Author Archives: codata_blog

May 2020: Publications in the Data Science Journal


Title: Alter-Value in Data Reuse: Non-Designated Communities and Creative Processes
Author: Guillaume Boutard
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-023

Title: Virtual European Solar & Planetary Access (VESPA): A Planetary Science Virtual Observatory Cornerstone
Author:S. Erard, B. Cecconi, P. Le Sidaner, C. Chauvin, A. P. Rossi, M. Minin, T. Capria, S. Ivanovski, B. Schmitt, V. Génot, N. André, C. Marmo, A. C. Vandaele, L. Trompet, M. Scherf, R. Hueso, A. Määttänen, B. Carry, N. Achilleos, J. Soucek, D. Pisa, K. Benson, P. Fernique, E. Millour
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-022
Title: EVER-EST: The Platform Allowing Scientists to Cross-Fertilize and Cross-Validate Data
Author: Mirko Albani, Rosemarie Leone, Federica Foglini, Francesco De Leo, Fulvio Marelli, Iolanda Maggio
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-021
Title: ESA EO Data Preservation System
Author: Mirko Albani, Michel Douzal, Domenico Castrovillari, Paolo Boezi, Daniele Iozzino, Iolanda Maggio
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-020
Title: Use of Available Data To Inform The COVID-19 Outbreak in South Africa: A Case Study
Author: Vukosi Marivate, Herkulaas MvE Combrink
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-019
Title: Persistent Identification of Instruments
Author: Markus Stocker , Louise Darroch, Rolf Krahl, Ted Habermann, Anusuriya Devaraju, Ulrich Schwardmann, Claudio D’Onofrio, Ingemar Häggström
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-018

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: June 2020 Edition

World Bank: To strengthen climate resilience, countries must strengthen economic resilience
Country-specific reforms need to be at the core of building macro-financial resilience and capacity to deal with climate-related risks. But because there seems to be a positive correlation between macro-financial and climate-related risks, support from the international community is also important. In this update, the World Bank has provided analysis to aid government policies.

WMO: Global partnership urges stronger preparation for hot weather during COVID-19
As the Northern Hemisphere enters what is expected to be another record-breaking heat season, a global network of health and climate experts supported by WMO has called for stronger preparation to keep people safe in hot weather without increasing the risk of the spread of COVID-19.

Advances highlighted in climate risk and early warning systems
As the world continues to manage COVID-19 and looks at ensuring that the recovery addresses climate change threats, the significance of advanced multi-hazard threat warnings and risk information has never been more widely acknowledged.

This is highlighted in the 2019 Annual Report of the Climate Risk & Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative, released jointly by the WMO, the GFDRR, and the UNDRR.

UNDRR: COVID-19 puts human rights of millions at risk
Loretta Hieber Girardet, chief of the UNDRR Asia and the Pacific Regional Office said the office would focus on the impact of emergency measures on freedom of expression, rising xenophobia, human rights of migrants and persons deprived of their liberty.

WMO: updates guidelines on multi-hazard impact-based forecast and warning systems
The World Meteorological Organization is updating its 2015 Guidelines on Multi-Hazard Impact-Based Forecast and Warning Services (IBFWS), which promote best practice in the development of effective hydrometeorological warning systems to improve public safety.

Are we there yet? The transition from response to recovery
As the world transitions to recovering from COVID-19, those developing that recovery need support in adjusting and improving their policies and measures. This paper provides a set of policy directions to be considered during the transition towards, as well as throughout, this transition phase. For a link to the full webinar, head here.

UNDRR Asia-Pacific brief: Business resilience in the face of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating impact on businesses across Asia-Pacific. This brief highlights the challenges businesses face in building their resilience and offers recommendations to business owners and policymakers.

UNU-INWEH: Water and migration: A global overview
This report aims to support the United Nations (UN) and its partners in developing climate-sensitive conflict prevention approaches.

SDSN TReNDS Releases New Report, “Leaving No One Off The Map: A Guide For Gridded Population Data For Sustainable Development”
Drawing from an extensive literature review and interviews with key data providers and users in the POPGRID Data Collaborative, this new report presents an overview, analysis, and recommendations for the use of gridded population datasets in a wide range of application areas, such as in disaster response, health interventions, and survey planning.

Strengthening preparedness for COVID-19 in cities and urban settings
This document is to support local authorities, leaders and policy-makers in cities and other urban settlements in identifying effective approaches and implementing recommended actions that enhance the prevention, preparedness and readiness for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in urban settings, to ensure a robust response and eventual recovery.

UNESCO: How to respond to tsunamis in times of social distancing? Follow the regional guidelines
These guidelines aid to clarify possible confusion generated by COVID-19 sanitary priorities and regulations in regard to response actions during a tsunami warning such as evacuation and sheltering.

Reviewing the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) to Enhance Societal Readiness for El Niño’s Impacts
In this article, it is proposed that the ONI value of 0.7 °C identifies a tipping point at which the El Niño event becomes locked in, which can provide an additional lead time for mitigative actions to be taken by societal decision-makers.

June 9: Could El Niño Long Range Warning System help countries manage the effects of severe weather events?
Currently, many countries are experiencing severe drought. Could the impacts of drought have been minimised with an effective long-range warning system (LRWS)?Join us for a free webinar as we discuss this important matter.

GEO Virtual Symposium 2020 (15-19 June)
The GEO Virtual Symposium 2020 is less than one month away! The schedule of events taking place from June 15-19 has just been released – entirely online.

CODATA: Smart and Sustainable Cities Datathon (Registration ends June 30)
The Smart Datathon will create the environment for early career researchers and data science enthusiasts to create insights and models from extracting and analysing open data sources from various open platforms in order to develop novel solutions that will lead to real-world solutions, benefiting the cities and the society at large.

Webinar: Glacier Loss and the Climate Change Crisis: Evidence from Patagonia and the Last Glacial Maximum (June 16) ​
The Centre for Crisis Studies and Mitigation at The University of Manchester invites you for a virtual session. The talk will be followed by moderated Q&A via Zoom Chat.

Webinar: Disaster Resilient Infrastructure: A Tale of Two Floods (June 23)
The Centre for Crisis Studies and Mitigation at The University of Manchester invites you to a virtual session on how globally rainfall patterns are changing due to climate change, and the major challenges to the resilience infrastructure.

UNESCO Global Consultations on Open Science: deadline 15 June.
Are you a scientist, a publisher, a science policymaker or someone with experience and interest in Open Science? Your input is important to the UNESCO process. Please participate in the survey designed to collect inputs for the development of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

A CODATA Connect Webinar on “Data Science Enlightening the Path for Resilient Cities to Fight COVID-19” delivered jointly by Mahesh Harhare and Jairo Espinosa

On 11th May 2020, a webinar titled “Data Science Enlightening the Path for Resilient Cities to Fight COVID-19: Case studies from Pune (India) and Medellín (Colombia)” was organized by the CODATA Connect Alumni and Early Career Network. This was the second webinar in the series on Smart and Resilient Cities, while other webinars are planned in the coming months throughout 2020. Dr. Shaily Gandhi of the CODATA Connect introduced the speakers and theme of the webinar series. This time, the webinar had two speakers, namely, Mr. Mahesh Harhare and Dr. Jairo Espinosa. As introduced by the Chair, the speaker, Mr. Harhare is the Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) of the Pune Municipal Corporation in India. He holds M.Tech. in Urban Planning and completed Executive Program in Management from IIM Calcutta. As CRO  for Pune city, he is a part of the Global Resilient Cities Network (GRCN), formerly 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) program of the Rockefeller Foundation. He is also a member of the Global Steering Committee of select 10 CROs (out of total 85 CROs worldwide), who would steer the Phase II of the GRCN program across the world.

In his presentation, Mr. Harhare shared his experience in coronavirus infection management at Pune city. Pune is among the top ten Indian cities in terms of the number of infected persons with COVID-19 or SARS-COV-2. The COVID-19 situation and subsequent countrywide lockdown resulted in a high impact effect on cities’ economies. He further demonstrated how the city administration responded to COVID-19 management with an evidence-based decision making utilizing data science applications. In this presentation, he shared city-level data on COVID-19 positive cases, containment zones, medical facilities for the patients, civic facilities for the migrant labourers, senior and differentially abled citizens, contact tracking for the high-risk and low-risk contacts, and finally the deadbody management strategies. Most of the presented data were drawn as on 24th April 2020.

As introduced by the Chair, the speaker Dr. Jairo J. Espinosa is a Full Professor at the National University of Colombia in Medellín. For many years he served as R&D Manager in IPCOS N.V. company in Belgium. He completed Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. His research interests include large scale control systems, intelligent control, nonlinear modeling, model-based predictive control, inferential sensors, and model reduction techniques.

In his presentation titled “Data Science Enlightening the Path for Resilient Cities to Fight COVID-19: A case study of Medellin”, Dr. Espinosa shared data-driven Medellin’s defence tactics monitoring and prediction models, including on the profile of cases of vulnerabilities, monitoring, estimation and prediction of cases, the case locations, social and economical models, and logistics of local hospitals and healthcare institutions. Sharing the transport network capacity and mobility data, the speaker also demonstrated how the Medellin city prepares to end the lockdown and reopen public transport systems and mobility. He concluded with a statement that without vaccine and antiviral medicine, test, data, and models are our best hope for the moment.

Mr. Felix Emeka Anyiam of the CODATA Connect moderated the Question and Answer session, selecting questions posed by online participants using the webinar question tool. Some of the questions were related to how the city-level administrators are prepared to deal with the social and economic interests of the citizens and industries. During the Q&A Session, Mr. Harhare briefly discussed the Pune smart city project and how it contributed to COVID-19 management in the city. Dr. Espinosa briefly narrated how the city-level administrators in Medellin are managing to protect their high-risk, vulnerable communities, amidst the socio-economic uncertainties.

The session was concluded with a vote of thanks presented by Shaily. She also announced the forthcoming activities of the , which include an  for the CODATA alumni and early career professionals.

Prepared by:
Anup Kumar Das
(Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, anup_csp@jnu.ac.in)

A CODATA Connect Webinar on “Sustainable and Resilient Urban Ecologies: Possible Lessons from Recent Australian Bushfires” by Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson

On 31st March 2020, a webinar titled “Sustainable and Resilient Urban Ecologies: Possible Lessons from Recent Australian Bushfires” was organized by the CODATA Connect Alumni and Early Career Network. Dr. Shaily Gandhi of the CODATA Connect introduced the speaker and theme of the webinar series. This was the first Webinar in the series on Smart and Resilient Cities, while other webinars are planned in the coming months throughout 2020. As introduced, the speaker Ms. Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson is a data and information ethicist passionate about shaping future digital and data infrastructures. Based in Sydney, Australia, she is an active contributor to local and international initiatives to humanize data science. Theresa’s award-winning work as an educator and as a researcher for the past twenty years engages with the ever-evolving relationship between people and emerging technologies through transdisciplinary and value-sensitive lenses. Her scholarly work involves the fundamental concepts of uncertainty, relevance and resilience. Before her academic career, Theresa worked as an analyst in research centres and think tanks. She has also worked as a diplomat and environmental education officer.

Theresa began her talk introducing the Sydney basin, its urban ecology and surrounding ecosystems. Located on the eastern coast, Sydney is the largest metropolitan city in Australia, accommodating about one-fifth of the country’s population. Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world but has third-lowest population density, just under three persons per square kilometer. Sydney’s urban boundary expanded rapidly in the last 100 years to accommodate the country’s growing population. The recent bushfires in the surrounding forests, national parks and peri-urban forests posed much higher risks and uncertainty to the city. Although the Sydney metropolitan area was spared from physical harm, the bushfires led to water stress, drought, a higher level of air pollution, warmer temperature, and other economical-ecological uncertainties to the local communities and city dwellers. Then the speaker talked about the city-level preparedness, resilience, community engagement, and compassionate behaviours of the local community in mitigating the sudden environmental hazards. There were significant instances of community members’ active involvement in the protection of distressed wildlife. Then the speaker presented the visions laid out in the City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy and how the urban and regional communities re-evaluate the meaning of ‘sustainable’ and ‘resilient’ in the changing scenario. Theresa also described a new framework, named the Resilience, Adaptation Pathways and Transformation Approach (RAPTA), which is a guiding principle for designing, implementing, and assessing interventions for sustainable futures, as introduced by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia (CSIRO). The speaker presented a summary of lessons learned; namely, data is never complete, information never certain, but the action is still required; Indecision in light of the indeterminacy of information is a threat to the resilience of urban ecology; Building trust and mitigating risk critical to resilience; and Design WITH the city rather than FOR the city. She also discussed how data and information could play a significant role in tiding over the risks, vulnerability and uncertainties in extreme situations such as the Australian bushfires.

Mr. Felix Emeka Anyiam of the CODATA Connect Group moderated the Question and Answer session and was assigned to obtain questions from the online participants keyed into the webinar question handle.  Some of the questions were related to how the global community would be prepared to deal with such kind of huge risks, vulnerability, and uncertainties. The speaker emphasized community involvement while creating local and national preparedness plans. She mentioned that Data and information governance are also crucial to mitigate such conditions, and Data and information professionals should be handholding with the public policymakers, researchers, and development practitioners in creating sustainable urban futures across the world.

The session was concluded with a vote of thanks presented by Shaily. She also announced the forthcoming activities of the CODATA Connect, which include an Essay Writing Competition on “Open Data Challenges to Address Global and Societal Issues” for the CODATA alumni and early career professionals. 

Prepared by:
Anup Kumar Das & Iris Diana Uy
(Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, anup_csp@jnu.ac.in;
University of the Philippines – Diliman, Philippines, iris.diana.uy@gmail.com)

April 2020: Publications in the Data Science Journal


Title: Correction: ‘Developing a Research Data Policy Framework for All Journals and Publishers
Author: Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Natasha Simons, Azhar Hussain, Rebecca Grant, Simon Goudie
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-017

Title: Developing an Open Data Portal for the ESA Climate Change Initiative
Author: Philip Kershaw, Kevin Halsall, Bryan N. Lawrence, Victoria Bennett, Steve Donegan, Alan Iwi, Martin Juckes, Eduardo Pechorro, Ruth Petrie, Joe Singleton, Ag Stephens, Alison Waterfall, Antony Wilson, Alexander Wood
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-016
Title: Digital Objects – FAIR Digital Objects: Which Services Are Required?
Author: Ulrich Schwardmann
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-015

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: May 2020 Edition

A Data Ecosystem to defeat COVID-19
Bapon Fakhruddin discusses why the COVID-19 pandemic requires thinking and decision making supported by a data ecosystem which looks much further into the future than previous short-term approaches.

In Low-Income Countries Fundamental Data Issues Remain for COVID-19 Response
How are LICs responding to COVID-19 and what are some of the issues we need to bear in mind when using new data sources to respond to the pandemic in these contexts?

In the Fight Against COVID-19: What Do We Know and To Whom Can We Turn For Answers
What do policymakers and the general public need to know about the data available (or lack of) and how can we best remain informed? 

A Blog from ISC-WDS: knowledge service for disaster risk reduction: a practice using big data technology
Under the dual influences of global climate change and human activities, the frequency and the intensity of natural disasters have been growing in recent years, and resulting in increasingly serious disaster losses. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is thus a common and urgent global challenge

Why open science is critical in combatting COVID-19
The OECD is compiling data, analysis and recommendations on a range of topics to address the emerging health, economic and societal crisis, facilitate co-ordination, and contribute to the necessary global action when confronting this enormous collective challenge.

Conflict prevention in the era of climate change: Adapting the UN to climate-security risks
This report aims to support the United Nations (UN) and its partners in developing climate-sensitive conflict prevention approaches.

COVID-19 small business continuity and recovery planning toolkit
The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a vicious circle of vulnerabilities across the private sector. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and partners published a toolkit to provide business continuity and recovery planning support to affected small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

ESCAP: Asia and the Pacific SDG progress report 2020
This report analyses trends as well as data availability for monitoring progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Asia and the Pacific and its five subregions. It assesses gaps which must be closed to achieve the goals by 2030.

UNESCO: World Water Development Report 2020
The 2020 edition of the World Water Development Report (WWDR 2020) entitled ‘Water and Climate Change’ aims at helping the water community to tackle the challenges of climate change and informing the climate change community about the opportunities that improved water management offers in terms of adaptation and mitigation.

Disaster Recovery Framework Guide
This is a revised and updated version of the Disaster Recovery Framework (DRF) guide that was originally issued in 2015 has been published in March 2020.
The guide is intended as a practice-based, results-focused tool to assist governments and partners in planning for resilient post-disaster recovery following a large-scale disaster.

COVID-19 – Transition from response to recovery (T+T) – Webinar – 12 May
The pandemic is unchartered territory for most of us but responding to it is business-as-usual for disaster risk reduction specialists. Tonkin + Taylor, in partnership with Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), Committee on Data (CODATA) of the International Science Council (ISC), has brought together four of the world’s leading disaster response experts to share the lessons learned from large-scale disasters and how they can be applied to the coronavirus pandemic recovery.

COVID-19: Opportunities for Resilient Recovery – Webinar – 7 May
The webinar will aim to highlight lessons learned from past disaster recovery events, and consider how countries can start preparing for a recovery that is climate-sensitive, inclusive and contributes to global efforts to build more resilient systems that are better placed to prevent such crises in the future.

Data-Driven Decision-Maker: Business Analytics Executive Overview – May 11 2020 – May 11 2021
This course will focus on understanding key analytics concepts and the breadth of analytic possibilities. Together, the class will explore dozens of real-world analytics problems and solutions across most major industries and business functions. The course will also touch on analytic technologies, architectures, and roles from business intelligence to data science, and from data warehouses to data lakes. And the course will wrap up with a discussion of analytics trends and futures.

Call for paper – 12th Annual European DDI User Conference (EDDI20), DDI – The Basis of Managing the Data Life Cycle
The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) is an international standard for describing the data produced by surveys and other observational methods in the social, behavioral, economic, and health sciences. For the European DDI User Conference 2020, we are seeking presentations, talks, papers, posters on all things DDI.

A Data Ecosystem to Defeat COVID-19

Bapon Fakhruddin is a specialist in climate and hydrological risk assessment with a focus on the design and implementation of hazard early warning systems and emergency communication. He is Technical Director, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Resilience at Tonkin + Taylor, New Zealand. He is also Co-Chair for the Open Data for Global Disaster Risk Research task force with CODATA.

Bapon Fakhruddin discusses why the COVID-19 pandemic requires thinking and decision making supported by a data ecosystem which looks much further into the future than previous short-term approaches.

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has created a human crisis globally, which has demanded an array of drastic, immediate responses. The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General has swiftly called for action, “for the immediate health response required to suppress transmission of the virus to end the pandemic and to tackle the many social and economic dimensions of this crisis[1]“. The pandemic also requires thinking and decision making supported by a data ecosystem that is more complete than currently, and which looks much further into the future than previous short-term approaches.

The COVID-19 outbreak has led to the proliferation of initiatives to facilitate open access to scientific research and databases and encourage research collaboration through digital platforms. However, there are concerns about the quality of data and publications provided in near real-time, leading to potentially poor decision making. These issues include comparability and interpretation of data, notably between countries, insufficient specification of methodology, and political acceptance of invalid results potentially biasing scientific methods. A call for data and research is necessary in relation to the discussion of the transmission of the disease.

Read more: https://council.science/current/blog/setting-up-a-data-ecosystem-to-defeat-covid-19/

 

March 2020: Publications in the Data Science Journal


Title: Dataset after Seven Years Simulating Hybrid Energy Systems with Homer Legacy
Author: Alexandre Beluco, Frederico A. During F°, Lúcia M. R. Silva, Jones S. Silva, Lúis E. Teixeira, Gabriel Vasco, Fausto A. Canales, Elton G. Rossini, José de Souza, Giuliano C. Daronco, Alfonso Risso
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-014

Title: GIS Project ROSA: FAIR Principles in the Petroleum Industry
Author: Anastasia Odintsova , Alena Rybkina, Julia Nikolova, Anna Korolkova
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-013
Title: MASER: A Science Ready Toolbox for Low Frequency Radio Astronomy
Author: Baptiste Cecconi, Alan Loh, Pierre Le Sidaner, Renaud Savalle, Xavier Bonnin, Quynh Nhu Nguyen, Sonny Lion, Albert Shih, Stéphane Aicardi, Philippe Zarka, Corentin Louis, Andrée Coffre, Laurent Lamy, Laurent Denis, Jean-Mathias Grießmeier, Jeremy Faden, Chris Piker, Nicolas André, Vincent Génot, Stéphane Erard, Joseph N. Mafi, Todd A. King, Jim Sky, Markus Demleitner
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-012

Title: Experimental Data of Muon Hodoscope URAGAN for Investigations of Geoffective Processes in the Heliosphere
Author: Anna Kovylyaeva , Ivan Astapov, Anna Dmitrieva, Vladimir Borog, Natalia Osetrova, Igor Yashin
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-011

Title: Risk Assessment for Scientific Data
Author: Matthew S. Mayernik , Kelsey Breseman, Robert R. Downs, Ruth Duerr, Alexis Garretson, Chung-Yi (Sophie) Hou, Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI) and Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Data Stewardship Committee
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-010

Title: How Do People Make Relevance Judgment of Scientific Data?
Author: Jianping Liu , Jian Wang, Guomin Zhou, Mo Wang, Lei Shi
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-009

Title: Who Bears the Burden of Long-Lived Molecular Biology Databases?
Author: Heidi J. Imker
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-008

 

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: April 2020 Edition

CODATA GO FAIR, RDA, and WDS outline their joint commitment to optimise the global research data ecosystem and identify the opportunities and needs that will trigger federated infrastructures to service the new reality of data-driven science.
A first concrete example of this is the following – ‘Data Together COVID-19 Appeal and Actions’. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a major test for our science system and for our research and data infrastructures.  These infrastructures, such as open science clouds and data commons, must serve the needs of science, policy, and humanity not only in ‘normal times’, but also in times of crisis by providing controlled access to quality data in real-time and at scale for a range of scientific- and policy-related responses – https://council.science/covid19/

Disaster expert shares COVID-19 lessons from China
A serious shortage of medical resources was one of the main challenges which China had to overcome to stabilize the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei, where a mortality rate of 4.7% was recorded compared with 0.9% in the country’s 30 other provinces.

CODATA President, Barend Mons ‘World View’ Opinion Piece in Nature: ‘Invest 5% of research funds in ensuring data are reusable’
‘It is irresponsible to support research but not data stewardship’, says Barend Mons.

How South Korea is suppressing COVID-19
Trace, test and treat. That sums up the strategy pursued by the Republic of Korea since it detected its first case of COVID-19 on January 20 and its first death on February 20, without imposing a lockdown.

CODATA: Call for expression of interest for contribution to the Linked Open Data for Global Disaster Risk Research
The first policy brief is expected to be released in August 2020. The global pandemic is a powerful reminder of the necessity of the international community’s intensified and sustained commitment to emergency preparedness.  We are thus inviting experts in disaster risk reduction data and policy issues to collaborate on preparing these documents.

Information is power – Climate services reach 10.2 million people
UNDP-supported climate information and early warning systems projects have reached 10.2 million people in the past 12 years. Explore the power of information to supercharge progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

UNECE: Recommendations on the role of official statistics in measuring hazardous events and disasters
This publication clarifies the role of NSOs and other members of NSS in providing information related to hazardous events and disasters, and identifies practical steps that these organisations can take, in coordination with national agencies responsible for disaster risk management, to better support disaster risk management efforts.

UNESCO: World Water Development report 2020
The 2020 edition of the World Water Development Report (WWDR 2020) entitled ‘Water and Climate Change’ aims at helping the water community tackle the challenges of climate change and informing the climate change community about the opportunities that improved water management offers in terms of adaptation and mitigation.

Mami Mizutori: Reflection on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: Five Years Since Its Adoption
Five years ago member states of the United Nations (UN) adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015) in Sendai, Japan, a city still recovering from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts
In this report, the focus is on understanding the nature and extent of physical risk from a changing climate over the next one to three decades, exploring physical risk as it is the basis of both transition and liability risks.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) “Infodemic” and Emerging Issues through a Data Lens: The Case of China
Mainly based on Chinese newspapers, social media and other digital platform data, this paper analyzes the timeline of the key actions taken by the government and people over three months in five different phases.

Considerations about the Cascading Effects of COVID-19 on Critical Infrastructure Sectors
This paper is offered in an effort to better understand not just the way a pandemic affects various critical infrastructure sectors, but to illustrate the cascading and escalating effects across the United States in various ways.

NASA: Introductory Webinar: Satellite Remote Sensing for Agricultural Applications – 14 April, 20 April, 5 May
This training will address how to use remote sensing data for agriculture monitoring, specifically drought and crop monitoring. The webinar will also provide end-users the ability to evaluate which regions of the world agricultural productivity is above or below long-term trends. This informs decisions pertaining to market stability and humanitarian relief.

International Science Council Webinar: Transforming science communication for transformations to sustainability – 15 April
This webinar will look at why developments in science communication matter for transformations to sustainability, communicating about ongoing transdisciplinary research with new audiences in an inclusive and ethical way, and how today’s communications tools can be used to foreground voices that are frequently marginalised in climate change debates.

NASA: Introductory Webinar: Using the UN Biodiversity Lab to Support National Conservation and Sustainable Development Goals
This training, offered in partnership with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), will teach participants about global biodiversity-based uses of remote sensing

SDSN – Happiness & Sustainability Around the Earth – 24-hour webinar 22 April
Join experts from SDSN’s global network as they share how they are building a happier world.

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: March 2020 Edition

COVID-19 could cost world $1 Trillion if it becomes a pandemic, analysts predict
The ghastly prospect that the coronavirus outbreak could become the first truly disruptive pandemic of the globalisation era is renewing doubts over the stability of the world economy.

UNDP and UNDRR to step up action on climate and disaster risk
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) signed a joint partnership agreement on 21 February, to step up collaboration on three priority areas to accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and the UN Plan of Action on Disaster Risk Reduction

SDSN TReNDS Debuts Roundtable on “Governing the Data Revolution”
Data is critical to achieving the SDGs, and while new data sources can offer many solutions to fill these crucial gaps, they need to be carefully managed. In a new roundtable debate from SDSN TReNDS, a selection of members discuss the role of traditional vs. new data methods, policy and regulatory needs for data governance, and where to invest to maximize value.

Helping shape new flood forecasting services in the Wellington region, New Zealand
Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) are embarking on a programme to establish improved flood forecasting services across the Wellington Region on New Zealand’s north island.

Australia: Climate changes threatens research itself
A collaborative study between The University of Queensland and RMIT found extreme climate change weather events such as bushfires, hailstorms and floods impacted on research production.

Tonkin + Taylor provides Dominica with EWS support
T+T’s Dr Bapon Fakhruddin has been tasked by the United Nations Development Programme for Dominica to help produce Dominica’s new multi-hazard impact-based early warning system.

2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV): Strategic preparedness and response plan
This strategic preparedness and response plan outlines the public health measures that the international community stands ready to provide to support all countries to prepare for and respond to 2019‑nCoV. The document takes what has been learned so far about the virus and translates that knowledge into strategic action that can guide the efforts of all national and international partners when developing context-specific national and regional operational plans.

Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation for Transport Networks and Nodes
Extreme weather events, some of which are increasing in intensity and frequency, as well as slower onset climate changes (for example, sea level rise) and cumulative effects can result in transportation infrastructure damages, operational disruptions, and pressures on supply chain capacity and efficiency. As such, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Group of Experts on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation for Transport Networks and Nodes (the Group of Experts) has been analysing the impacts of climate change on main transport assets in the ECE region, as presented in this report.

Nature risk rising: Why the crisis engulfing nature matters for business and the economy
Nature Risk Rising, produced in collaboration with PwC and the first report in the NNE series, explains how nature-related risks matter to business, why they must be urgently mainstreamed into risk management strategies and why it is vital to prioritise the protection of nature’s assets and services within the broader global economic growth agenda.

Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts
In this report, the focus is on understanding the nature and extent of physical risk from a changing climate over the next one to three decades, exploring physical risk as it is the basis of both transition and liability risks.

Cost-benefit analysis of flood early warning system in the Karnali River Basin of Nepal
Nepal is severely flood-prone and ranks 20th worldwide in terms of flood-affected population. Although it is widely acknowledged that both national and community-based early warning systems (EWS) can reduce the impact of floods, studies quantifying the cost-benefits remain scarce. This study analyses the costs and benefits of the EWS in the Lower Karnali River Basin in Nepal through 453 household surveys, 30 focus group discussions and 40 key informant interviews.

Sustainable and FAIR Data sharing in the humanities
The ALLEA report “Sustainable and FAIR Data Sharing in the Humanities” provides key recommendations to make digital data in the humanities “Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable”, in line with the FAIR principles.

Sustainable Research + Innovation Congress 2020 – 14-17 June – Brisbane, Australia
The Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress 2020 (SRI2020) is the world’s first transdisciplinary gathering in sustainability – it will be a space of fierce advocacy for sustainability scholarship and innovation, collaboration and action.

Workshop on Impact-based Forecast and Warning Services for Members of WMO/UNESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones – 29 March-2 April – Muscat, Oman
This joint effort is an outcome of recent strengthened inter-regional cooperation on building the resilience to face extreme events, including tropical cyclones disasters. The workshop aims to build early warning skills in risk assessment and predicting the impact of tropical cyclones.

Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction 2020 – 29 June-2 July- Brisbane, Australia
Attracting more than 3,000 delegates from over 40 countries, the APMCDRR is the largest gathering in the Asia-Pacific to progress disaster risk reduction efforts. Participants include ministers, government officials, representatives of the private sector, non-for-profits, civil society, and vulnerable groups.