Developing a forest data portal to support multi-scale decision making

Forests play a pivotal role in timber production, maintenance and development of biodiversity and in carbon sequestration and storage in the context of the Kyoto Protocol. Policy makers and forest experts therefore require reliable information on forest extent, type and change for management, planning and modeling purposes. It is becoming increasingly clear that such forest information is frequently inconsistent and unharmonised between countries and continents. This research paper presents a forest information portal that has been developed in line with the GEOSS and INSPIRE frameworks. The web portal provides access to forest resources data at a variety of spatial scales, from global through to regional and local, as well as providing analytical capabilities for monitoring and validating forest change. The system also allows for the utilisation of forest data and processing services within other thematic areas. The web portal has been developed using open standards to facilitate accessibility, interoperability and data transfer

Seafloor characterization using airborne hyperspectral co-registration procedures independent from attitude and positioning sensors

The advance of remote-sensing technology and data-storage capabilities has progressed in the last decade to commercial multi-sensor data collection. There is a constant need to characterize, quantify and monitor the coastal areas for habitat research and coastal management. In this paper, we present work on seafloor characterization that uses hyperspectral imagery (HSI). The HSI data allows the operator to extend seafloor characterization from multibeam backscatter towards land and thus creates a seamless ocean-to-land characterization of the littoral zone

Architecture of Environmental Risk Modelling: for a faster and more robust response to natural disasters

Demands on the disaster response capacity of the European Union are likely to increase, as the impacts of disasters continue to grow both in size and frequency. This has resulted in intensive research on issues concerning spatially-explicit information and modelling and their multiple sources of uncertainty. Geospatial support is one of the forms of assistance frequently required by emergency response centres along with hazard forecast and event management assessment. Robust modelling of natural hazards requires dynamic simulations under an array of multiple inputs from different sources. Uncertainty is associated with meteorological forecast and calibration of the model parameters. Software uncertainty also derives from the data transformation models (D-TM) needed for predicting hazard behaviour and its consequences. On the other hand, social contributions have recently been recognized as valuable in raw-data collection and mapping efforts traditionally dominated by professional organizations. Here an architecture overview is proposed for adaptive and robust modelling of natural hazards, following the Semantic Array Programming paradigm to also include the distributed array of social contributors called Citizen Sensor in a semantically-enhanced strategy for D-TM modelling. The modelling architecture proposes a multicriteria approach for assessing the array of potential impacts with qualitative rapid assessment methods based on a Partial Open Loop Feedback Control (POLFC) schema and complementing more traditional and accurate a-posteriori assessment. We discuss the computational aspect of environmental risk modelling using array-based parallel paradigms on High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms, in order for the implications of urgency to be introduced into the systems (Urgent-HPC).Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, 1 text box, presented at the 3rd Conference of Computational Interdisciplinary Sciences (CCIS 2014), Asuncion, Paragua

Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) Partnership’s work in Latin America

The Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) Partnership is a private-public collaboration led by USAID, which aims to increase resilience to climate change in developing countries through the development and dissemination of climate services. The partnership began with initial projects in three countries: Colombia, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) was the lead organization for the Colombian CSRD efforts – which then expanded to encompass work in the whole Latin American region

Indigenous voices in climate change adaptation

AbstractThis project investigated how the deep knowledge of the Yorta Yorta people can be used to strengthen their participation and influence in the complex national and regional processes that determine how their traditional lands, which are in the highly-contested Murray-Darling Basin, are managed, leading to improved adaptation decisions both for the Yorta Yorta and the wider community.Through discussions with the Yorta Yorta over several years, the approach developed for the project was the creation of a Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping framework containing both Yorta Yorta knowledge and more conventional knowledge. GIS allows for mapping and layering of different types of data, allowing the Yorta Yorta to access and present their knowledge in ways that relate to Western decision-making processes. To do this, the project had four components:1. Development and testing of protocols and methodology for the collection and protection of Yorta Yorta knowledge. This was carried out through an intergenerational process, whereby Yorta Yorta youth were trained in cultural data collection techniques, and they interviewed Elders to capture the knowledge.2. Building of a GIS framework to integrate both the Yorta Yorta knowledge and more conventional data about the climate, hydrology and biodiversity of the Yorta Yorta area. For the first time this pulled together all of the conventional information normally used as a basis for natural resource management decisions. In addition, because the GIS database has been created and is owned by the Yorta Yorta means that they have something of value to bring to the discussions, so that they are able to participate in those discussions on equal terms.3. Exploration of the views of the broader community in the region regarding management of the region and adaptation alternatives through a stakeholder consultation process. The consultation identified the potential for greater use of science as a neutral arbiter in issues such as management of the Murray-Darling Basin, but even more important is the need for genuine, deep, open-minded dialogue with the community at all stages of decision-making, particularly at an early stage before proposals are put forward and views become entrenched.4. Identification of broader lessons for improving adaptation of First Nations communities in Australia from the experience of the Yorta Yorta and other communities around the country, through a national workshop. The key conclusion of the workshop was the urgent need to empower First Nation communities to make their own assessments and decisions on the best ways for them to respond to climate change.The project raised community awareness and knowledge and energised the Yorta Yorta youth to take an interest in their history and culture, and in the climate challenges facing their community. Overall the project has been a successful pilot demonstration of the utility of a GIS database to integrate Indigenous and conventional knowledge for better natural resource management outcomes and the project has increased the knowledge and capacity of the Yorta Yorta to engage in effective natural resource management and decision-making.Please cite this report as:Griggs, D, Lynch, A, Joachim, L, Zhu, X, Adler, C, Bischoff-Mattson, Z, Wang, P, Kestin, T 2013  Indigenous voices in climate change adaptation: Addressing the challenges of diverse knowledge systems in the Barmah-Millewa, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp.71AbstractThis project investigated how the deep knowledge of the Yorta Yorta people can be used to strengthen their participation and influence in the complex national and regional processes that determine how their traditional lands, which are in the highly-contested Murray-Darling Basin, are managed, leading to improved adaptation decisions both for the Yorta Yorta and the wider community.Through discussions with the Yorta Yorta over several years, the approach developed for the project was the creation of a Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping framework containing both Yorta Yorta knowledge and more conventional knowledge. GIS allows for mapping and layering of different types of data, allowing the Yorta Yorta to access and present their knowledge in ways that relate to Western decision-making processes. To do this, the project had four components:Development and testing of protocols and methodology for the collection and protection of Yorta Yorta knowledge. This was carried out through an intergenerational process, whereby Yorta Yorta youth were trained in cultural data collection techniques, and they interviewed Elders to capture the knowledge.Building of a GIS framework to integrate both the Yorta Yorta knowledge and more conventional data about the climate, hydrology and biodiversity of the Yorta Yorta area. For the first time this pulled together all of the conventional information normally used as a basis for natural resource management decisions. In addition, because the GIS database has been created and is owned by the Yorta Yorta means that they have something of value to bring to the discussions, so that they are able to participate in those discussions on equal terms.Exploration of the views of the broader community in the region regarding management of the region and adaptation alternatives through a stakeholder consultation process. The consultation identified the potential for greater use of science as a neutral arbiter in issues such as management of the Murray-Darling Basin, but even more important is the need for genuine, deep, open-minded dialogue with the community at all stages of decision-making, particularly at an early stage before proposals are put forward and views become entrenched.Identification of broader lessons for improving adaptation of First Nations communities in Australia from the experience of the Yorta Yorta and other communities around the country, through a national workshop. The key conclusion of the workshop was the urgent need to empower First Nation communities to make their own assessments and decisions on the best ways for them to respond to climate change.The project raised community awareness and knowledge and energised the Yorta Yorta youth to take an interest in their history and culture, and in the climate challenges facing their community. Overall the project has been a successful pilot demonstration of the utility of a GIS database to integrate Indigenous and conventional knowledge for better natural resource management outcomes and the project has increased the knowledge and capacity of the Yorta Yorta to engage in effective natural resource management and decision-making

European Arctic Initiatives Compendium

Julkaistu versi

The State of Adaptation in the United States: An Overview

Over the past two decades the adaptation landscape has changed dramatically. From its early days as a vague theoretical concept, which was often viewed as a threat to advocating for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it has developed into a widely, albeit not universally, recognized governmental mandate to reduce societal vulnerability to climate change. While it is important to appreciate the progress that we are making on this issue, it is impossible to ignore the urgent need to do more. Smart investment can be made by reflecting on what is already underway in order to determine where to build on existing efforts and where to innovate new approaches to fill the gaps in the path forward. In this report we provide illustrative examples of the variety of work on climate change adaptation that is underway in the United States. This is by no means an exhaustive survey of the field; however it does provide insight into the dominant focus of work to date, the resultant gaps, and the opportunities available for advancing this essential aspect of sustainability. We focus on four areas of activity -- agriculture, natural resources, human communities, and policy. The general trends relevant to these sectors can be applied more broadly to other sectors and countries. Adaptation can be thought of as a cycle of activities that ultimately -- if successful -- reduces vulnerability to climate change. This process starts with identifying the impacts of climate change to determine the types of problems climate change might pose. This includes all of the research on the causes and the global, regional, and local manifestations of climate change, often referred to as impacts assessments

Institutions for Climate Adaptation: An Inventory of Institutions in the Netherlands that are Relevant for Climate Change

One of the goals of project IC12, a research project of the Climate changes Spatial Planning programme, is to assess if the formal institutions operating in the Netherlands are improving or hampering adaptive capacity. In order to answer the research question, the most important documents referring to those institutions need to be evaluated. This document presents an initial inventory of these adaptation institutions – i.e. policy plans, laws and directives, reports and other documents that seemed relevant to the question at hand