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?

Big Data in a Time of Crisis: Maximizing its Value – And Avoiding its Risks – In the Fight Against COVID-19
How can we best use big data to combat COVID-19?

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.

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.

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.