAN to manipulate satellite photos. The algorithm, developed by researchers at UC Berkeley, has been widely used for all sorts of image trickery. It trains an artificial neural network to recognize the key characteristics of certain images, such as a style of painting or the features on a particular type of map. Another algorithm then helps refine the performance of the first by trying to detect when an image has been manipulated….(More)”.
Establishing a Data Trust: From Concept to Reality
Blog by Stefaan Verhulst, Aditi Ramesh & Andrew Young, Peter Rabley & Christopher Keefe: “As ever-more areas of our public and private lives succumb to a process of datafication, it is becoming increasingly urgent to find new ways of managing the data lifecycle: how data is collected, stored, used, and reused. In particular, legacy notions of control and data access need to be reimagined for the twenty-first century, in ways that give more prominence to the public good and common interests – in a manner that is responsible and sustainable. That is particularly true for mapping data which is why The GovLab and FutureState, with the support of The Rockefeller Foundation, are partnering with PLACE to assist them in designing a new operational and governance approach for creating, storing and accessing mapping data: a Data Trust.
PLACE is a non-profit formed out of a belief that mapping data is an integral part of the modern digital ecosystem and critical to unlocking economic, social and environmental opportunities for sustainable and equitable growth, development and climate resiliency; however, this data is not available or affordable in too many places around the world. PLACE’s goal is to bridge this part of the digital divide.
Five key considerations inform the design of such a new framework:
- Governing Data as a Commons: The work of Elinor Ostrom (among others) has highlighted models that go beyond private ownership and management. As a non-excludable and non-rivalrous asset, data fits this model well: one entity’s control or “ownership” of data doesn’t limit another entity’s (non-excludable); and one entity’s consumption or use of data doesn’t prevent another entity from similarly doing so (non-rivalrous). A new framework for governance would emphasize the central role of “data as a commons.”
- Avoiding a “Tragedy of the Commons”: Any commons is susceptible to a “tragedy of the commons”: a phenomenon in which entities or individuals free-ride on shared resources, depleting their value or usability for all, resulting in a failure to invest in maintenance, improvement and innovation and in the process contributing negatively to the public interest . Any reimagined model for data governance needs to acknowledge this risk, and build in methods and processes to avoid a tragedy of the commons and ensure “data sustainability.” As further described below we believe that sustainability can best be achieved through a membership model.
- Tackling Data Asymmetries and Re-Distribution of Responsibilities: Everyone is a participant in today’s “data commons,” but not all stakeholders benefit equally. One way to ensure the sustainability of a data commons is to require that larger players—e.g., the most profitable platforms, and other entities that disproportionately benefit from network effects—assume greater responsibilities to maintain the commons. These responsibilities can take many forms—financial, technical know-how, regulatory or legal prowess—and will vary by entity and each entity’s specialization. The general idea is that all stakeholders should have equal rights and access—but some will have greater responsibilities and may be required to contribute more.
- Independent Trustees and Strong Engagement: Who should govern the data as a commons? Another way to avoid a tragedy of the commons is to ensure that a clear set of rules, principles and guidelines determine what is acceptable (and not), and what constitutes fair play and reasonable data access and use. These guidelines should be designed and administered by independent trustees, whose responsibilities, powers, terms and selection mechanisms are clearly defined and bounded. The trustees should be drawn from across geographies and sectors, representing as wide a range of interests and expertise as possible.In addition, trustees should steer responsible data access in a manner that is informed by input from experts, stakeholders, data subjects, and intended beneficiaries, using innovative ways of engagement and deliberations.
- Inclusion and Protection: A data trust designed for the commons must “work” for all and especially the most vulnerable and marginalized among us. The identity of some people and communities is inextricably linked to location and, therefore, requires us to be especially mindful of the risks of abuse for such communities. How can we prevent surveillance or bias against indigenous groups, for example? Equally important, how can we empower communities with more understanding of and voice in how data is collected and used about their place? Such communities are front-and-center in the design of the Trust and its governance….(More)”.