Geography & Humanity: Twain Shall Ever Meet

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MARCH-APRIL 2022 » VOLUME 12 » ISSUE 02 | ISSN 2277–3134

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P06 Topography, demography, and geography affects humanity in multiple ways. As we stand at the crossroads between transition to a new industrial epoch and precluding a climate emergency, the ‘Where’ is more crucial than ever before.

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Jeff Haight CEO, Locana

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VOLUME: 12 / ISSUE: 02 CORNER OFFICE

CONTENTS

Jeff Haight CEO, Locana

P06

An Exciting New Era of Location Intelligence

COVER STORY / 16

CONNECTING GEOGRAPHY AND HUMANITY

To help geography solve humanity’s big challenges, geospatial infrastructure should move from data infrastructure to a geospatial knowledge infrastructure. Then only geography can truly enable sustainable development and a better future for humanity.

SPECIAL FEATURE

10 / M aps All Through the Ages INDUSTRY OUTLOOK

23 / A dvancing & Augmenting

USD 1.4 Trillion Geospatial Market by 2030

INTERVIEW

26 / W e Need to Scale Up Action to Meet the 1.5 C Target

Prof Petteri Taalas Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization

48 / I f San Francisco is Future Harbinger, Let’s Look for Another Model

Joel Kotkin Presidential Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, California

56 / E quity, Diversity, Inclusion

Should be a Priority for All Aspects of Geospatial Data

Janet Ranganathan, Vice President for Research, Data, and Innovation, World Resources Institute REGULAR FEATURE

04 / Editorial

EXPERT OPINION

29 / E merging Role of Geospatial ESG to Protect the Natural World David J. Patterson Head of Conservation Intelligence, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF-UK) CLIMATE CHANGE

32 / T he Fight Against Climate Change from Space

39 / C limate TRACE: Bringing Radical Transparency to Greenhouse Gas Emissions

HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

Editor-in-Chief Sanjay Kumar Managing Editor Prof. Arup Dasgupta Editor-At-Large Americas Anusuya Datta Contributing Editor Geospatial Infrastructure John Kedar Contributing Editor Global Defense and Security Keith J. Masback Consulting Editor Spatial Analytics and Location Intelligence Nicolas Duggan Consulting Editor Nishi Malhotra Sr. Associate Editor India Jitendra Choubey Associate Editor Asia Pacific Sarah Hisham Associate Editor Europe Meenal Dhande Associate Editor GW Prime Aditya Chaturvedi

43 / P roviding Humanitarian

Sr. Assistant Editor Srishti Juyal

INDIGENOUS MAPPING

Chief Sub Editor Nibedita Mohanta

Assistance to Refugees

51 / I ndigenous Mapping Insights and Cybercartography

SECURING WOMEN’S LAND RIGHTS

54 / I t Takes a Village, Appropriate Technology, and Real Investment to Deliver

CASE STUDIES

59 / G EMS from the World Bank 62 / F ive Years of Forest Fires Cost More than the Net Worth of Microsoft

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64 / T he High-Tech Castle

Senior Sub Editor Snehil Manohar Singh Chief Designer Subhash Kumar Visualizer Pradeep Chauhan Disclaimer

Geospatial World does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in the publication. All views expressed in this issue are those of the contributors. Geospatial World is not responsible for any loss to anyone due to the information provided.

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EDITORIAL

Information is Just One Element, and Useless Without Political Will

H

umanity is facing three big challenges. One is climate change, and the other is the war between Ukraine and Russia. Add to this the lingering of COVID, which has killed 15 million people, destroyed lives of billions more and continues to threaten the weak and the poverty ridden. Are the three related? In a perverse manner they are.

the world into an abyss of destruction due to the mismanagement of natural resources.

In this scenario two countries are unable to settle their political differences and have resorted to the most primitive means of having their way — they have gone to war. Sides have been taken, sanctions have been applied, but then it is discovered that the world is too globalized for sanctions to work in the way intended.

Meanwhile, infrastructure, built over years are being destroyed in a flash as modern weapons, also developed over years, prove their ‘worth’.

The era of globalization has truly turned the world into a global village. The creation of global enterprises and global trade has resulted in the free movement of people and Prof. Arup Dasgupta with them, the free movement of In a globalized economy, the arup@geospatialworld.net diseases. COVID emerged in China war affects not only the combating but spread rapidly and became a countries but even the uninvolved pandemic that has now become endemic. As each as prices of commodities — particularly energy wave waxes and wanes, it exposes the frailty and resources — rise, upsetting their growth and the lack of equity in human healthcare. development plans. It is not only the combatant and their supporters who suffer but those in other Globalization, unfortunately, also resulted in countries, particularly those already vulnerable. the creation of two worlds — one of the wealthy and the other of the deprived. The hunger for more Physical and political geography both affect of everything is resulting in the increasing destrucHumanity in many ways. The best way to undertion of natural resources beyond a sustainable stand the relationship is to find answers to the limit by both the developed and developing counquestions where, when, how and why. Where tries. As the load of carbon rises in the atmosphere is perhaps the most fundamental question in temperatures also rise and results in imbalances in geography, but its answer will also need the time stamp of when. Modern analytics will provide the nature. Sea levels rise, water becomes scarce, food answers to how and why. production falls and weather events become more violent and unpredictable.

However, it is the political will of the countries of the world that should use the answers to stop The effect is felt more by deprived populations us from entering the abyss and reverse our direcas they are already vulnerable to disease, natural tion. Information is but one element and is useless and manmade disasters and hunger. Unbalanced without political will. and inequitable development threatens to plunge

4 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

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An Exciting New Era of Location Intelligence There is a belief that all technology should be as easy to use as smartphone apps and that it should empower workers with real-time, actionable insights. Geospatial technology has reached an important inflection point where it can do exactly that, which is what is ushering in this new era of location intelligence, believes Jeff Haight, CEO of Locana (formerly Critigen).

Critigen recently rebranded itself as Locana.

What does the new name stand for and what was the idea behind this rebranding?

Critigen’s new brand reflects not only how we have changed as a company but how I believe our industry has entered an exciting new era. We are now Locana, a name that reflects the indispensable role that location-based intelligence is poised to play across every industry and in so many areas of people’s lives. The new name is based on the Latin words for place (locus) and information about a place (ana), which signifies how universal location information is and the power of the insights it can deliver.

Location intelligence — the actionable insights derived from that data — has the power to profoundly change how companies do business, the way people live their lives, and the way people solve the most challenging problems that humanity faces.

This moment has been decades in the making as the geospatial industry has collectively built 6 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

the foundation for a new era of location intelligence.

I am proud of Critigen’s legacy of helping build that foundation over the past 20-plus years.

Our company has had a major focus on innovation for the past few years in anticipation of this broader role for geospatial technology, and changing our name is the final step in the company’s reinvention to help organizations use location intelligence to achieve their missions.

Does this change in the brand also mean a change in vision and business direction?

Critigen has had a long, successful history helping companies put geospatial information to work by providing technology consulting, complex data analysis, modeling, systems development, and project controls to clients across industries and around the world. We’re building on that legacy by playing the same role of trusted partner as companies prepare to put location intelligence to work in every aspect of their operations. Our industry has a unique opportunity

to change the world for the better, and I don’t say that lightly. This technology is capable of solving some of the most difficult challenges around the world.

Our team is inspired by that vision and is committed to put the power of location-based insights into everyone’s hands in a way that is simple to use and impactful.

Everyone in our company is focused on that mission, and the name change reflects our commitment to lead this new era.

As part of your rebranding statement, you had also said that the convergence of three emerging trends is fueling the geospatial market and elevating the importance of location.

What are these trends and how are they reshaping the geospatial market?

The first trend is the exponential growth of location data that is coming from all of the sensors, devices and other connected systems that generate vital location-based intelligence. That data, combined with the wealth of third-party open-source data that

is available, has important insights that organizations know they need — if only they could extract them and make them actionable. We help them do exactly that.

The second trend is new user demands and use cases that are making location-based technology a must-have rather than a nice-tohave. Digital maps are now an indispensable part of applications that each of us use every day, whether that is getting driving directions or finding the nearest Starbucks. Users not only understand how to use this technology, but also expect information and features to be delivered to them via these visual interfaces.

User demand is intersecting with the exploding number of use cases that exist in every industry globally.

Digital maps and location intelligence are the only ways to solve so many of the challenges that organizations face, and users now have the familiarity with this technology for it to be used on a mass scale.

People in all walks of life are ready to use this technology, and that is a powerful trend for us to tap into as an industry.

The last trend is just as important. It is the elevated expectation for enterprise-grade solutions that are truly easy to use and actionable. More than ever, there is a belief that all technology should be as easy to use as smartphone apps and that it should empower workers with real-time, actionable insights. Geospatial technology has reached an important inflection point where it can do exactly that, which is what is ushering in this new era of location intelligence.

Resilience has become a buzzword today in the wake of the disruptions owing to the pandemic and also increasing climate/ weather-related disasters.

What role can location technology and Locana’s offerings play in making the world more resilient to abrupt disruptions?

Location-based data and insights have become mission critical for organizations responding to events like natural disasters, disease outbreaks, refugee crises, and other fast-moving emergencies.

And you don’t have to look far to see examples of that. Digital maps that communicate real-time information are one of the most powerful tools that governments, NGOs, news organizations, and the public have had during the pandemic to track outbreaks, vaccination campaigns, and more. It’s no understatement to say that location intelligence is now indispensable to global public health initiatives like the fight against COVID-19.

Digital maps and location-based information are also at the heart of how the world is following and responding to the war in Ukraine. And it is part of nearly every climate change-related initiative I am seeing today. Location-based information is not only

fundamental to how we understand those emergencies but also how we collectively take action to respond to them. This is the vision that so many of us had decades ago at the beginning of the geospatial industry, and it is now coming to fruition.

New sensors in satellites, smartphones and wearables have led to an explosion in spatial data, thus bringing with it new cases for innovation and business solutions. How do you see a convergence between location technology and AI that can make sense of all this data by making them accessible, consumable, and actionable?

I’m so glad you asked this because Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a force multiplier that is enabling location-based data to have a much larger impact on our world. Geospatial experts will always be essential because of the unique combinations of expertise and analytical abilities they possess. AI can never replace that, but it can perform data processing and automated analysis on a scale that has never been possible before. That is particularly March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 7

CORNER OFFICE

important given the tsunami of data that is coming from all of those devices you mentioned.

We would need a galaxy of geospatial experts to process and analyze that data if not for AI-driven analytic engines. Just as importantly, AI-driven location intelligence can also deliver those insights in ways that are appropriate, easily consumable and clear in the kind of actionable guidance they provide to each user. That is a powerful complement to the work that geospatial teams do, plus it allows those experts to focus on higher-level analysis that delivers even more value to their organizations.

With 5G bringing with it ultra-fast connectivity and real-time data transfer, how do you view the integration of 5G with location technology being a gamechanger in unlocking the real business value in today’s connected economy?

Some of the most exciting and impactful applications of location intelligence rely on the kind of performance that 5G networks provide. Most of what is written about 5G is focused on consumer examples like gaming and virtual reality and streaming, but the impact on geospatial-driven applications is just as significant. So many of the applications our team is working on with customers depend on ultra-low latency and high datatransfer via a cell connection.

A great example of that is utility workers who are working in the 8 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

field whether it is a routine maintenance check or an emergency response after an outage. The combination of location intelligence and 5G connectivity gives them real-time information and insights for their workflows that makes them safer, more productive, more accurate, and faster.

The same story is playing out in other industries and in consumer technology, where the combination of 5G with location-driven applications on smartphones turns every iPhone and Galaxy into a powerful tool for geospatial-driven applications.

Rapid advancements in technology have also led to increase in the gap between the available technology and users. Is it right to say in a way, technology in most cases is outpacing customer demand and uptake?

This is such an important question because it is so fundamental to modern life. Businesses and individuals have never had more powerful tools at their fingertips, but the pace of technological advancements is moving way faster than people’s ability to use them and benefit from them. Geospatial technology is a perfect example. The number of devices that produce location-based data is growing exponentially as more and more sensors and connected devices are deployed by companies in every industry, government agencies, state and local government entities, NGOs, and the public. That is producing a volume of information that was

unimaginable a few years ago, but data is just data.

What we all truly need are insights that we can easily consume and put into action. That is exactly what location intelligence delivers, which is why I am so excited about this new era we are entering. By automating the process of converting that wave of data into exactly the insights people need, we can eliminate that gap between the pace of technology and people’s ability to use it.

Any parting thoughts from you regarding the future of Locana and our industry?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future lately, and I want to close by saying I am hopeful despite how dark so many things are in the headlines today and over the past couple of years. I am hopeful because people around the world have never had as many tools to make a positive difference as they do right now.

I believe that location-based data and insights are one of the most powerful tools for collectively solving so many of the most difficult challenges around the world, to poverty and public health emergencies.

This is not hyperbole. It’s happening today, and I am really proud of the work our team is doing to support organizations doing that important work, whether it is fighting climate change in the rain forests and critical wetlands or helping developing nations with emergency healthcare.

That is something for everyone in our industry to be proud of because we have all built the foundation that has made that possible.

Interviewed by: Anusuya Datta

SPECIAL FEATURE

MAPS ALL THROUGH

TH E AGES

I

f a man’s face is his autobiography and a woman’s face is her work of fiction, as Oscar Wilde wrote, then a country’s face is nothing but its map.

Cartography — or the science of map-making — is among the earliest human endeavors to chart out the world and understand it. The spirit of human ingenuity, unquenchable zeal, and the desire to make sense of the broader world and connect with it led to this. Maps have accompanied the rise and fall of empires, the discovery of new lands, and the drawing of boundaries, along with vanishing of the old, and forging of the new. They have been central to the human story, in its sublime beauty as well as dismaying horror.

There’s no history without maps. And not just history. More than anything else, cartography defines the ambiguous past and delineates the chaotic present.

Eric Hobsbawm divided modern history into four ages. History of cartography can be likewise divided into different eras. Maps capture the ‘zeitgeist’ of an era like very few artefacts do. From rudimentary forms of maps made on caves, to the age of Herodotus, to Papal Bull and Magna Carta, to the dawn of colonialism, and the final unravelling of empires, and the beginning of national liberation movements, maps narrated it all. With the digital age and software maps received a new boost through GIS and geospatial data. The utility increased and 10 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

From stone age to medieval mercantilism to the upcoming age of AI and automation, mapping and cartography has been at the core of human endeavor and enterprise, fueling innovation and disruption, connectivity and rivalry.

By Aditya Chaturvedi

extended to all human avenues. And today we have reached a stage where mapping is everywhere and is connecting, powering, and advancing almost everything, from the humdrum to the spectacular, the banal to the ground-breaking.

‘An Ode to Maps’ sounds too mawkish a tribute to something that changes forms and constantly reinvents itself. Maps are a palimpsest of humanity, with multiple layers of knowledge, history and experience adding on forever.

Let’s look at the roller-coaster ride of cartography:

The Greek beginning Ancient Greeks are said to be among the first to use maps for navigation. The philosopher Anaximander was an ancient pioneer of map-making. Herodotus, known as father of history in the west, was also an accomplished early mapmaker. The known world

The world possibly according to Greek philosopher Herodotus

of that time depicted ancient Greece as the world's center along with its outer flanks. All of that is buried in the pages of time now with a geographic redolence. Ptolemy started designing maps using a coordinate system of latitudes and longitudes that were known at that time. This system, with modifications, continued till centuries later, and a modern avatar of it is still used today.

Chinese atlas Ancient China is credited for a lot of vital innovations, from paper to gunpowder to compass.

As the vast ‘Middle Kingdom’, Chinese emperors patronized map-making to ensure that they know from where threats could emanate. The best route for Chinese traders to carry their wares. It should be written as "in the fourth century BC". China made maps using wood blocks and silk. Some of the ancient Chinese maps depict settlements as well as undulating landscapes and dizzying physical terrain. Chinese cartography progressed under different dynasties and reached its pinnacle around mid-1500s when a comprehensive atlas was produced using a grid system.

European adventurism Niall Ferguson summarized the history of British empire as a story of pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers, and bankrupts. But long before the freebooters and the privateers sailed in the torrid seas, it was the explorers, navigators and intrepid merchants who set out to discover new regions.

The human quest for enterprise and exploring the unknown predated glory to the crown.

Donis map projection, or equidistant parallels and meridians meeting towards the poles, was invented by Nicholas Germanus in the 15th century.

Around the same time, the first map of Americas was prepared by Juan De Carlos , a fellow sailor of Christopher Columbus.

Nicolaus Germanus's 1467 manuscript copy of Ptolemy's world map, displaying Nicolaus Germanus's form of Ptolemy's 2nd projection and the expanded knowledge of Scandinavia in the northwest

An early Western Han Dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD) silk map found in tomb 3 of Mawangdui Han tombs site, depicting the Kingdom of Changsha and Kingdom of Nanyue in southern China (Note: the south direction is oriented at the top, north at the bottom)

Completed in 1500, the Juan de la Cosa map is the first “world” map to depict the coast of the Americas March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 11

SPECIAL FEATURE

A few years later, a Portuguese named Dieago Ribiero created a map that showed Pacific Ocean and the boundaries of South and Central America.

Mapping coincided not just with the colonial project but with the story of innovation and migration, of national formations and pan-national consciousness.

The Mercator projection Arguably, the most widely used term in modern cartography that’s taught in schools and colleges, and is the standard in mapping projections today.

If you feel some countries and continents appear over-bloated and others shrunk, then blame the projection. Named after a Flemish cartographer named Geradus Mercator, it was a revolution in modern map-making. It standardized the practice of representing south pointed downwards and north upwards, while keeping directions intact.

For the sake of a better analogy, it can be said that the development of GIS was akin to the digital and computational revolution combined in geography and cartography. The development of GIS started in the 1960s, coinciding with other pathbreaking innovations such as semiconductors, computing, and the space program, or the mostly overlooked modern containerization that’s crucial to logistics today. All these developments were to transform the world and kickstart a new era, and GIS was the thread that linked all of them. Convergence may seem like a worn-out trope today, but the role of GIS in enabling true tech convergence cannot be understated.

Canuck provenance Great things often have nondescript beginnings and a forgettable trajectory, until their value skyrockets and they become household names. The story of GIS is the same. What started as a Canadian government commissioned project to manage natural resource inventory in 1963 is today worth billions of dollars, powering sectors from lastmile delivery to infrastructure maintenance and defense and intelligence, and pivoting the dawn of Industry 4.0 and the era of interoperability.

Roger Tomlinson, a Canadian Geographer, is both the pioneer of GIS and the man who coined the term while working on the Canadian government project.

The 1569 Mercator map of the world

Technological advancements post the industrial revolution further led to new inventions in cartography and refinement in map-making. National mapping agencies such as the Ordnance Survey and the United States Geological Survey have been "at its forefront since their inception".

Enter GIS GIS, or the Geographic Information System, is the immersive art of pinpointing any location anywhere on the map. It’s the fulcrum of digital economies and a vital enabler of multiple sectors. It powers our vision, reveals what’s hidden, helps arrange patterns, is a key driver of tomorrow.

12 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

During the same time, a man named Howard Fischer at the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics was also playing a groundbreaking role in the evolution of the fledgling GIS. In 1964, Fischer created a computer mapping program known as Synmap. A year later he founded the Harvard laboratory which followed a truly interdisciplinary ethos and included scientists, planners, geographers as its members.

Tale of two wizards In 2019, journalist Charles C. Mann wrote a book, intriguingly titled The Wizard and the Prophet. It was about a pioneering agronomist and a leading ecologist and how their clashing visions shaped the future of the modern world.

Digital Maps’ in 2016 and he’s also widely referred to as the ‘Godfather of GIS’.

As an entrepreneur, Dangermond was the trailblazer in recognizing the enormous potential of geospatial and digital maps, and Esri was the lone shining star in GIS for many years. Often called the Microsoft of GIS, Esri’s ArcGIS is a great utility for everyone from city planners, business enterprises, environmentalists, community health professionals, to first responders in emergency outbreaks.

For over four decades( 1950-1990) Soviet Union conducted a secret mapping program that this book terms ‘ the most comprehensive mapping endeavor in history’. This was before Earth Observation and GNSS became the norm. Astonishingly, some of these maps of US locations were more detailed than those published by the USGS

Similarly, the saga of GIS is also incomplete without two remarkable individuals who played a seminal role from its genesis to its mass adoption.

Here, there were no competing visions, but complementary efforts and aligned mission.

Hailed as the ‘Father of GIS’, Roger Tomlinson’s vision was to use computers to collate and merge all the natural resources data of Canada’s provinces. He developed the first GIS in 1967 for the Canada Land Inventory and mentored the GIS fraternity for long.

He was also inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and served as Chairman of the International Geographical Union GIS Commission for 12 years, and also served as the president of the Canadian Association of Geographers.

The other person in the story is Esri Founder Jack Dangermond. Forbes called him ‘Godfather of

Democratization of maps One of the significant factors that contributed to the global reach of digital maps, and the rise of invaluable location economy that is today at the core of pathbreaking innovations, was the United States opening GPS for civilian use. Intially released for public in 1993 but deliberately scrambled for ‘security reasons’, which led to inaccuracies in pinpointed location, by 2000, the US government did away with all the constraints. This was a momentous decision that led to more than tenfold increase in GPS accuracy for civilian applications and enabled the rise of modern navigation systems and Location-based services, making it possible for GPS to be in every low-range smartphone around the world.

On came Google Maps in 2005, which, for the first time, used a mix of aerial photography, satellite imagery, and local street maps. This was another milestone as it completely democratized the power of maps and location intelligence.

Today, digitalization has converted smartphones into everything from a chaotic bulletin board to

Google Map of USA March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 13

SPECIAL FEATURE

a barometer of civic agitation and rumblings.

Digital maps and location intelligence is a thriving industry now that undergirding the sprawling network of connectivity unlocked by the internet and the smartphones. Google Maps and other detailed maps have emerged at the core of the gig economy as well as the new platform-as-a-service business model. From route optimization for a food delivery to estimating footfall at a cinema hall or shopping mart, the combination of location intelligence and digital maps is at play.

In 2011, Google added the Indoor Maps feature, which was quickly followed by many others in the fray. Indoor Maps provide the accurate mapping layout of the interiors of any building, residential area, public complex, or large establishments. It helps in contingency planning, emergency response as well as increases efficiency and saves time for businesses.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, GIS and location intelligence played a key role in everything from tracking, tracing, caseload visualization, city monitoring and managing supply of essential goods.

Geographic ‘fractional distillation’ ‘Data being the new oil’ has become hackneyed to the point of exhaustion. But what’s noteworthy is the role of GIS and digital maps in refining, processing, and analyzing data.

To borrow another analogy from the oil industry — it's the distillation of the raw data via tools such as GIS that yields customized outcomes from fields as varied as supply chains, logistics, manufacturing, retail, analytics, customer relationship management and any other form of mapping or spatial prediction.

With the increasing convergence between tech players and their bid to outdo each other and exceed customer expectations, adoption of GIS/ geospatial has transcended sectors and industry verticals. Be it surveyors, mapping agencies, marketeers, planners, geeks, traders, or a traveler, the world without digital maps is inconceivable.

HD Maps – The finale or the continuum?

Maps have always been at the core of mankind and its companion through ages, as we have seen. So, it’s banal to repeat for whom they were meant – humans, of course, goes the obvious answer. But HD (High Definition) maps have radically redefined that. These are centimeter accuracy level, highly precise maps designed for autonomous vehicles made using data gathered using LiDAR, Radar, GPS, cameras, and other sensors. These maps are updated real-time using ultra-high-speed connectivity and can be used for predictive analytics as well. The global HD maps market size is expected to hit USD 17 billion by 2028.

From smart mobility to IoT-driven future of logistics, all hinge on HD maps. A normal HD map comprises of five layers: real-time layer, map prior layer, semantic layer, geometric map layer, and base map layer. One of the main difficulties currently in creating HD maps is that it requires ultra-high speed and bandwidth to transfer enormous amount of data in real-time. Once 5G arrives on the scene, HD maps will receive a fillip.

When Rise of Machines, singularity, or fully automated age of IoT, connected devices and robotics is deemed to be the future, how can maps be behind in adapting to it? Just like our forefathers used maps for wayfaring, for migration, and to look for safe zones in case of calamities, in the future, autonomous vehicles with the help of HD maps will ensure that we commute safely, and goods are delivered to the lastmile in the most optimized manner. It will reshape identity, behavior, and mobility yet again as all past mapping evolutions.

Aditya Chaturvedi

The Johns Hopkins COVID dashboard, which was started in January 2020, almost two months before the WHO declared COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, is still active and considered the leading source of centralized data on the pandemic 14 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Associate Editor, Geospatial World aditya@geospatialworld.net

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COVER STORY

Connecting Geography & Humanity

To help geography solve humanity’s big challenges, geospatial infrastructure should move from data infrastructure to a geospatial knowledge infrastructure. Then only can geography truly enable sustainable development and a better future for humanity.

By John Kedar

“We are on the edge of an abyss. And we are moving in the wrong direction. The world must wake up.

Now is the time to restore trust. Now is the time to inspire hope. Now is the time to deliver.”

António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, Remarks at the UN General Assembly, 2021.  In the Pacific, 57 percent of Pacific Island Countries’ built infrastructure is located in risk-prone coastal areas. Global Mean Sea Level increased from 1.4 mm a year over the period 1901-90 to 3.6 mm a year over the period 2006-15. (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).  A quarter of the world’s population faces extremely high levels of water stress, with the prospect of taps running dry. Quickening urbanization, population

growth, climate change, and economic development are placing pressure on water systems. (World Resources Institute).  Sixteen million girls will never set foot in a classroom — and women account for two-thirds of the 750 million adults without basic literacy skills.

(UNESCO Institute for Statistics).  OCHA predicts that in 2022, 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance and protection.

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ead these facts about humanity today, and the first question that comes to mind is ‘where?’ closely followed by ‘why?’. The impact of geography on nations, their politics, borders, and wealth has been well documented. Many will have read Tim Marshall’s book Prisoners of Geography and, sadly, be reflecting on his opening chapter explaining why Putin is so obsessed with Ukraine.

But as important and less well understood is the relationship between geography and humanity and how ‘place’ shapes one’s identity, values, circumstances, language, culture, livelihood, and opportunities.

To most of us, these challenges are irrelevant unless they impact us directly. But globally, there is

human relevance in the decline of natural resources, collapse of ecosystems, growth of cities, climate change, pollution of the oceans, the rapid spread of pandemics, and the advent of powerful, uncontrolled technology. Geography and humanity are unquestionably linked. It is a complex linkage over broad expanses of time and multi-continental distances.

There are many ways one could explore the linkage. Still, the global development agendas, particularly the Sustainable Development Goals of Vision 2030, are crucial as they aim at a better future for humanity.

Humanities have traditionally concerned themselves with those areas of knowledge that lay outside of, and beyond, the physical sciences. At the individual level, it isn’t easy to generate algorithms and laws, but at the society level, we are now better placed to do so. The use of modeling, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Big Data can help understand the impact of physical and political change on humanity. Geography, through geospatial knowledge, is an essential component in this mix.

The geospatial ecosystem has traditionally concerned itself with maps and data. But the advent of GNSS, connected sensors and satellites, powerful analytics and modeling, smartphones, autonomy, the cloud, and the web have changed geospatial irreversibly. We are in an age in which humans and machines come together. We call

it the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which is characterized by knowledge.

These 4IR tools better enable us to understand the geography of humanity. The combination of sensors, data, and analytical tools builds our geospatial knowledge by moving from ‘what’ and ‘where’ to ‘how’ and ‘why’— and also helps satisfy humanity’s insatiable desire for knowledge on demand.

Changing humanity through global development agendas The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides global policy to guide the way countries collectively manage and transform the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of humanity. All United Nations member states signed to say, “We resolve, between now and 2030, to end poverty and hunger everywhere; to combat inequalities within and among countries; to build peaceful, just, and inclusive societies; to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources.”

It is a major challenge exemplified

by UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) statistics.  Life expectancy in Japan is 84 years; in Nigeria, it is less than 55

 GNI per capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity) in sub-Saharan Africa is a quarter of that in the Middle East  The mean years of schooling for citizens in South Asia is only 63 percent of that in Europe and Central Asia.

The Agenda 2030 is comprehensive and sets out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) containing 169 targets for nations to reach. Every goal impacts humanity, some more immediately than others.

There are other important interlinked global agendas not considered further here. The Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 Parties in Paris on 12 December 2015, is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. Implementation requires economic and social transformation based on the best available science. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-30 and the Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway add to this international effort.

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COVER STORY

These global agreements have the power to change humankind.

But to change humanity, they have to translate into local action, which is a role for government and business. Policies are nationally driven, and resources are geographically allocated. Just as there are significant differences between nations, big differences exist between communities within nations. City dwellers may have greater access to the internet and healthcare than rural communities. Females may have less access to education and land rights than males. And this is why geography and humanity have to be considered together.

planning, and operations — a thriving geo-powered business environment that improves productivity and encourages innovation and an able workforce. If we think integrated transport and green spaces are city problems, then spare a thought for city planners facing increasingly multi-faceted challenges, such as hitting net-zero (70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are from cities).

But here, too, Earth Observation infrared and chemical emissions

sensors can help policymakers understand pollution sources and enable cities to implement appropriate policies.

How does geospatial knowledge help? Multi-source integrated near real-time foundation data is a real prospect given city density, integrating with other data to become a Digital Twin.

For example, as part of its smart mobility mission, TomTom monitors real-time traffic flow

The practicalities of using geography, perhaps in the 4IR era better defined as geospatial knowledge, to support humanity is best demonstrated in some examples — these all link Agenda 2030 with geospatial knowledge.

SDG 11: Sustainable cities & communities By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.

Cities are rapidly expanding, and planners must plan 10 to 20 years ahead, modeling scenarios using the best data and tools available now and seeking citizen participation. The Singapore Geospatial Masterplan is a national blueprint to maximize the impact of geospatial information and technology. It combines a trusted public service to empower effective geospatial policy-making, 18 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

The Singapore government came out with a blueprint in 2018 to maximize the impact of geospatial information and technology Image courtesy: Singapore Geospatial Masterplan

More widely, sensors on vehicles can continuously capture the state of city infrastructure, city operations teams can understand where and why city-dwellers face societal difficulties from social media analysis, and all this can act in a virtual circle to update the city foundation data. Bias in decision-making is a concern, though.

Data and AI training set alike

often underrepresent informal settlements and poorer districts in cities. For inclusiveness, transparency, business growth, and legitimacy, city geospatial data and knowledge should not be in the hands of a few but shared with businesses and communities.

SDG 2: Zero hunger By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of smallscale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists, and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.

Doubling agriculture productivity for small-scale producers increases national resilience and often meager farmer incomes. In some countries, automation will reduce costs, but the greatest benefits will be accrued with better knowledge for smallholders. The knowledge that enables a holistic approach to improve the whole crop production system on and within a specific holding.

Small-scale producers do not want to be flooded with data and technology, which 90 percent cannot finance in any case. Complexity is being removed, and tools provide small-holding level understanding to support decision making, from soil preparation to selling harvests

Image courtesy: United Nations, Geospatial Map No. 4635.02, Nov 2021

so that drivers and, in the future, automated vehicles know the best route. But its aggregated data has wider use, too, giving city planners and environmental teams insights to improve matters. Indeed, it is a form of citizen participation; all drivers contribute to planning.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 19

COVER STORY

based on predicted yields. Businesses can play a significant role in creating easily accessible services for smartphones. The heavy lifting of integrating and analyzing data is hidden from the user.

Governments can support this with open high-resolution soils and hydrometeorology data consumed directly by smallholders or the companies providing services to them.

Earth Observation supports crop monitoring and yield prediction, with ground truth from farmers resulting in improved modeling.

Current revisit challenges will evaporate as more sensors are available in space.

Good land registration and land boundaries data, coupled with the ability to monitor production remotely, will reduce the risk of loans to farmers. And, excitingly, better enable the fledgling carbon sequestration industry.

data, drones, smartphones, and guidance (including the recent United Nations Framework for Effective Land Administration).

National land administration processes need to consider these technologies as we are now moving to an age where consumers can undertake many geospatial actions that professionals have considered under their technical domain. It is not just about data, though; integrated policies, transparency, and improved governance also need to be the focus of reform.

Industry-led geospatial solutions and land administration platforms need to be open, accessible, affordable, and inclusive to support different policies and future change.

SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

The science behind climate change is comprehensive and collaborative. It is also predictive, modeling future outcomes and their impacts, considering both climate change and socio-economic change. Many of those impacts are represented geographically, demonstrating the graphically impacts on heat stress, agricultural change, loss of land, and even loss of nations, illustrating the power of cartography.

Zero-carbon solutions are becoming competitive across the

SDG 5: Gender equality Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources, in accordance with national laws.

Efforts to strengthen gender equality in land rights have been dominated by systematic registration to improve the proportion of people that enjoy recorded land and property rights.

Processes have been slow to change despite the availability of 20 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Sustainable development and effective land administration are closely linked Image courtesy of United Nations Framework for Effective Land Administration.

Britain’s electricity and gas network operators have joined together to launch a groundbreaking proof-of-concept project that uses the power of data to support a more efficient pathway to Net Zero.

Geospatial knowledge to support humanity Delivering the right policies and resources to change lives unequivocally requires knowledge.

Geospatial knowledge can enable evidence-based targeted interventions using limited resources.

How does the convergence of geospatial and 4IR technology enable the transition from data to geospatial knowledge that capitalizes on new data acquisition,

Image courtesy of Energy Networks Association

energy sector, increasing investments in renewables. Geospatial technologies support the energy transition, from renewable power generation site selection to optimizing the location of charging points for electric vehicles. But it is, the integration of different energy systems data into a single digital ‘power systems map’ opens real opportunities for improvements. A UK collaboration between the government, technology providers, and Britain’s national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, is mapping out such a route. This gives opportunities to generate further carbon reductions, whether through greater user awareness or better decisions on infrastructure development. Businesses sharing data, data models, and security and privacy aspects are all being considered.

Britain’s electricity and gas network operators have joined together to launch a ground-breaking proofof-concept project that uses the power of data to support a more efficient pathway to Net Zero

integration, and analytical technologies to take anticipatory action? A vision that uses geospatial knowledge to help achieve the SDGs and the Paris Agreement to enable profitable and efficient business as well as effective and transparent government.

Over the last two years, the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) and Geospatial World have collaborated with government, research, industry, and civil sector to move the debate from ‘geospatial data’ up the value chain to ‘knowledge.’ The concept is a Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure (GKI).  GKI is an infrastructure to integrate geospatial approaches, data, and technologies into the wider digital ecosystem.

It delivers the location-based knowledge, services, and automation expected by

economies, societies, and citizens in the 4IR age.  Governments will create an integrated policy framework to ensure an environment for a digital economy and society that utilizes location.  Trusted and authoritative foundation spatial data, including authoritative national geospatial data, will be an essential element of national infrastructures.  Given increasing technological change and the increasing sources of data and analytics, partnerships and collaborations will be increasingly common in co-creating value in data and knowledge.  Most innovation, autonomous, and knowledge services will be delivered by industry faster than governments can understand implications or act, therefore giving the industry an increasing leadership role.

Delivering the right policies and resources to change lives unequivocally requires knowledge. Geospatial knowledge can enable evidence-based targeted interventions using limited resources.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 21

COVER STORY

Integrated Policy Framework Geospatial Dimension to the Wider Digital Ecosystem

Applications, Analytics and Modeling

Foundation Data

Geospatial Knowledge is at the heart of tomorrow’s global digital society

Partnerships and Collaborations

Industry Leadership

The six elements of GKI. All elements contribute to improved national outcomes both individually and collaboratively Source: GW Consulting Analysis

 Knowledge is essential for human and machine decision-making, including all automation. It is created by combining many data sources with many different applications, analytics, and modeling technologies to deliver illusive foresight based on the question or use case context.  Ultimately, GKI integrates a geospatial dimension into the wider digital ecosystem.

National mapping and geospatial agencies’ roles will evolve within this. They will better understand national development priorities and current and future users, ensuring their services are aimed at emerging business opportunities and policy challenges. Their data 22 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

will improve currency, accuracy, and open standards that allow interoperability, access, and content. But this should not cost more; mapping agencies can utilize 4IR technologies and collection partnerships to reduce costs. Equally, with partners, they can move up the value chain to deliver (or enable) knowledge services. Success will be measured not by what is produced but by the problems geospatial agencies help solve for the benefit of humanity.

As part of its wider digital agenda, the Government of Norway seeks an open national geospatial knowledge base, shared solutions, and technology that support effective problem solving and enable new applications. It recognizes that geospatial information will interact

with new technologies, sensor systems and Big Data. To support this, the Norwegian national mapping agency, Statens Kartverk, is automating work processes by partnering with businesses and citizens alike to create a trustworthy national geospatial platform.

Geospatial readiness for better future There is a correlation between geospatial knowledge adoption, economic competitiveness, and development, almost certainly due to wealth enabling geospatial uptake rather than vice versa.

There are exceptions; China, for example, scores more highly on the Geospatial Readiness Index than Competitiveness and HDI index would suggest, or Azerbaijan the opposite.

The Geospatial Readiness Index, last produced by Geospatial World in 2019, really does reflect the size of the geospatial divide, with the bottom ten nations scoring around a sixth of the top ten nations. However, the United Nations Integrated Geospatial Information Framework is being used by many nations to set out the actions necessary for a national geospatial infrastructure.

To help geography solve humanity’s big challenges, this geospatial knowledge should move from data infrastructure to a geospatial knowledge infrastructure. Then only geography can truly enable sustainable development and a better future for humanity.

John Kedar Contributing Editor - Geospatial Infrastructure, Geospatial World John@geospatialworld.net

INDUSTRY OUTLOOK

Advancing & Augmenting USD 1.4 Trillion Geospatial Market by 2030 Strategic public policy reforms, industry acceleration strategies, and innovations in the digital twin and metaverse paradigm to drive geospatial market growth post 2025. By Sanjay Kumar

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eospatial industry is the next ‘Big Opportunity’ for technology companies both as an ‘advancing market in itself’ and ‘augmenting business processes’ of mainstream IT, Engineering and Autonomous industries. It would continue to provide accurate and rich foundation to data infrastructure and increasingly add the third dimension to ‘everything we do’. This will result in geospatial getting by default embedded in digital twin and metaverse, which will further impact how humans interact with digital and physical world in near real time. The technology leadership must look at geospatial market holistically

as it is evolving to be a ‘process of insight’ as an outcome, while moving up the value chain in the field of reality capture in terms of coverage, context, themes, accuracy, and currency.

KEY FINDINGS FROM THE REPORT INCLUDE

 The global geospatial market is forecasted to be USD 681 billion in 2025.  The market is estimated to grow at a much faster rate post-2025, making it USD 1.44 trillion by 2030, on the backbone of strategic public policy reforms, industry acceleration strategies, and innovations in the digital twin and metaverse paradigm.

Data insight and knowledge economy Data insight is at driving wheel of knowledge economy, penetrating and integrating across workflows and processes of every industry.

And as every business gets more and more driven by insights, data would serve as oil to knowledge economy and shared economy business models, aimed at deriving greater efficiency, productivity, transparency, and compliance.

 The current growth in the market is driven by technology innovation, integration of workflows, and augmentation of spatial analytics in business processes.  Increasing government investments, strategic public policy reforms, and the evolving role of national geospatial agencies and governments is expected to drive the market growth post-2025.

Global Geospatial Market Size - 2017-2025 (F)

Global Geospatial Market Forecasted to Grow at 14.61% CAGR during 2021 and 2025

2017

2018

2019

E=Estimated | F=Forecasted

CAGR 2019-2021: 1.23%

2020

2021

 GNSS and Positioning is forecasted to be the largest and growing geospatial technology segment with approx. 45 percent of the total market share, followed by GIS and Spatial Analytics at approx. 25 percent and earth observation at approx. 17 percent.

CAGR 2021-2025F: 14.61%

2022-E

2023-F

2024-F

2025-F

Adjusted for 3% Inflation

Source: GW Consulting

CAGR 2017-2019: 13.49%

 The economic impact of geospatial technologies on the global economy is currently estimated to be in the range of USD 2.2 trillion to 5.4 trillion, while it shall expand in the range of USD 5.4 trillion to USD 10.2 trillion in 2025.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 23

INDUSTRY OUTLOOK Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning 75% Blockchain

17%

65%

21%

32%

43% 4% Automation and Robotics

3%

40%

31%

54%

46%

38% 23%

Visualization and Immersive Technology (AR/VR)

32%

Digital infrastructure (sensors and IT technology)

8%

Impact of Leading Technology Trends on Geospatial Market Growth

19%

49%

14%

45%

42% Data Cubes (to deliver analysis-ready data)

Low Impact

41%

50%

Ubiquitous connectivity (5G)

43%

10%

44%

Quantum and Edge Computing

9%

9%

21%

34%

Aerial mapping (Drones/UAVs)

Medium Impact

48%

43%

Miniaturization of New Sensors (including LiDAR)

47% GEO-BIM and Digital Twins

High (Significant) Impact

Note: Percentages are % of respondents who ranked the given option indicating the low, medium and high impact of the technology advancements on the global geospatial industry; includes n=1500 survey responses; n*leader interviews= 500 Source: GW Consulting Analysis, Survey – July 2021-Jan 2022

Geospatial infrastructure, which comprises of foundation data, positioning network, platform, standards, knowledge services, and policies, provides overarching framework and serves as the interface between government and commercial enterprises to work towards extending geospatial value chain and scalability of applications supporting development, governance, business, and security. Recognizing the growing value of geospatial knowledge 24 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

infrastructure, there have been several initiatives towards public policy and industrial development worldwide, and the same has been laying the path for amplified growth by the year 2030 and beyond.

Public policy and market growth The Global Geospatial Market Size is estimated to be USD 452 billion in 2022 and is forecasted to grow at 14.61 percent CAGR and estimated to be USD 681 billion in year 2025.

However, it is expected to grow at much faster rate of 16.1 percent CAGR post 2025, reaching USD 1.44 trillion by 2030. While the current growth rate is driven by technology innovation, integration of workflows, and augmentation of spatial analytics in business processes, post 2025, this will gain momentum due to public policy reforms and increasing investments in geospatial infrastructure (both public and private) and industry acceleration programs worldwide. The growth impact

Enhanced workflow integration in economic sectors (AEC, Disaster, Energy, etc.)

59% Increasing domain accelerator and incubation networks

35%

18% 53%

Regeneration of business ecosystem (rise of nongeospatial start-ups)

20%

59%

11%

21%

Digital ethics and privacy

28%

41%

Impact of Leading Market Drivers on Geospatial Market Growth

21%

51%

48%

6% 29%

New collaboration agreements (outside of geospatial industry with Business Intelligence, BIM, SCADA, etc.)

16%

36%

48%

Evolving role of national geospatial organizations/ government institutions

17% 13%

50% 33%

59%

Evolving legislative environment

28% Evolving Standards and interoperability frameworks

Low Impact

Medium Impact

High (Significant) Impact

Note: Percentages are % of respondents who ranked the given option indicating the low, medium and high impact of strategic factors on the geospatial industry growth; includes n=1500 survey responses; n*leader interviews= 500 Source: GW Consulting Analysis, Survey – July 2021-Jan 2022

of public policies and industrial acceleration is estimated to be USD 373 billion between 2025 to 2030 as compared to USD 38 billion in the year 2025, carving out a greater role for national geospatial agencies and governments.

GNSS and Positioning continues to be the largest and growing segment of geospatial market worldwide, accounting for almost 55 percent of the total market share, followed by spatial analytics at 25 percent, and earth

observation at 17 percent. A decade ago, data was the biggest segment of geospatial market, but technology innovations in the field of software integrated hardware and integration of workflows have augmented analytics as a service, converting the market share of data to spatial enterprise and location-based services.

several mainstream IT and engineering firms added geospatial portfolios through strategic partnerships and acquisitions.

The move is driven with motivation to add geospatial dimension to their existing business portfolios and preparing themselves to stay ahead of the innovation and competitive curves.

Hot spot for tech leadership The geospatial market is emerging as a ‘hot spot’ of technology marketplace, wherein

Sanjay Kumar CEO and Founder Geospatial World sanjay@geospatialworld.net

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 25

INTERVIEW

We Need to Scale Up Action to Meet the 1.5 C Target World Meteorological Organization (WMO) provides leadership and expertise in international cooperation in the delivery and use of high-quality, authoritative weather, climate, hydrological and related environmental services. Professor Petteri Taalas has been the SecretaryGeneral of WMO since January 2016. In this interview, he highlights some of the prominent climate indicators and warns on continuation of the negative trends, but also underlines the scientific solutions for mitigating some of those challenges and optimizing losses.

February and March this year were warmer than usual. We also saw Antarctic Sea ice coverage shrinking to a record low. What are other such alarming indicators that we are witnessing?

WMO is about to release a report on the state of the climate in 2021. And what we are seeing is that we have again broken records in concentrations of the main greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. And glacial melting is not only continuing but also speeding up.

We have witnessed an increase in sea level rise.

From an average of around 2 mm per year about 20 years ago to over 4.5 mm per year in recent times.

More than 90 percent of the excess heat is being stored in the ocean, leading to ocean warming. At the same time, oceans are serving as a sink for CO2, and that’s changing the chemical composition of seawater. The pH balance of the oceans is now the lowest in 26,000 years.

All-time high temperature records were broken in Canada last summer, when some parts touched 49.6 degree Celsius. In Europe, we broke all-time records in Southern Italy with 48.8 C. Similar trends were witnessed in Turkey and Spain as well.

On one hand, we had intense droughts and heat waves hitting the western parts of North America and severe droughts in the Middle East. On the other hand, we had massive flooding and heavy causalities in other countries, including Germany, China and India. Very recently, there has been deadly flooding in South Africa.

We have seen two years of a very large Antarctic ozone hole, which is also partly related to climate change. When we are warming the lower atmosphere, we are cooling the stratosphere, and these ozone depletion conditions are becoming more favorable because of climate change.

Are these trends likely to continue in 2022?

Of course, this overall warming will continue. The global temperature records depend on the status of the oceans — the El Niño and La Niña variability. The temperatures are higher in El Niño years than the La Niña years. The past few years have been La Niña years. That’s why we haven’t broken the global temperature record. But during an El Niño year, it’s very likely that we would break the earlier 2016 record.

In the week of March 18, both Antarctic and Arctic touched record high temperatures…

We have the biggest ice masses over Greenland and Antarctica. In Greenland, we have sea ice, which, if it melts fully, could lead to potentially 7 meters rise in sea levels. Antarctica has glaciers, which could lead to 60 meters rise in sea levels if they melt fully.

We have already reached a risky level of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. We expect that the melting of glaciers will continue for the coming centuries independent of our success in climate mitigation. And this negative trend in weather patterns will continue for the coming decades.

But we haven’t lost the game. If we succeed in reaching the Paris Agreement — the 1.5 to 2 degree C limits, then we could cap this negative trend in climate by the 2060s. But if we fail, we will see higher numbers and even more casualties.

Do you think we can be successful in reaching the Paris Accord and cap global warming at 1.5 degree C? If you look at the estimates of the International Energy Agency, we are supposed to see a slight increase in total global emissions instead of a drop.

So, the 1.5 C target is very ambitious. But it can be achieved if there is a higher level of ambition, especially among the emerging economies. I would say that 2 C is still a realistic target, but 1.5 C is not so likely at the moment. We need to create the means to remove carbon from the atmosphere. But so far, we don’t have such technologies.

The Arctic is one of the major topics that comes up in every weather/climate related discussion. Why is the Arctic warming faster than the rest of the world and what could be the repercussions?

The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the world. And there has been so-called “positive feedback effect”, which is caused by melting of snow and ice. The radiative properties of snow and ice are different from dark ocean or dark soil. And that’s why we have seen this change. But what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic; it impacts weather conditions in the whole of the Northern hemisphere.

One of the factors behind the dynamics of atmosphere is the temperature difference between Arctic

The past few years have been La Niña years. That's why we haven't been breaking the global temperature record. But during an El Niño year, it's very likely that we would break the earlier 2016 record. and the Equator. As a result, we are seeing stagnant weather conditions more often, which means heat waves and drought during the summer half of the year, and severe cold spells during the winter.

Are we seeing similar trends in the Antarctic as well?

The situation is different in the Antarctic, which is a continent and is quite symmetric. We have seen melting of the sea ice in the Antarctic area, but not as much as in the Arctic. The Arctic has floating sea ice, whereas the Antarctic is a solid continent with thick mass of glaciers. So, the melting is not the same but the Antarctic glaciers have also started melting.

The melting of Greenland has caused double the sea level rise as compared to Antarctic. But in the long run, the Antarctic melting will dominate the sea level rise.

WMO has consistently called for attention to adaptation and mitigation. We know early warning systems are a very powerful way to climate adaptation. What are the latest advancements that have been made towards this at a global level?

Climate mitigation is of course essential for the welfare of future generations and the welfare of our planet. But it is equally important to pay attention to climate adaptation, which could help us avoid losses in terms of both economic and human lives.

One of the most powerful ways to adapt to climate change is to invest in early warning services.

Currently, only half of the 193 WMO member countries have proper early warning services in place.

This means when high impact weather event hits, the economic losses and casualties are higher.

The UN Secretary-General has already announced that within the next five years, every country would have early warning systems in place, and WMO March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 27

Image Courtesy of WMO

INTERVIEW

will coordinate the proposal at the next COP27 meeting in Egypt this November. We have to invest in both ground-based observation systems as well as enhancing manpower skills and access to products in developing countries. We also need to pay attention to impact-based forecasting, which means advance warning around the impacts of storms, floods, droughts, heat waves or coastal inundation events.

WMO is spearheading the creation of the Systematic Observations Financing Facility to ensure more sustainable investments. Tell us more about it.

We are just preparing a major financing package to be approved by the next COP27 in Egypt. We have to enhance the observing systems in some countries, which have major limitations. There’s a lack of ground-based stations and also balloon sounding stations for vertical profile measurements, especially in Africa, and the Caribbean and Pacific islands.

This where we hope the Systematic Observations Financing Facility will improve the situation.

Our aim is to mobilize USD 400 million during the coming five years to install more stations in these regions. The plan also includes installing vertical sounding measurement stations that would enhance the quality of the early warning services in those regions. These measures will also have positive impact on the quality of early warning services worldwide, because weather doesn’t know any borders.

The satellite industry has grown exponentially in the past few years, with more number of satellites and different types of sensors now available widely.

How has that helped weather scientists?

Thanks to satellite observations, we have been able to enhance the accuracy of early warning services, 28 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

and especially in the Southern hemisphere where we don’t have so many ground-based stations. We are grateful to the various space agencies and satellite operators in providing us with the required data.

We are preparing a global system where we combine data from ground-based test stations. WMO is running a global atmosphere network of about 200 stations. Then we have satellite measurements of greenhouse gases from USA, China, Japan, and soon also from the European Space Agency and EUMETSAT. Finally, we also have models to simulate the behavior of greenhouse gases in the real atmosphere. Currently, we don’t fully understand why the concentration of methane is still growing, and there’s a need to enhance the observing systems to better understand this phenomenon.

You have also many times called for attention to filling in data gaps. With a flood of data now coming out of new sensors and completely new constellation of satellites, what are the current gaps?

Despite all this, we also have data gaps. One of the messages from the most recent IPCC report is that in many parts of the world — parts of Africa and Asia, and also some parts of Americas — we don’t have enough data to confidently say if a certain weather phenomenon is a trend. Then, we have major gaps in things like rainfall observations.

There’s a need to enhance these observing sites and the Systematic Observations Financing Facility aims at filling those gaps. With satellites, you can get some complementary information on clouds and so forth, but you also need these classical in-situ measurements.

Interviewed by: Anusuya Datta

EXPERT OPINION

Emerging Role of Geospatial ESG to Protect the Natural World ESG is a term coined by businesses and finance institutions to consider the environmental, social, and governance impacts of their investments. Now, a new geospatially driven approach is changing how businesses worldwide are assessed on their impact to the natural world. By David J. Patterson

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lobally, wildlife is in freefall. Nature is being destroyed at a rate never seen before, and this catastrophic decline is showing no signs of slowing.

The evidence for this stark claim comes from the Living Planet Report that WWF produces with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) whose team tracked data on 20,811 populations of 4,392 vertebrate species.

It found that population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have fallen an average of 68 percent globally since 1970 — more than two thirds in less than 50 years.

Understanding these changes, and critically who is responsible for driving negative environmental impacts, will be an important component in tackling and reversing the ongoing climate and biodiversity crises. This insight is particularly important for the financial sector where many investors have agreed to reduce the environmental impact of their portfolios and need accurate data on the projects, companies, and countries that they are investing in.

Yet, quantifying environmental impacts and assigning them to a specific actor, including impacts within highly dynamic global supply chains, has proved difficult. Fortunately, a new approach, geospatial ESG, offers increasing hope of supporting a viable data solution. Using a range of innovative technologies, such as remote sensing and AI, this increasingly mainstreamed approach is producing environmental insights that are already being used by the financial sector.

So, what is Geospatial ESG? ESG is a term coined by businesses and finance institutions to consider the environmental, social, and governance impacts of their investments. The metrics they use draw upon many different data sources. Primarily on the ‘E’ pillar, data is sourced from the annual ESG reporting of companies themselves, from web-scaped media, or from financial modelling, which uses data from reported profits to estimate environmental footprint. Often ESG providers hybridise these different data approaches together to come up with E, S and G scores for a company. Geospatial ESG is one more potential data source to add into the mix.

Geospatial ESG, uses geospatial data to generate insights into a specific commercial asset, or a March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 29

EXPERT OPINION

Geospatial data can be integrated with ground monitoring data such as smart meters and environmental DNA as well as traditional ESG data points for even greater clarity of an asset’s environmental impact. company, portfolio or geographic area. It begins with the accurate location and definition of ownership of a commercial asset such as a factory, mine, field, road or retail estate, known as asset data.

Then using different geospatial approaches, it is possible to assess the asset against observational data, to provide an understanding of initial and ongoing environmental impacts as well as other relevant social and governance factors.

Geospatial data can be integrated with ground monitoring data such as smart meters and environmental DNA as well as traditional ESG data points for even greater clarity of an asset’s environmental impact. Then by grouping the assets of a company and its supply chain or grouping within an area such as a state or country, it is possible to develop comparable company or national metrics.

Geospatial ESG also uses the most comprehensive means we have for tracking global scale changes to the environment — satellite imagery.

Unlike other potential data sources, satellite imagery can provide daily or weekly data, is fully independent, able to be tailored to monitor sector-specific variables and is often globally scalable. These traits mean that it has potential, either via direct measurements or combined with other data approaches, to give real insight to unravel the true impact of companies and their supply chains in near real-time.

What is already out there?

Recognizing the opportunities, over the last few years, larger business intelligence providers have 30 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

increasingly begun to integrate various environmental geospatial data points into their ESG products. Alongside this, some financial institutions have begun to expand their technical capacities and have hired inhouse geospatial teams.

Geospatial ESG is already delivering useful insights. Asset level to corporate level screening has been achieved for sectors such as oil and gas, mining, fishing, shipping, cement, steel and the power sector. Commercial actors such as Asset Resolution, Bloomberg, Reprisk and Verisk Maplecroft and others already offer geospatial ESG-derived data products. Some, such as the Trase tool, even manage to generate insights from incomplete asset data, providing estimates of a company’s direct deforestation risk.

Since 2015, the WWF-SIGHT team at WWF has been developing geospatial methods to better understand, the ‘where, what and who’ of harm to the natural world and, every quarter, we track impacts to over 3,00,000 sites, considering nearly three million commercial assets globally.

This work can highlight specific environmental issues of projects and investment programs. It frequently finds issues with major infrastructure developments and extractive developments that threaten World Heritage sites and the degradation of remaining blocks of habitat such as mangroves rainforest and the endangered species which live within them.

We also highlight potential red flags across entire sectors. For example, WWF is aware of 733 commercial assets within World Heritage sites, owned by 200 companies. Within or bordering Category I Protected Areas, WWF found 1,592 assets, held by 267 different holders across some 257 unique protected areas.

Within or bordering Category II, some 2,757 assets, 751 holders within 556 unique protected areas.

Companies identified include major multinationals, but frequently junior and private companies are also involved. This allows us to engage with the companies themselves, the financial community such as shareholders and insurers, government departments, and conservationists to help address the issues that geospatial ESG uncovers.

So, why isn’t it more widely used?

Geospatial ESG relies on two pillars, Firstly, asset and supply chain data — used to define what, where and who, and secondly, observational data — as proxy measures to help us determine the extent of environmental impacts. But both have shortfalls.

On the asset data side of the equation, robust asset datasets accurately defining the location and ownership only exist for industries where historically there has been a need for a global dataset. As a result, robust global asset datasets only exist for six or seven sectors (such as mining, oil and gas, shipping, and power plants). For many sectors asset data does not exist. Without this, no geospatial assessment is possible. In addition, as we move to assess higher-tier industries, whose impact will mostly be in their supply chains, data on supply chains becomes more critical. While there are some insights possible on supply chains using trade datasets, most supply chain data remains hidden.

The observational data portfolio is in a stronger position, but various data gaps need to be filled. While the environmental datasets are more commonly available than social or governance datasets, it is likely that these issues will be resolved in time, especially as it will, in part, be driven by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other global initiatives which are increasingly driving data creation efforts likely to support geospatial ESG.

What’s the future of Geospatial ESG? With increasing pressure being placed on the financial sector to understand their impact on the natural world, we can expect to see further investment in and use of geospatial ESG. However, critical bottlenecks need to be overcome. Most notably, we need to find a way for actors to share assets, supply chain data, and observational data between themselves securely.

It seems likely that the nature and biodiversity data world would benefit from following the example of the climate data space which has developed various open-source standards and data

Key limitations faced when applying the open ‘environmental’ observational datasets for geospatial ESG application

CHALLENGES OF ‘BIODIVERSITY’

TEMPORAL CONSISTENCY

SPATIAL RESOLUTION

RELEVANCY

DATA INTERDEPENDENCIES

ACCURACY

marketplaces tasked to enable data to flow into the finance sector.

It now seems inevitable that with ever improving satellite images and the inherent spatial dimension of biodiversity, the financial sector will be using geospatial ESG to better understand its impacts on nature loss.

What is less clear, but vitally important given the global climate and biodiversity challenges, is whether the long and complex process from data creation to real world application using proven metrics can be achieved in the next two to three years — a timeframe which is vital if we’re to meet the global climate and biodiversity challenges we are all facing.

If you like to learn more about geospatial ESG, WWF recently published a white paper with the World Bank and Global Canopy and other collaborators which illustrates their work on developing quantitative geospatial ESG methodologies.

David J. Patterson Head of Conservation Intelligence Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF-UK) DJPatterson@wwf.org.uk March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 31

Image Courtesy: GHGSAT

PULSE is a unique interactive tool using cutting-edge technology to reveal methane concentrations around the world – in the highest resolution ever.

THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

FROM SPACE

The planet is on the brink today. Soaring temperatures have led to natural disasters all over the world, resulting in loss of lives and resources. 2020 and 2021 were among the costliest years on record for weather disasters. For years now, remote sensing has been used to monitor earth and changes on it, but optical imagery has its limitations. Thanks to new sensors and technologies, the commercial satellite industry is now uniquely positioned to play a larger role in the fight against climate change.

There is also a growing movement towards global partnerships in leveraging space technologies for climate mitigation. By Anusuya Datta

G

HGSat’s global methane monitoring map of the world looks like angry blotches of red paint sprayed on the canvas.

Unfortunately, that is not an artist’s imagination. The red is methane emissions. Methane, which is the second most abundant greenhouse gas (GHG) found in the atmosphere after carbon dioxide (CO2), and is more than 25 times as potent in trapping heat.

32 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Despite all the outcry over global warming, greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise. For the second year in a row, NOAA scientists observed a record annual increase in atmospheric levels of methane. This corroborates with GHGSat’s earlier findings, which said the monthly average emission rate increased threefold from January to December 2021 across all industries, points out GHGSat CEO Stephane Germain.

Canada-based GHGSat’s three satellites, which are equipped with special sensors, provides the only high-resolution satellite data dedicated to finding industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

Detection of methane emission from space is new and was not available till the European Space Agency launched Sentinel 5P in 2017. About the same time, GHGSat launched its first satellite to measure greenhouse gases at high resolution. Today, its three satellites are pinpointing the exact sources of emissions at thousands of sites across the world, and its analytics service combines multiple geospatial datasets to inform operators and regulators.

And what all these satellites are revealing has come as a shock — methane is leaking from gas pipelines, oil wells and processing plants, and landfills all over the world. In many cases, emissions are not accounted for in mandatory GHG inventories.

You can’t manage what you don’t measure “Much of what we rely on today for

these GHG data comes from a patchwork of high-level but often-outdated, country-provided reports,” says Gavin McCormick, one of the ten founding members of Climate TRACE, a coalition of global organizations set up under the leadership of former US Vice President and climate leader Al Gore, and comprises of non-profits, private companies, and academia.

Planet is one of the key partners of this initiative.

“We are excited to see growing public-private partnerships across the satellite industry, such as Carbon Mapper, to digitally map and monitor greenhouse gas emissions to facilitate timely action to mitigate human impacts to Earth’s climate and ecosystems,” said a spokesperson from Planet, which has had a sustained focus on environment with its 24x7 optical satellites.

“Our collective goal is to bring radical transparency to global emissions monitoring by pinpointing exactly where emissions are coming from and fill in the critical gaps in existing greenhouse gas emissions inventories,” he adds. Rather than building emission inventories based on ground-up, self-reported estimates, Climate TRACE is taking a top-down approach — by building a global inventory of GHG emissions based on direct, independent observation, by using satellite imagery, AI, and machine learning.

Other partners include NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the State of California, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and RMI, and the initiative seeks to demonstrate how collaborative relationships can make strides to share critical information needed to mitigate climate change. The first Carbon Mapper satellite is targeting a 2023 launch. The satellites — numbering around 20 — will be built and operated by Planet.

Similarly, Carbon Mapper, another global public-private partnership launched last year, aims to fill gaps in the emerging global ecosystem of methane and CO2 monitoring systems by delivering data at facility scale that is precise, timely, and accessible to empower science-based decision making and action.

However, climate change is not just about emissions, but a lot more. It includes melting poles and increasing natural disasters. Let’s look at some of the new satellite technologies that are playing a pivotal role in monitoring the most incremental and infinitesimal changes on Earth round the clock.

“By pinpointing exactly where emissions are coming from, we can work to mitigate them quickly.

This technology development is very recent and of critical importance in our time-bound efforts to curb climate change,” says Dr Dan Cusworth, Carbon Project Scientist at Carbon Mapper.

Synthetic aperture radar The biggest hurdles for a satellite to accurately observe Earth are cloud cover and inability to see at night. This is why SAR sensors come into the picture.

SAR on a satellite is not a new concept, but for long it was the exclusive purview of national space agencies due to cost barriers. Fitting a SAR sensor onto a satellite under 100 kg was deemed largely impossible before ICEYE did it in 2018. Since then, there have been many more players, but ICEYE continues to be the leader in this space with the largest constellation of SAR satellites in the world — it has 16 in orbit, each weighing about 100 kg.

A broad-based coalition of industry, government, philanthropies, and academic institutions, Carbon Mapper data is expected to provide more complete, precise, and timely measurement of point source methane and CO2 emissions as well as 25-plus other indicators.

The jury has reached a verdict. And it is damning. This report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a litany of broken climate promises. It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world. We are on a fast track to climate disaster.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on April 4, 2022

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 33

Image courtesy: ICEYE

ICEYE radar satellite image from a part of the Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica, taken on April 20, 2019. Thwaites is one the largest Antarctic glaciers, comparable to the size of Great Britain or Florida. Meltwater from Thwaites alone is responsible for 4 percent of global sea level rise. Scientists fear the glacier would collapse in the next five to ten years

Unlike traditional Earth-imaging satellites, SAR satellites bounce a powerful radar beam off the surface of the Earth from space, thereby painting a picture of what’s happening below. The radar beams can see through clouds, smoke, and even darkness.

“Our imagery is an ideal tool to monitor changes on the ground through any type of weather and during night-time. We call it persistent monitoring and the imagery is used for detecting changes on the ground,” says ICEYE CEO and Co-founder Rafal Modrzewski.

From a climate perspective, its most dynamic product is the ICEYE flood monitoring solution, which provides near real-time extent of flood information, including the actual depth of water around buildings within 24-hours of a flood’s peak. These come handy for all industries, from insurance and risk management, flood monitoring, maritime safety and oil spill detection, infrastructure monitoring, mining and energy as well as defense and intelligence.

SAR sensors can also capture many changes which are not very obvious. For instance, the

But it was largely the images that we didn’t see that could have been providing vital clues to scientists in understanding and assessing the impact of the volcano.

Within hours, the disaster analysis team at Synspective, a Japanese startup specializing in Earth Observation data analysis, began looking into the changes in the shape of the island and surroundings. By comparing before-and-after Sentinel-1 SAR images, Synspective found out that the island was changing over a period of time — the first eruption, a much smaller one, occurred on December 20, 2021, when the island was enlarged, and then subsided when its size shrank. The massive eruption on January 14-15 again resulted in changes all over.

“We are working on providing data and solutions across a broad variety of areas, from mitigating risks from human-nature interactions, such as landslides, subsidence, flood zones and to better utilization of resources such as green energy. We are also developing solutions which allow customers to better take stock of their forest inventories,” says Vincent Kessler, General Manager at Synspective.

22 December 2021 – 3 January 2022

3 January 2022 – 15 January 2022

Image courtesy: Synspective

10 December 2021 – 22 December 2021

January 15 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption off South Pacific, which wiped out a small island on Tonga and devastated lives and livelihoods in others. The largest eruption in the history of satellite observation triggered tsunamis as far afield as the Caribbean, throwing up gas and ash through the stratosphere into the lower mesosphere. Satellites images showed us the images of the eruption and the immediate damages.

This analysis by Synspective utilizes data based on the scattering intensity of radio waves from SAR satellites. The polygons in the blue frame indicate changes that may have occurred around the island as a result of eruptive activity 34 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Synspective is also in the process of launching its own SAR constellation. As of March 2022, the company has successfully put two satellites in orbit and will launch its first commercial prototype, StriX-1, this year. By 2023, it plans to have six satellites, with ultimate plan of 30 by 2026.

HawkEye 360 launched its unique satellites in 2018.

Today, it operates a constellation of three satellites that fly in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) supporting frequent revisits anywhere each day.

“The RF data layer can quickly guide authorities to uncover bad actors that are negatively impacting the global commons, such as illegal fishing that destroys marine ecosystems or illegal strip mining that spoils the ground and rivers. Machine learning helps analysts to sort through the noise to pinpoint how individual actors and nations may be helping or hurting environmental situations,” says Adam Bennett, Senior Director of Product Marketing, HawkEye 360.

Satellite-based Earth Observation plays a key role in monitoring volcanoes, especially those in remote areas that can't be monitored by standard terrestrial networks. And because they can operate at night, or even when there is cloud cover, SAR satellites are fast emerging as a preferred tool to monitor disruptive activities and natural disasters, including severe droughts, wildfires, or floods and hurricanes.

For instance, HawkEye’s RF data analysis has yielded insights into the surge of activity across the Arctic, one of the consequences of sea-ice melts that opens up year-round access. The satellites identified vessels traveling through channels that did not previously exist and detected varying concentrations of VHF communication in unexpected places. “As the Arctic melts, aggressive actors and nation states are seizing opportunities to stake their claims in the region,” Bennett adds.

“Now more than ever there is the need to monitor the physical world. Monitoring is necessary because it underpins the commitments being made by the public and private sector to meet climate-related pledges,” iterates Nicole Robinson, President, Ursa Space Systems, a US-based satellite intelligence company that leverages the SAR data from its partner network and its own data fusion expertise to detect real-time changes and analyze patterns in the physical world to help business and government decision-makers.

Spire Global, another company that has made a mark in this field, has a constellation of 140-plus nanosatellites which are multi-sensor, including RF, AIS (Automatic Identification Systems used to track maritime vessels), ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast used for air traffic) and GNSS-RO (GNSS Radio Occultation for monitoring the atmosphere).

“SAR is well-suited for this task because of its inherent capabilities, so it’s a good marriage between having the right sensor for collection and the computing power to handle big data analytics,” she adds. In addition to SAR, Ursa also uses optical and RF data for its analysis.

Radio frequency analysis from space Radio frequency (RF) monitoring satellites listen for any kind of RF activity on Earth from space.

Commercial RF monitoring data wasn’t previously available as open source, geospatial dataset before

Image courtesy HawkEye 360

Ursa persistently monitors over 1,000 locations globally, extracting insights into readymade datasets in areas such as oil storage; auto manufacturing and port monitoring etc. It then translates this SAR data into standardized formats to analyze the patterns of Earth at a deeper level, and understanding behaviors over time in a multi-faceted way.

In the Summer of 2021, HawkEye 360 detected a busy season of vessel movements across Arctic Sea ice during a time when sea ice is minimal March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 35

“At Spire, we are looking to listen to all kinds of signal opportunities out there. This allows us to track various kinds of activities which could potentially be impacting climate change. Additionally, the satellites also gather data around things like soil moisture, sea ice thickness etc,” says Jeff Rex, Vice President, Business Development, Earth Intelligence.

And because Spire’s satellites are polar orbiting that cover the globe, it gets a complete global picture of atmospheric data. “We have over 10,000 plus soundings any day. And we provide those to a number of different atmospheric organizations around the world, such as EUMETSAT and NOAA. We also provide historical data to organizations working on climatological studies,” adds Rex. For instance, the Global Fishing Watch is channeling Spire’s AIS data into advanced data analytics, to create an extensive record of global fishing operations — the tools can automatically spot fishing vessels within the vast volume of data, estimate their fishing history, and flag suspicious behavior.

Hyperspectral imaging The idea behind hyperspectral imaging is simple — the technique analyzes a wide spectrum of light instead of just assigning primary RGB colors to each pixel. Accordingly, satellites with hyperspectral sensors acquire imagery in hundreds of spectral bands, allowing for very fine observation of the Earth’s surface and distinguishing between different features.

The technology is fast coming up as a complementary data source to conventional optical imagery and SAR and a crucial tool for climate change mitigation.

A number of commercial players, including Planet, have jumped into the fray. As mentioned earlier, Planet is now working on launching a hyperspectral satellite constellation as part of its work with Carbon Mapper.

“The Global Methane Pledge is highlighting the urgent need to accelerate methane mitigation to improve monitoring and reporting efforts, and in particular alert operators to leaks and other super-emitter activity. And now, with advancements in hyperspectral imaging, we believe satellites could help to quantify methane leaks globally,” said the Planet spokesperson.

36 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Image courtesy: Spire Global/GFW

SATELLITES FOR CLIMATE MONITORING

This map from Global Fishing Watch reveals where and when thousands of vessels are involved in close encounters at sea

But then climate monitoring is not only about monitoring a forest or sea ice. As Thomas VanMatre, Vice President of Global Business Development, Satellogic, points out, it plays a paramount role in preventing natural phenomena from turning into disasters and catastrophes.

“The disasters are not natural stricto sensu, because they are always linked to human activity,” he adds.

A pioneer in commercial hyperspectral imaging with small satellites, Satellogic’s data provides powerful insights for floods, landslides, wildfires, volcano eruptions, among others, including the effects of such events such as damage assessments of settlements and/or infrastructure, monitoring of population displacements, mapping and verifying safe evacuation routes, and more.

Similarly, Orbital Sidekick’s hyperspectral sensors in space allow it to chemically fingerprint data that it captures for oil & gas industry — helping them not only detect leaks early, but also prevent them. “Our aim is to allow customers to find the problem areas as early as possible and in near real-time. Preventing accidents from happening on an asset and/or detecting issues as early as possible is the best way to mitigate issues surrounding climate change,” says Michael DeJesus, Vice President of Product at Orbital Sidekick.

Another big use case in the climate sphere that Orbital Sidekick works on is fighting forest fires. “With our MVP sensor on the International Space Station, we used the data to understand how we can build a product that would allow a user to look at where the highest risk for a forest fire to start might be,” he says.

This includes vegetative management along power lines for utility companies, and then, once a fire starts, where is it likely to spread.

“Hyperspectral imaging has numerous scientific, environmental, humanitarian, defense, and commercial

applications. High revisit-rate hyperspectral monitoring missions will feed advanced computing algorithms that allow new insights into patterns of life and a greater ability to quantify, analyze, and classify human and natural activity on the Earth,” VanMatre adds.

treating each dataset like an individual product and building out the tech infrastructure for each one, a single automated infrastructure is replicable and scalable.

“Therefore, for each new dataset, we can reuse the same pipeline and focus our efforts on the data sources, scientific expertise, and algorithm development thereby reducing our production time,” says Kshitij Purwar, Founder and CTO of Blue Sky, which is also a founder member of the Climate TRACE coalition.

A systems of systems approach When it comes to something as enormous and complex as climate change, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model.

What is needed is a systems-of-systems approach where different sensors provide different solutions.

Blue Sky’s first dataset, BreeZo (for air quality monitoring) took nine months to develop, while the second, Zuri (for monitoring GHG emissions from biomass fires), took only four months. The goal is to reduce this to 45 days for each new dataset.

“As technology advances, you’re going to get better resolution, spatial for optical as well as radar-based sensors, spectral, and temporal, higher downlink capabilities, systems to do edge computing on board the satellite, and lastly analytics that help turn all this data into all types of insights including climate monitoring,” says DeJesus.

“Our proprietary geospatial data intelligence platform is built via a new and innovative application of multiple existing technologies, and compared to the current solutions, our data refinery can process crude data to insightful information in a shorter time frame at 1/100th of the cost with a thousand times higher resolution,” Purwar adds.

Agrees Cusworth of Carbon Mapper when he says accurately measuring and monitoring global emission sources requires a global system of systems to provide a complete and actionable dataset that can highlight where emissions are coming from at various levels of specificity (geographically, by sector, and by facility) and based on these insights prescribe the best mitigation pathways.

Mark Hogsett, Director of Business Development, BlackSky, points out that real-time actionable satellite data, analytics, and insights can be delivered at the pace and scale of mission operations through intuitive web-based interfaces that require no IT infrastructure or setup.

“New satellites, sensors, airborne observations, and ground observations are all part of this important and growing ecosystem to effectively pinpoint, track, and ultimately mitigate CO2 and methane emissions, informing science-based, near-term action by countries and companies alike,” he says.

BlackSky’s analytic platform, Spectra AI, can automatically tip and cue its satellites in response to environmental changes caused by both human and natural events. And then, capture and delivery of images can be done within hours to help in climate-related decision-making.

Similarly, India-based Blue Sky Analytics has created a geospatial data refinery, where, instead of

Image courtesy: Satellogic

Satellogic’s imaging of the La Palma Volcano eruption in Spain in 2021, which destroyed more than 1,600 buildings, roads and hundreds of acres crops

Then there is analytics The past two decades have also witnessed major improvements in processing capabilities with strides in cloud services, computation methods and API availability. Services like Google Earth Engine can now provide terrabytes of data instantly.

“Additionally, with the advancements in machine learning and deep learning, more sophisticated March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 37

SATELLITES FOR CLIMATE MONITORING

algorithms could extract deeper and better decision-useful insights that were earlier impossible,” points out Purwar, which leverages satellite data, Artificial Intelligence, and cloud computing to provide near real-time, high-resolution data via easy-to-plug in APIs. This solves a key challenge for analysts who are on the lookout for high-quality environmental data as input for modelling, diligence, and credit scoring.

Similarly, whether it's a human-made event or a natural disaster that can cause observable change to land cover, coastlines or buildings, real-time analytics can help with assessments, relief efforts, or help quantify a damage assessment for insurance purposes.

For example, BlackSky's technology will be used this summer to help monitor water reservoirs in remote, hard-to-reach areas to check algae blooms that might impact the quality of potable water supply.

Further, the platform can monitor for changes in a municipality's tree canopy, which can be instrumental in mitigating heat. Its automatic detect capabilities enable it to send an alert to authorities

notifying them of any reduction of trees. Officials could compare that information against permits for tree removal and, if the removal was unsanctioned, follow up with the relevant authorities.

Echoes Germain of GHGSat when he says while new capabilities for monitoring emissions are on the horizon, the most exciting innovation lies with analysts developing algorithms that get the best results using high-resolution satellite data.

We are now at a point where we can automate and process information without humans in the loop, at a scale and pace that is unmatched and meaningful for decision-making. “So, the size of the data is no longer the limit; it's now a function of the creativity behind the algorithms to generate new knowledge from the data that we have,” wraps up Hogsett.

Anusuya Datta Editor-At-Large — Americas anusuya@geospatialworld.net

Climate Action:

Map the Change, Create Resilience Learn more at go.esri.com/Climate2022.

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EYE ON EMISSIONS

Climate TRACE

How the global not-for-profit coalition made up of NGOs, technology companies, academia, and former US Vice President and climate leader Al Gore is using earth observation data and AI to bring radical transparency to greenhouse gas emissions. By Gavin McCormick

I

n early April 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the UN’s preeminent body on the human-caused climate crisis — released its anxiously anticipated assessment of the action needed to avert climate disaster. News headlines were a unified chorus: the window is rapidly closing to decisively act to reduce emissions and avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis.

Never before has the need been greater for accurate and timely information on the emissions that are being added to Earth’s atmosphere and where they are coming from. Delivering answers to such questions — leveraging earth observation data and AI — is the story of Climate TRACE.

The genesis of a global coalition The relatively recent proliferation of lower-cost satellites in orbit studying our planet, coupled with advances in AI and machine

learning technology, have in recent years made new forms of tech-forward emissions monitoring possible.

In 2019 WattTime, an environmental tech nonprofit, received a grant from Google.org to use satellites to monitor the emissions from the world’s fossil-fueled power plants. The project caught global attention and prompted a response from the world’s emissions monitoring and remote sensing communities: Could we use similar technology-centric approaches to also monitor emissions from the other major emissions-causing sectors of the global economy, such as shipping, industry, aviation, and agriculture?

The short answer was ‘yes.’ And in 2020, Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) was born. We are a not-for-profit coalition of international organizations made up of NGOs, technology companies, academia, and former US Vice

President and climate leader Al Gore. Our collective goal is to bring radical transparency to global emissions monitoring, by pinpointing exactly where emissions are coming from and fill in the critical detail missing in existing greenhouse gas emissions inventories.

Using technology to complement legacy emissions inventories Greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories are now measured using standardized methods such as a framework developed by the IPCC to identify emissions sources, quantify annual emissions, and track progress toward emissions-reduction commitments and targets.

Much of what we rely on today for these GHG data comes from a patchwork of high-level but often-outdated, country-provided reports. Producing a comprehensive national inventory has historically been a time- and resource-intensive process, putting some March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 39

EYE ON EMISSIONS

Landsat-8, and Planet) to gather images of power plants. These images are then linked to ground truth data that allow the model to learn how to predict a plant’s output based on specific attributes of the satellite data, such as visible plume size and temperature. As we uncover more ground truth data, as new satellites are launched, and as we gain access to new sensors, the model’s performance improves.

Climate TRACE contributor Paddy Watch uses satellite data to identify rice growing areas, which are a major source of methane emissions. Vercelli Rice Fields, Italy -Sentinel-2-30042017

countries at a disadvantage. Moreover, many inventories rely on voluntary self-reporting from the emitters themselves. An empirical, independent accounting of emissions could both level the playing field for countries globally and instill more trust and confidence in the numbers.

Harnessing satellites and AI for radical transparency Rather than building emissions inventories based on ground-up, self-reported estimates, Climate TRACE is taking a top-down — or perhaps sky-down — approach.

emissions data than others — ended up being one of the foundational techniques for creating emissions estimates for all countries. Those countries and sectors that have public, granular, and more-accurate emissions data for certain assets can be used to train models that are able to predict emissions for assets in countries and sectors that do not have the same data available.

For example, to track power plants, founding coalition member WattTime uses various satellite data sources (Sentinel-2,

Not all our members use satellite imagery, though. For example, OceanMind, a member that measures shipping emissions, relies heavily on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data that ships transmit. Historically, AIS transmissions were mainly used for ship safety. Now, they are used to track ships’ movement across the oceans. OceanMind can glean the ship identity, speed, heading, and time from this system. They then combine this information with other commercial data that contain more information about each ship, including type of ship, engine power, and registration country. Using ground truth

We have compiled the first inventory of GHG emissions that is based on direct, independent observation. We harness satellite imagery, AI, and machine learning to identify and measure activities that cause emissions, such as global transportation, forest fires, electricity production, mining, and manufacturing processes.

The impetus behind this project — that some countries have better and/or more public 40 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Data from Climate TRACE member RMI show that two historic North Sea fields in the widely traded Brent oil basket have significantly different climate footprints. The UK Brent field emits 25x more kg CO2-equivalent per barrel oil equivalent than Norway Ekofisk

Climate TRACE members WattTime and TransitionZero use satellite imagery to identify emission-causing activities like steam plumes from power plants. Scherer Power Plant, USA - Google Earth Explorer

emissions data provided by data analytics companies as well as shipping companies, OceanMind trains models that can predict the emissions of each ship.

Each group within Climate TRACE specializes in one anthropogenic sector, but we are sharing all these findings to create a truly global system that is available and free for everyone via the Climate TRACE website.

Unveiling timely and granular global emissions data for the first time

In September 2021 we released our inaugural inventory covering every country in the world through 2015–2020, spanning 10 sectors and 38 subsectors. These data revealed several striking insights about recent emissions trends, for example:  Steel production globally resulted in 13.1 billion tons of CO2e between 2015 and 2020, equivalent to the total emissions of Japan and the United Kingdom combined over that same period.  Shipping and aviation together emitted nearly 11 billion tons of

United States power sector emissions 2020 vs. Q1–Q3 2021

CO2e between 2015 and 2020, totals that would make these two sectors combined the 5th largest emitter in the world, if they were a country.  Rice emissions are higher than previously thought in several countries, and in India’s case may be nearly 3 times the most recent official inventory from 2016.  In oil and gas production and refining, among the world’s top countries that submit regular inventories, emissions from oil and gas may collectively be around double (1 billion tons higher than) recent UNFCCC reports.  Further, it is likely that over 1 billion additional tons CO2e per year, more than the annual emissions of the 100 lowest-ranking emitting countries combined, have gone uncounted by countries that aren’t required to report their oil and gas emissions regularly.

An accompanying report was released soon after in early November, ahead of the COP26 negotiations. This report identified specific aspects of our earlier analysis that allow for more detailed and actionable insights about emissions:  Although accounting frameworks attribute emissions to certain entities — whether countries or corporations — in practice, all emissions come from specific sources: power plants, ships, factories, etc.

That’s why asset-level granularity and the ability to ‘zoom in’ on a specific source and its emissions are central to our roadmap for Climate TRACE. March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 41

EYE ON EMISSIONS

fluctuations from certain sectors and individual assets.

For example, looking back at 2020 granular time-series data, OceanMind confirmed a sudden, sharp decline in maritime-related emissions as pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions brought a temporary halt to the cruise ship industry.

Climate TRACE uses satellite data to estimate emissions from forest and cropland fires.

Wildfires in Siberia, Sentinel-2

 Measuring emissions from specific assets is dependent on knowing those assets exist in the first place. Yet in some instances, the existence of important sources of emissions remain undocumented. Climate TRACE data will put these emissions sources on the map for the first time. For example, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are a major source of methane emissions.

Attempts to regulate them have largely failed, because knowing how many of these facilities there are or where they are located remains opaque.

Climate TRACE modeling contributor Synthetaic is using high-performance computing, generative AI, and deep neural networks to map CAFOs from satellite imagery.

Constantly evolving data mean sharper, more recent insights Because our algorithms are constantly learning and our 42 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

methodology continues to evolve, we jump at any new opportunity to dig more deeply into timely and specific emissions trends. In the short span of time between the release of our inaugural inventory and our accompanying report, we explored and confirmed additional insights.

For example:  Initial analysis of data from the first three quarters of 2021 by WattTime confirmed expected trends showing that power sector emissions rebounding in 2021 in places such as the European Union, United States, and India after 2020 declines due to COVID-related shutdowns. Later this year we plan to publish a full 2021 dataset to the Climate TRACE emissions inventory.  Typically, national emissions inventories are aggregated annual emissions numbers.

For many sectors, Climate TRACE is documenting data on finer time scales, such as monthly or weekly emissions

Evolving the Climate TRACE dataset at the speed climate action demands Since the release of our inaugural dataset, the Climate TRACE ecosystem has continued to expand rapidly with partners and contributors. The initial dataset has already started gaining traction among key users such as policymakers, nonprofits who want to encourage governments to make more ambitious mitigation plans, and research organizations. We recently launched the new STARRS project with Climate Group to provide GHG data to subnational governments around the world.

As we continue to release even more detailed data on emissions sources, a wide range of businesses, activists, and investors will have the opportunity to use this never-before-available information to guide a variety of decisions.

Gavin McCormick Cofounder and Executive Director, WattTime gavin@watttime.org Gavin is also one of the ten founding members of Climate TRACE, a global coalition of tech companies, NGOs, and universities working together to combine satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to make global GHG emissions transparent.

HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

Providing Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees

O

n February 24, 2022, after months of speculation and conjecture, Russia invaded Ukraine. For many, it was a moment of déjà vu — the visuals of burning cars, desecrated buildings, empty roads and panicked citizens scrambling for safety evoked memories of similar scenes of horror from Syria where years of political unrest had escalated into an

People hiding in metro station, Kyiv, Ukraine Photo by Fotoreserg / Say No to War

In times of wars and conflicts, GIS provides the required datapoints so that refugees can help themselves by connecting-the-dots. Platforms offering information on safe passage, shelter, medical care, government offices and more have been assisting refugees of the Russia-Ukraine war and beyond. By Srishti Juyal

unending saga of death, destruction and despair in 2011. The Syrian conflict, which went on for many years, had led to one of the worst refugee situations in the world.

But none of us had anticipated the extent to which the refugee crisis would unfold in Ukraine, just weeks after the commencement of the war. If estimates are to be believed, more than

4.2 million people, including 1.4 million children, have left Ukraine in search of safety. The need of the hour is to provide humanitarian assistance in the easiest and quickest way possible.

While many efforts are being made in that direction, geospatial technology is silently helping the Ukrainian people navigate their new homes and search for resources through a number of map-based services.

HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

a notification on their home screen which shall further send them to the full alert on Google Search.

The full alert feature would also be available to people who have their locations turned on.

Movement of refugees towards the Schengen area as represented on the portal

Daily updates on numbers UNHCR Data Portal: The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) portal is the most authoritative data source providing information about the number of Ukrainians fleeing their country on a daily basis. Statistics on arrivals are compiled from a variety of sources, including data provided by authorities at official border crossing points. And though every attempt is made to ensure accuracy, some figures can be estimates. Additionally, the triangulation of information is carried out continuously, so changes in figures can occur, even retroactively.

There are very few border controls within the European Union because of the right to move freely within the Schengen area. As a result, arrivals in Schengen countries which border Ukraine such as Hungary, Poland and Slovakia only reflect the number of people crossing the border, although, according to estimations, many people have continued on to other countries. Furthermore, UNHCR does not include individuals returning from bordering countries to Ukraine.

SOS alert for resources Google Maps: Google Maps have added an SOS alert of Search across Ukraine which points people to UN resources for refugees and asylum seekers when they search for information on evacuation. People in the middle of a crisis can easily access emergency information through local, national, or global updates, which include maps, translations of useful phrases, emergency phone numbers, websites, and even opportunities for donations. Additionally, those who have an updated version of the Google app can receive 44 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Besides adding the SOS alert, Google has also temporarily disabled some live Google Map features and expanded the eligibility for ‘Project Shield’ to include Ukrainian government websites, international embassies, and other governments in close proximity to further help them withstand DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, protect themselves, and offer critical services. More than 100 Ukrainian websites are protected via Project Shield, including local news services.

Institution and services Umapa: Created by expert volunteers from the Česko. Digital community and start-up Mapotic.

Umapa is helping refugees locate important institutions and services such as schools and health facilities so that they can settle in their new homes.

Each location has an icon that clearly shows its purpose. The information can be easily filtered to help people find exactly what they are looking for.

Umapa only covers the Czech Republic as of now, but plans to make it available in other countries too, including places where Ukrainians fleeing the war meet. It is also expected to soon come out with a number of additional features such as allowing people to add new locations, comment on the existing ones and share their personal experiences with those who need help.

Refugees can easily locate important services from Umapa and settle in their new homes

First platform for Ukraine refugees Refugees.ro: Launched on February 25, 2022, Refugees.ro was the first platform designed specifically to provide assistance to Ukrainian refugees.

It was designed to enable facilitators with account creation to further help them manage all the offers that they had posted, and to help refugees have a direct access to all available resources without the need for an account. In its role as an aggregator, the platform helps address refugee needs and demands of border volunteers in a quick manner. Developed by Alexandru Panait, a 26-year-old Romanian entrepreneur, Refugees.ro was initially launched to centralize Romanians who wished to help refugees from Ukraine. It has now been extended to several other countries.

Transit corridors CESTRIN’s Map: This interactive map has been developed by the Centre for Road Technical Studies and Informatics (CESTRIN) under the coordination of the Ministry of Transport of Romania, in collaboration with the National Centre for Coordination and Management of Intervention and the General Inspectorate of Romanian Police.

It shows transit corridors in Romania to help Ukrainian citizens plan their journeys from Romania to other countries such as Hungary, Serbia, or Bulgaria. It is available in three languages — Romanian, English, and Ukrainian — which makes it very easy for people to find the routes. Besides providing information about conventional rail and road routes, the map also offers details about a number of other important landmarks such as gas stations, parking lots, international airports, etc.

Shelter and housing Ukraine Take Shelter: Created by Harvard students Avi Schiffmann and Marco Burstein and further developed by Irish software engineer Daniel Conlon, Ukraine Take Shelter is a public bulletin which helps connect Ukrainian refugees with potential hosts and housing. The platform, which very much works like Airbnb, however, uses a Stripe Identity Verification, to ensure security for both the hosts and the refugees. A person cannot view the contact information

on listings unless their identity is verified. The homepage opens with a standard search bar and prompt “Start typing where you want to go”. A refugee can also share his/her location and look for accommodations available or directly connect with hosts. While searching for the nearest host, they can specify the number of people, check if pets are allowed, and add filters depending upon their health condition, duration of stay, language of preference, and need for other types of assistance.

Mapping contact services Dopomoha.pl: Available in three languages — Polish, Ukrainian and English — the map is helping refugees locate and contact various services such as blood donation points, social facilities, pharmacies, hospitals, consulates, government offices, etc. in Poland. The data is arranged in various layers, and different services, such as pharmacies, hospitals, consulates, government offices, etc. are represented by different colors on the map, which makes the process of identifying a service very easy.

Each service is assigned a specific color which makes it easy for refugees to locate them on the map

Near-real-time information Ukraine Data Hub: A resource initiative of T-Rex, a US geospatial company providing managed services and enterprise software for complex asset classes, Ukraine Data Hub has made geospatial information about humanitarian relief measures for the Ukrainian crisis easily available to people. It also includes a map that shares live data feed from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). The ACLED can provide near real-time information about the conflict, including curated data files, interactive data visualization tools, and weekly analyses of violence patterns in Ukraine, Russia, and the wider region.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 45

HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

Relief services Beds for Ukraine: Supported by Esri’s Disaster Response Program, Beds for Ukraine is a platform connecting Ukrainian refugees with organizations providing relief services. Organizations that want to help are required to fill out the ‘Provide Assistance Form’ on the platform so that they can be added to the ‘Find Assistance Map’ which, in turn, is used by the refugees to find assistance. Additionally, the platform allows citizens looking for volunteer opportunities to connect with organizations by using the Donate/ Volunteer Map. In order to ensure the safety of refugees, Beds for Ukraine has entered into a partnership with Airbnb.org which would fund temporary housing for 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. Those willing to offer their beds can use the ‘Host a Refugee’ button on the platform.

Support in Portugal WehelpUkraine.org: A platform connecting Ukrainian refugees with those who can provide them support in terms of housing, finance, logistics, work opportunities, local language classes and health (medical and psychological support) in Portugal.

The idea for the platform was conceived by Hugo de Sousa who initially thought of it as a link between those in need and those who could provide support in terms of lodging, work, and medicine. Later, it matured into an integrative meta-platform capable of aggregating all other offers of assistance.

when such events occurred. The map allows users to explore events by date and location. It is important to note that only events captured on camera, recorded on video or posted on social media are included in Bellingcat’s dataset. By clicking on a dot on the map, readers can access information about an incident which often includes embedded links to footage or related images. Besides providing map services to refugees, Bellingcat has also conducted investigative reporting using geospatial intelligence and satellite data in Ukraine.

Homes in Germany Wunderflats: Founded by John Hase in 2015, Wunderflats makes the process of renting furnished apartments extremely convenient by bringing tenants, landlords and companies together on one platform. Again, built very much like Airbnb, the platform lets a user choose their furnished apartment, state the duration of stay, and book it with a single click. Now, Wunderflats has come out in solidarity with the Ukrainian people by extending its service to the refugees to help them find temporary homes in Germany. The service on offer is largely free of cost — some providers may not charge anything at all, while others may charge rent at highly subsidized rates. And though it currently relies on its network of partners and landlords to match Ukrainian refugees with available housing in Germany, it is working on the development of a website to make the process of renting easier.

Capacity building As in previous conflicts, geospatial data is helping the cause of Ukrainian refugees in a significant manner. However, in order to truly help them live with dignity, it is important that they are empowered through more capacity-building programmes such as the RefuGIS.

Those seeking help can use the ‘I need help’ button on the website

Documenting civilian harm Bellingcat.com: Launched by Bellingcat, a Dutch investigative journalism group that focuses on factchecking and open source intelligence (OSINT), Bellingcat.com includes an interactive timemap detailing incidents with open source evidence pointing to civilian harm in Ukraine, along with how and 46 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Funded by the UNHCR Innovation Fund, RefuGIS is a capacity-building project which has enabled Syrian refugees to participate in the decision-making process related to community planning, emergency preparation, and infrastructure classification in the Zaatari camp. As RefuGIS participants develop GIS skills, they are able to create maps that can be used to support discussions

about camp management and community engagement. Besides enabling participants to serve their community, RefuGIS has also provided them with an opportunity to grow professionally — those enrolling in the project can leverage their new skills to get jobs within the camp and beyond.

Safeguarding data Although GIS and location intelligence is indispensable to providing humanitarian assistance, it can be easily misused by scammers, traffickers and notorious groups if security concerns are not taken into account. For instance, there are a number of wellmeaning initiatives for Ukrainian refugees that have been developed based on a limited understanding of humanitarian issues and without collaboration with the government or experienced NGOs. This has further put people at the risk of exploitation.

According to reports, attempts have been made by perpetrators and traffickers to exploit displaced Ukrainians by confiscating their IDs, demanding

labor or sexual favors and providing assistance to only young women which indicates that the need for proper safety mechanisms cannot be overlooked. Similar concerns have been raised by the UNHCR regarding certain initiatives such as the Homes for Ukraine scheme where an increasing number of women have reported to feeling at risk from male sponsors.

To safeguard refugees, it is extremely important for platforms to work with relevant experts to verify offers of resources. Refugees are seeking more security and stability; good intentions combined with a lack of expertise could create less of it. Solutions informed by geospatial technology can offer layers of security, stability and networking to provide the relief that the refugees so desperately need.

Srishti Juyal Senior Assistant Editor Geospatial World srishti@geospatialworld.net

INTERVIEW

IF SAN FRANCISCO IS FUTURE HARBINGER, LET’S LOOK FOR ANOTHER MODEL Cities have best symbolized collective hankerings as well as assiduousness, focus and ambition. They represent both human endeavor and vanity at its finest and are the microcosms of a society. Trappings of urbanism have immensely contributed to rounded modern individuality, trade, and high-octane growth, but as cities expanded, the usual afflictions compounded.

In a bid to mitigate them we today have everything from location intelligence,

drones to real-time data and Machine Learning algorithms, but before we deploy advanced tech solutions to mitigate longstanding perils of urbanity, we need to get at the root of the intersection between demography, geography, sociology, and urban planning for a panoramic view.

Joel Kotkin is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University in California and Executive Director of the Houston-based Center for

You have extended Descartes idea of 'an inventory for the possible' to reimagining urban avenues as spaces that heighten human possibilities. At a time when everyone talks about designing connected cities for future mobility, constant location tracking and data surveillance could turn these habitations into decentralized Panopticons of sorts. What's your take on this heady transition to smart cities?

Cities have always thrived by not being predictable.

They broke patterns of control common in the countryside. “Smart cities”, i.e. urbanism shaped

by Google or other tech firms are actually the exact opposite — devices of social control. Go to Chinese cities and you can see how bleak, and expressionless, urban culture can be. The great danger of the ‘smart city’ is already evident there due to the marriage 48 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Opportunity Urbanism. He is exploring the cross-section of people, geography, and cities for decades, and is among the most distinguished experts on socio-economic trends and their relation to urbanism.

Called ‘America’s uber geographer’ by the New York Times, he’s also a widely acclaimed author of multiple books and a columnist for Forbes. Here, Joel Kotkin discusses cities, technology, future of urbanity and the post-pandemic world.

of convenience between Orwellian politics and high-tech. In the west, authoritarian governance may get subcontracted to firms like Google who have their own, increasingly obvious, political agenda.

The smart city represents a potential threat to the very eclecticism that make cities great, replacing it with a dull mechanism. To get a glimpse of how this may work, I would recommend reading some of the excellent recent Chinese science fiction.

In the 1960s, New York and Tokyo were only two cities in the world with over 10 million population. Today, there are more than 30 global megacities, and their alluring charm has only enhanced, and so have the discontents. What do you think is the future of megacities and how can they become more resilient?

The rush into megacities is an enormous mistake, particularly when so much work can be dispersed, and industrial growth is headed to the countryside.

These places may be exciting to western urbanists, who get to come back to places that are at least somewhat livable, but they promise a very poor quality of life for most citizens. Moves to disperse population to smaller cities and towns would be wiser.

The pandemic has been a total disruption and a rupture from the past in various ways. You anticipated an ‘Age of Dispersion’ – an exodus from dense urban clusters to inner cities and towns due to the rise of new work models and business paradigms. Digitalization and connectivity spurt has certainly played a role in it. Now that the pandemic is on a wane and people talk about going back, would this trend continue with the same momentum, or reverse?

Critically, people were leaving dense cities before the pandemic, which simply accelerated the trend.

Since 2015 smaller cities have been growing faster, and suburban/exurban populations accounted for 80 percent or more of all metropolitan growth.

The pandemic’s biggest impact will be that so many people now can work in dispersed centers or at home. Roughly 20 percent of all work, Stanford projects, will be home-based, and suburban offices seem to be recovering faster than in CBDs. To be sure, the low occupancy rates will recover, but it is highly unlikely that core cities will recover their office markets to the point that there won’t be massive write downs — unless Washington bails the mortgage holders out.

Digital geography helps chart the course of urbanism and plan better and more effectively. Do you think spatial thinking and a geospatial way to solve the travails of urbanism, is needed for a regenerative transformation?

Your terminology suggests technology is the solution. It can certainly make cities cleaner and better functioning, but the real test is how people like these places. Planners and mega-capitalists love models

Technology can certainly make cities cleaner and better functioning, but the real test is how people like these places. of how they think people should live — small, crowded, expensive apartments connected by mass transit. The problem is that most people, particularly families, would rather live in a townhome or single family detached residence. They have been voting with their feet since the 1920s, something reversed only by the recession and World War II.

You have called for a new approach to the city as opposed to 'retro urbanism'. Is there any city in the world that resembles your idea of urbanism? Also, what role can geolocation and technologies such as AI and IoT play in this urban redefining?

No city, of course, is perfect. The key is how cities relate to the aspirations of people and families. The key is to meet people’s needs. Regions like Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Nashville and even Columbus in the US offer affordable housing, urban amenities, and a lot of economic opportunity.

Technologists love gadgeting but cities are not machines. As some have suggested, they are human constructs and we need to view people, not technology, at the center.

Your latest book 'Coming of NeoFeudalism' warns about the danger of extreme inequality, stagnating incomes, lack of upward mobility, crumbling public services, and dimming prospects.

What do you think are the contours of this Neo-feudalism, and would it bear some resemblance with the technocratic ‘Managerial Revolution’ of James Burnham?

That’s a complex question. This is far more than the managerial revolution that has taken place. The concentration of wealth is much greater than in the 1950s, and the technology of control and concentration far more powerful.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 49

INTERVIEW

Americans fled big cities like New York, LA, San Francisco and Chicago between April 2020 to July 2021 in favor of the South West, according to the US Census Bureau. Joel Kotkin points out that people were leaving dense cities even earlier, and the pandemic only accelerated the trend

San Francisco, where I once worked, epitomizes these trends, and has turned from one of the greatest urban jewels into a dystopia of the ultra-rich and the permanent poor, with an ever-shrinking middle class. If San Francisco today is the harbinger of the future, let’s look for another model.

As per scientific predictions, natural hazards caused by climate change would cause massive dislocation and demographic change in the next 50 years. What would be its impact on smart urbanism, and how would it pan out in terms of socio-political aftereffects?

There may be changes but as some climate scientists point out we suffer fewer natural disasters, with far less loss of life than in the past. There is an industry promoting catastrophism for many reasons, including profits for “transitions” and justification for ever more social control.

What we need to do is adapt to changes, as the Dutch did in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The Green Movement seems to see the future as best served by immiseration and seems relentlessly pursuing that agenda. This is not going to end well in the West and will be clearly disastrous in the developing world.

50 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Jane Jacob’s 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities' is among the seminal texts in urban planning and the city economy. You say that her ideal, family-friendly city is outmoded today because of trends such as demographic shifts, ageing population, falling fertility rates, declining community life etc..

How can this challenge be tackled so that cities get more vibrant and don’t turn into abandoned, rusted industrial settlements?

I have never said they will be abandoned. But the chances of going back to the urban New York I knew as a child, and where my family has lived for well over a century, are slim. The schools alone are pushing people out, rising crime is doing the same, and employment opportunities appear to be dispersing.

Cities can survive and thrive — but will not dominate — if they become more friendly to the basic needs of residents and visitors. If not the stronger ones, like New York, will become, as HG Wells predicted, places “of concourse and rendezvous”, attractive largely to the rich and the childless.

Interviewed by: Aditya Chaturvedi

EXPERT OPINION

Indigenous Mapping Insights and Cybercartography

I

In a world dominated by an exploding diversified population approaching 8 billion, the voices of Indigenous Peoples assume a disquieting, challenging and critical place – and insight for the future.

By Romola V. Thumbadoo

n the time/space conflation of geography and humanity, this is a particularly significant moment to reflect on Indigenous mapping. Year 1492 ushered in an explosion in spatial exploration beyond Europe: a “New World” was revealed, and the age of colonization of the Americas

began. The Papal Bulls of Pope Alexander VI, the Doctrine of Discovery, and the notion of Terra Nullius set the stage for dispossession and subjugation. Today, Pope Francis re-presents Indigenous Peoples to the global stage, with his historical apology to the delegation of First Peoples from Canada.

Late Algonquin activist, political and spiritual leader, William Commanda, founder of the Circle of All Nations reflected on the critical elements of this 500 plus years history in the book Learning From a Kindergarten Dropout (Thumbadoo, 2005), and in words later set to Indigenous drumsong.

Indigenous Peoples of North America call this land Turtle Island; this image from the Circle of All Nations archives has been used to illustrate conceptual, motional and transitional mapping themes over the past two decades.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 51

EXPERT OPINION

Indigenous Elder William Commanda presents Dr D.R. Fraser Taylor with his book, Learning from a Kindergarten Dropout (Thumbadoo), 2007

The geospatial world that evolved from the priorities of the early European Geography Societies may have lost sight of this painful history, but unmarked graves of children housed in Indigenous Residential Schools in Canada have obliged a reckoning this past year. This has implications for land issues and mapping. As noted in the OECDiLibrary link regarding land and development, inclusive of referencing the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2015, Canada is called upon to Reconcile Aboriginal and Crown constitutional and legal orders to ensure that Aboriginal peoples are full partners in Confederation, including the recognition and integration of Indigenous laws and legal traditions in negotiation and implementation processes involving Treaties, land claims, and other constructive agreements.

52 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

Challenging the status quo Indigenous notions of mapping today challenge many schools of thought on mapping. One is motional and emphasizes cognitive cartography. Another fundamentally important mapping theme that links Indigenous Peoples across the globe is the indelible awareness and assertion of relationship with the Earth, a living, evolving Gaia. In 1987, during what is known as the Harmonic Convergence, the cognition and voice of Indigenous Peoples suddenly reached global consciousness.

Note for example the following:  Mayan and Aztec cosmology;  See William Commanda at 10.30 min of The 1987 Canadian Aboriginal Constitutional Conference;  National Geographic’s 1988 documentary, Australia’s Aborigines - The Gagudju;  Writings of Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa

 Maori Family Group Conferencing restorative justice relationship mapping And finally, decades after formal interventions by the North American Indian Nations Government initiated at the United Nations (UN) in the mid-forties, the UN hosted the first international conference of the World’s Indigenous Peoples and they, in profound awareness and concern over the accelerating environmental crisis, extinction of species and looming climate change, called their conference the Cry of the Earth. One can see for example their environmental priorities in Cry of the Earth — Part 2 of 12 — Algonquin Delegation.

In 2012, the former UN Special Rapporteur for Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya, stated that securing the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands is of central importance to their socioeconomic development, self-determination, and cultural integrity (Anaya, 2012[12]); thus, the political implications of Indigenous mapping are also profound.

Today, many researchers and environmentalists also believe that the foundational Indigenous understanding of sustainable relationships can be of deep value to the world now and can contribute to new mapping approaches.

Giving voice to the communities In 1997, Dr D. R. Fraser Taylor, Director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre introduced a new approach to mapping which gives voice to

communities. His research led to the creation and establishment of the domain of Cybercartography.

In short, Cybercartography is an interactive, multimedia, and multi-sensory online mapping format that uses location as its organizing principle and integrates cultural, historical, linguistic, economic, and social data with cartographic information. In 2007, William Commanda saw the benefits of this innovative platform to map his own story.

Dr Taylor notes that “the creation of cybercartographic atlases on the GCRC’s Nunaliit digital atlas framework has been of great interest to Indigenous communities, in part because it is grounded in principles of development that I first noted in my work in East Africa. This early research demonstrated the importance of the holistic approach to knowledge retention and generation of the Kikuyu Peoples of Kenya, and to innovative mapping of diverse cultural, social and economic variables, while contributing to respect for inter-relationships between different knowledge systems”.

In 1977, Ella-Han’sa articulated The Circle of Life concept at the first Circumpolar Conference. This elevated the Inuit voice and inspired connection and partnership with northern communities. With respect to Cybercartography, closer engagement with Inuit and First Nations communities facilitated the introduction of new functionalities into the Nunaliit atlas creation platform; and in fact, the name Nunaliit, (or “commu-

In these times of global pandemic, environmental disaster and human crisis, it is becoming apparent how critical it is to really listen to the Indigenous Peoples of the world. nity” in Inuktituut), reflects the dynamic nature of the partnership with Inuit colleagues. Many Inuit communities, inclusive of elders and youth, engaged in map creation and storytelling in cybercartographic atlas creation.

A Photoatlas on 10 A Photoatlas on 10 Cybercartographic Atlases 2021 examines some of this important mapping which incorporates environmental knowledge, land and water routes, language and cultural heritage.

“Today, I am more than ever convinced that Inuit knowledge is an independent knowledge system of equal importance as Western systems,” says Dr Taylor.

This body of knowledge that is now emerging in the academic world is in part articulated by Indigenous peoples in publications on Cybercartography.

Dr Taylor adds that “Indigenous mapping must first and foremost be for the benefit of Indigenous communities. This means that they must have control of what is mapped and how that knowledge is mapped and shared. Existing approaches such as FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles even when modified

by CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles do not fully meet these requirements.

In Canada OCAP (Ownership Control Access and Possession) principles are an improvement but there are still important legal, ethical and social issues to be resolved. For example, Indigenous knowledge is not protected by copyright law in Canada.

Copyright on Indigenous maps lies with those who produce then and in many instances this is Google or Esri, not the Indigenous communities”.

In a globally connected world, new opportunities to support relationships and UN sustainable development goals are emerging in the area of Indigenous mapping, consistent with William Commanda’s philosophy that Everything is Interrelated across both time and space. In these times of global pandemic, environmental disaster and human crisis, it is becoming apparent to many how critical it is to really listen to the small, persistent voices of connection and warning that are the Indigenous Peoples of the world.

Romola V. Thumbadoo PhD Geography, SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow Romolavt@gmail.com Romola V. Thumbadoo has supported the work of Indigenous Elder William Commanda since 1997 https://circleofallnations.ca. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research of the past decade has focused on his thinking and legacy, under the guidance of Dr D. R. Fraser Taylor, Director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre https://gcrc.carleton.ca at Carleton University March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 53

CASE STUDY

SECURING WOMEN’S LAND RIGHTS

to fight for women’s land rights, gender and racial justice, democracy, and human rights. The group has made great strides in securing land tenure for women living in vulnerable communities in low-resource peri-urban areas of northeast Brazil.

Espaço Feminista’s journey began three years ago when they undertook research using census data and found that women were disproportionately affected by inequality, poor housing and living conditions across the region. Armed with data, they were able to undertake a community process that informed women of their rights and engaged them in advocating for these rights with the municipal government. The municipality responded by proposing and passing a law that paved the way for legalizing land rights for 15 informal settlements.

It Takes a Village, Appropriate Technology, and Real Investment to Deliver

As an organization focused on advancing land and resources rights for women and marginalized people through innovative technology and services, Cadasta Foundation applauds the global commitment to ramp up progress on equal rights for women and girls. Yet, we need to ask two important questions: what does it look like in practice for women to gain rights to land, property, and inheritance? And what is needed to make this happen? By Amy Coughenour Betancourt, CEO, Cadasta Foundation

T

o answer the above questions, we turned to one of our 100 global partner organizations, Espaço

Feminista (EF). EF is a Brazilian civil society organization founded in 2008 to contribute to the empowerment of women and

Photo Credit: Mauna

Using Cadasta's Platform, these municipal mappers sped up data collection from 2 months to just over 1 hour per household in Alto Alegre, Brazil

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Later, Cadasta joined the effort, providing its Esri-powered geospatial platform and training to local data collectors in order to speed up data collection and make it more cost and time-efficient. This cut down the time from two months to just over an hour required to survey and measure each household. Cadasta’s geospatial platform allows for data storage, analysis, and storytelling, elements that will help the stakeholders make b‑etter decisions and scale up to 3,000 more households this year and to the entire municipality in the coming year.

A few weeks ago, I spent several days with the EF team in

Photo Credit: Mauna

I’ve lived in this house for 38 years, in this land, and I’ve never had a paper in my hands. And now, thanks to God, with the mayor’s, councilman’s, (Espaço) Feminista team’s help, today I sleep at peace. Because I know no one will take my house from me.

Maria Aparecida de Lima, a resident of Alto Alegre, Brazil

Alto Alegre, on the outskirts of the municipality of Bonito, in the state of Pernambuco. We all celebrated as a group of community women were presented with legal titles to their land and homes by the mayor. Emotions ran high as women like Maria received a legal document for her land and home after living with tenure insecurity for 38 years.

One of the critical elements of this project was the collaboration between Espaço Feminista, its network of community leaders, and the municipal government.

EF provided the much-needed technical and legal support, while the government took the lead on data collection, hiring a 10-person team of young people using Cadasta’s Platform for each household survey. The local partnership was the glue that allowed for intentional, multi-sectoral efforts that included the community members, the notary’s office, international organizations like Cadasta, and donors to contribute to the successful outcomes. The mayor of Bonito, Gustavo Adolfo, remarked, “We embraced the cause, spared no effort, joined with the legal staff, and formed a team to go from house to house, from neighborhood to neighborhood, to do all the registrations. Then we had the pleasure

of entering into a partnership instead the with Cadasta.”

This model of multi-sectoral collaboration is what will make it possible to exponentially scale up women’s rights globally. In fact, Cadasta’s partners, who work in both urban and rural settings in 44 countries, have strengthened the rights of over 5.5 million people on 20 million hectares in 3,400 communities. By using a common tech platform, the partners can use appropriate data models and tools to collect, analyze, apply, and share data that further advances their goals of improved social and economic progress.

Scaling up women’s land rights for the 500 million women living with tenure insecurity globally would have a transformational impact. Secure tenure vastly improves women’s empowerment, livelihoods, and food security and allows them to build wealth and increase their autonomy, reduce the threat of domestic violence, and elevate their role in decision-making. When rural communities achieve secure land tenure, annual family income increases by 150 percent, agricultural production increases by 30 percent, teen pregnancy is reduced by half, and school completion rates double.

Our experience demonstrates that multi-sectoral partnerships, appropriate technology, and real investment in creating community change, are the “how” of women’s land rights. These success factors allow communities to dismantle gender discriminatory practices and advocate for lasting change. The high ROI of delivering on women's land rights makes the case for significantly increased investments by governments, philanthropy, and the private sector. The geospatial sector has a role to play, given the need for geospatial imagery, mapping, surveying, data management, and analysis, as well as for long-term, equitable land governance systems.

What we need now is targeted investment in proven models that deliver on the SDG targets and allow women and their families to reap the benefits of more secure land and resource rights.

Amy Coughenour Betancourt CEO Cadasta Foundation acoughenour@cadasta.org Cadasta is an award-winning non-profit organization that develops and promotes the use of simple digital tools and technology to help partners share critical land and resource rights information.

Betancourt also serves on the board of Interaction, the premier alliance of international NGOs working in humanitarian assistance and development.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 55

INTERVIEW

EQUITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION Should be a Priority for All Aspects of Geospatial Data Historically cartography does not have a good track record on equity. It’s been dominated by elites that wield great power by deciding what is shown on a map. Janet Ranganathan, Vice President for Research, Data, and Innovation, World Resources Institute (WRI), sees a huge potential for harnessing geospatial data to design, implement and evaluate approaches aimed at tackling structural inequities and address the sustainable development goals.

Between a pandemic and a climate crisis, our planet seems to be on the brink today. What are some of the most pressing issues that you see arising out of these crises?

The COVID pandemic, climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have three things in common.

They are threat multipliers that affect everyone.

They disrupt supply chains. They disproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable in society.

Climate change especially stands out because it’s a multi-generational problem. Addressing climate change can help prevent pandemics and reduce food and energy supply chain disruption. Deforestation, for example, is a driver of climate change and increases the risk of zoonotic spillover (the transmission of a pathogen from animal to human).

Reducing deforestation reduces climate impacts and the risk of pandemics. Fossil fuel combustion is a leading cause of climate change. Investing in demand-side energy management and use of clean energy can increase energy independence, reduce climate change and provide insulation against the type of supply chain shocks we are seeing as a result of the war against Ukraine.

One important after-effect of the pandemic has been a widespread recognition of how we human beings interact with one another, or even with other species, which has managed to put the spotlight on our destructive relationship with environment in general.

56 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

What are some of the recent findings from WRI that could identify these trends?

We are facing a global land squeeze driven by a growing population and rising demand for food, feed, fiber and fuel. The diminishing areas of natural land are under growing pressure to be converted into working land. At the same time, we need to protect and restore nature to address climate change, protect biodiversity, and provide other ecosystem services that people depend upon.

We are failing to protect nature and the many benefits it provides people, including water regulation, carbon sequestration, recreation, and pollination services. A recent study by University of Maryland found that 102 million hectares (252 million acres) of land — an area the size of Egypt —has been converted to crops since 2000. While it took more than 8,000 years for humans to convert 1.1 billion hectares (2.8 billion acres) of nature into cropland by the year 2000, it took just 20 years to convert another 10% (the 102 million hectares).

Drawing on five-plus years of research, World Resources Institute developed a four-part Produce-Protect-Reduce-Restore framework to address this global land squeeze. The four elements are:  P roduce more food, feed and fiber on existing agricultural lands and some working forests;  Protect remaining natural and semi-natural ecosystems (e.g., primary forests, secondary

The concept of smart cities has given way to sustainable cities now. What is the difference between the two terms and why was this change in terminology needed?

The “smart city” agenda was premised on the opportunity to use technology and data to run cities in more efficient ways. It included the use of sensors to manage impacts like air pollution, energy and water consumption, traffic congestion, and service provision. While intended to inform decision-making, it often overlooked the technical capacity, governance processes, and financial resources needed to draw insights from the data and translate it actionable policy and plans. Too little attention was paid to equity issues in terms of where and how technologies were deployed (including the issue of confidentiality) and who benefited from their application. Some would argue that the smart cities agenda was hijacked by technology providers (hardware and software) who saw it as an unprecedented opportunity to sell products, such that the means became the end.

“Sustainable cities” is now returning as the favored term of art. It puts more emphasis on addressing pressing issues such as climate change, inequality, and loss of nature. It also recognizes that investing in enabling conditions is essential for effective decisions about infrastructure and services. Technology still has a critical role, but as a means and not as an end in itself.

How are some of your datasets helping decision-makers to shape a future where cities work better for everyone?

As low- and middle-income countries rapidly urbanize, geospatial datasets can help decision-makers assess how cities are growing and mitigate impacts of unsustainable growth. High-resolution, near real-time satellite imagery can show the extent of outward growth of urban built-up areas into agricultural land, forests, wetlands, open green spaces, mangroves and biodi-

Global Land Use, 2015

The global land squeeze (2010-50 unless otherwise noted)

Image courtesy: How to Manage the Global Land Squeeze? Produce, Protect, Reduce, Restore | World Resources Institute (wri.org)

forests, wetlands, grasslands) from conversion and degradation;  Reduce projected growth in demand for land-intensive goods, particularly those used by high consumers, and  Restore degraded ecosystems and marginal agricultural land (with limited improvement).

versity zones. Cities are also growing in areas prone to climate risks like flooding, droughts, and water scarcity.

Urban expansion of this nature is happening today in parts of the world where urban growth is poorly regulated, and land-use plans are non-existent or not enforced. New data on upward growth of cities shows the efficiency of urban land use, the extent to which sprawled and fragmented urban growth is occurring that contributes to longer trips, increasing emissions, and lack of core infrastructure and services for people residing in these areas. Private developers continue to build where land is cheapest and government policies and regulations may perversely incentivize this (e.g., restrictive density regulations in many Indian cities).

WRI’s recent World Resources Report paper on urban growth generated new data on patterns of upward and outward growth in around 380 cities over a decade. The data are publicly available on Resource Watch where they can be overlaid with other environmental and socioeconomic datasets. Having access to such data can help decision-makers implement policies, regulations, and incentives to guide more sustainable and equitable urban growth.

Tell us about some of important takeaways from The World Resources Report: Towards a More Equal City.

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 57

INTERVIEW

Some would argue that the smart cities agenda was hijacked by technology providers (hardware and software) who saw it as an unprecedented opportunity to sell products, such that the means became the end.

Based on six years of research, the World Resources Report shows how growing cities in the global South can encourage equitable access to urban services and opportunities. It presents a roadmap for urban planning and development that can lead to both a better quality of life for people who currently have poor or no access to basic services like electricity, water, and sewerage systems, and to citywide economic and environmental benefits. Around 2.5 billion additional people are expected to live in urban areas by 2050 with 90 percent of this growth occurring in Asia and Africa. These are the same continents that are home to the vast majority (91-98 percent) of the world’s population that will face moderate or high climate-related risks by 2050. Countries in these regions are often low-income and weak on technical capacity, resources, and governance. Their cities are growing fast and haphazardly, with large segments of the populations living in informal settlements and working in the informal economy.

Globally, more than 1.2 billion people — or one in three urban residents — are under-served daily by core urban services (good-quality housing, transport, water, sanitation, and energy). Inequality is typically measured by analyzing differences in incomes, but this is only one dimension of the problem. Unequal access to essential infrastructure and services can have a greater impact on lives, livelihoods, and longterm prospects than differences in earnings.

Bridging this “urban services divide” can bring cascading benefits to the entire city and unleash citywide transformative change. The report discusses seven crucial urban transformations that are needed in the areas of infrastructure design and delivery, urban service provision, data collection, urban employment, finance, land management, and 58 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

governance. It includes actions at the sectoral level, in-depth city case studies, and numerous examples of good practices that cities can implement. It recommends actions for national and city governments, the private sector, civil society groups, and international organizations to move forward on these transformations.

How can we work towards better collaboration and partnership between the three main stakeholders — governments, businesses and the civil society — to drive solutions for some of the crucial problems the world is facing?

This is a great question to end on! The generic answer is of course that we need greater participation, inclusion, transparency, and accountability in decisions that impact planet and people. I’ve talked a lot about the planet so let me focus here on equity — a top priority for WRI, given growing inequality and poverty around the world. We aim to put geospatial data to work for the most vulnerable in society. We see huge potential to harness geospatial data to design, implement and evaluate approaches aimed at tackling structural inequities and poverty, such as who has access to services in cities. To be successful, we will need new partnerships that enhance the voice and agency of the most marginalized and underserved communities.

Historically cartography does not have a good track record on equity. It’s been dominated by elites that wield great power by deciding what is shown on a map. Indigenous peoples and traditional communities have often lost their lands because of how lines were drawn on maps by faraway people. Equity, diversity, and inclusion should be a priority for all aspects of geospatial data – collection, analysis, and communication.

We need to increase the availability of opensource software to enhance community participation in data collection, analysis, and use. We need to facilitate public participation in community mapping. And we need to use geospatial data to hold decision-makers accountable for the equity impacts of their actions.

Interviewed by: Anusuya Datta

CASE STUDY

GEMS FROM THE WORLD BANK

GEMS aims to support the democratization of geospatial data collection and analysis, and enhance accountable service delivery in developing countries around the world. By Bernhard Metz

T

he COVID-19 crisis has not only led to an exacerbation of poverty and the undoing of development gains in many countries around the world, but it has also shed light on the significant access constraints and data gaps on local conditions that the international development community has had to face. However, access to granular ground data remains indispensable to accountably monitor the provision of urgently needed emergency relief for communities in need amidst the pandemic and to build back better in a transparent way.

The Geo-Enabling initiative for Monitoring and Supervision (GEMS) is a global program launched by the World Bank that trains government agencies, donors and development practitioners to systematically leverage field-ready technology for remote real-time monitoring and adaptive risk management related to development activities. GEMS aims to create a Public Good and build capacity with local stakeholders to adapt geospatial open-source

tools to specific needs. Through this, GEMS aims to support a democratization of geospatial data collection and analysis, to further enhance accountable service delivery in developing countries around the world.

The innovative GEMS method provides a highly-demanded solution for the problem of limited realtime information from the field, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in situations of Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV), and beyond.

A central element of GEMS is to use simple-enough and low-cost tools, such as KoBoToolbox that are appropriate for any environment and can be owned and scaled sustainably by local stakeholders.

The core of GEMS is hands-on support provided to project implementation units to help them create customized geospatial monitoring and risk management systems, in response to local development challenges.

the World Bank Partnership Fund for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG Fund). As of March 2022, GEMS has supported over 800 development projects in 90+ countries and trained more than 5,000 government staff around the world in geospatial monitoring techniques. Also, various Multilateral Development Banks, UN Agencies, bilateral donors, and NGOs, are adopting GEMS for their COVID-19 response and beyond.

Therefore, GEMS was listed by the United Nations among the best UN innovations in 2020 and it received a 2021 Geospatial World Excellence Award from the Geospatial World Forum.

GEMS was launched in 2018 and is supported by the Korea Trust Fund for Economic and Peacebuilding Transitions (KTF) and

Extending the reach of development in the most fragile situations Fragility and violent conflicts do March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 59

CASE STUDY

not only result in destruction,, displacement, and devastation, but also entail access constraints on the ground, for security and logistical reasons. Therefore, even long before the COVID pandemic, there has been urgent demand by development practitioners for solutions to remotely supervise projects and improve the capacity of local stakeholders to conduct well-structured and accountable Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E).

GEMS was launched to close information gaps in such areas with limited access to get eyes on the ground, where we cannot always have boots on the ground.

GEMS is an integral part of the World Bank Group’s FCV Strategy and has been deployed to get real-time insights in FCV settings like Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Haiti, Kosovo, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Yemen. Around the world, GEMS team members have supported projects through a range of effective geospatial monitoring tools, from mobile data collection over interactive dashboards, to remote sensing analyses through satellite imagery.

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The real-time field insights created through GEMS have helped enhance urgently needed service delivery in fragile contexts. Moreover, the geospatial tools have supported the provision of relief services for victims of violence, through the systematic mapping of medical, psycho-social and legal service providers for GBV survivors. This helps protect the most vulnerable and maximize development impacts and human capital, while building peace incentives for communities.

Innovation via simple tools, sustainable methods, and local capacity GEMS leverages innovativetechnology through simpleenough and ready-to-implement tools and methods, by linking low-tech approaches on the frontend (digital questionnaires on mobile phones) with hightech processes on the backend (automated data analytics and geospatial mapping).

Technically, the main system is based on the use of cost-free software and common smartphones

for the collection and direct integration of rich, geo-tagged field data into project monitoring systems. Based on tailor-made and highly adaptive forms, the integrated data can include a large array of formats, including qualitative and quantitative indicators, photos, audio, videos, time and date stamps, barcode scans, digital signatures, and GPS coordinates that will automatically map the collected information.

GEMS also provides support with advanced technology solutions such as remote sensing through satellite imagery analysis as well as big data analysis.

Yet, the key innovation of the GEMS initiative does not lie in the used technology, but the systematic local capacity-building in its effective use for better data management among government employees and local communities.

Creating a sustainable public good to boost human capital The team provides local stakeholders with simple and easily scalable tools that help to get real-time insights from areas that cannot always be accessed. The added transparency and accountability that GEMS fosters contribute to the confidence of development practitioners to operate in remote and high-risk areas, and thus, increase the footprint of development in places that are most in need of support.

By focusing on capacity-building in the use of ICT tools, the team contributes to strengthening the foundations

of developing countries to build back better, while seeking to decrease the digital divide vis-à-vis the donor community.

The aim is to foster local ownership over the use of technology, by promoting digital skills of people and institutions geared towards achieving better sustainable development results.

To reach these goals, GEMS is strongly committed to the International Principles of Digital Development: Design with the User: The hands-on trainings as provided are demand-driven and customized to the specific needs of developing countries and local stakeholders.

Build for Sustainability: The focus on capacity-building and local ownership, combined with the use of low-cost/no-cost tools ensures the sustainability of GEMS. This stands in contrast to one-off support or costly service contracts, which are unsustainable for many developing countries.

Design for Scale: The versatility and simplicity of the tools and methods enable local communities to use them flexibly and scale them for most effective use, as showcased by the swift use of GEMS for the COVID response.

Be Collaborative: Combining the use of open-source tools with the GEMS train-the-trainers approach has allowed for close collaboration between partners across regions and organizations.

Address Privacy and Security: The digital platforms used by GEMS are secured and all data is encrypted according to the latest

standards, while the trainings include best practices in terms of data protection and privacy.

Bridging the gap between geography and humanity for better development results The investment in local skills for geospatial monitoring has created Resilience Dividends and enhanced crisis preparedness, by allowing local stakeholders to quickly adapt the tools to specific needs during emergencies. For instance, in Bangladesh, Guinea, and Haiti, GEMS was crucial for rapidly creating digital monitoring systems for urgent COVID crisis mitigation and livelihood support.

In Malawi, Nicaragua, and Somalia, it allowed local teams to swiftly respond to the devastation of natural disasters and safeguard vital service delivery.

Also outside of acute emergencies, the geospatial data platforms provided by GEMS have proven beneficial in addressing a broad range of development challenges.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, detailed geospatial data on 85,000+ schools was collected via GEMS, allowing the government to enhance service delivery in

education throughout the country.

In Afghanistan, GEMS helped track the distribution of seeds to over 280,000 farmers across the country. In the Sahel, a GEMS platform is used to integrate operational information across development agencies. It also serves as a tangible tool for the coordination of investments in service delivery and Human Capital, independent of national boundaries and donors.

The GEMS team is constantly humbled by the level of dedication and desire to learn that local partners muster during the trainings. It feels privileged to be able to support the work of dedicated women and men who try to improve development in their countries amidst very challenging conditions. When asked about the best part of their job, all GEMS team members agree that it is the chance to directly work with the dedicated stakeholders on the ground.

Bernhard Metz Senior Operations Officer World Bank bmetz@worldbank.org Bernhard Metz focuses on the use of innovative methods to enhance international development projects. In this regard, he launched the GEMS initiative and currently leads a team of 40 geospatial monitoring experts in 25 countries.

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CASE STUDY

FIVE YEARS OF FOREST FIRES COST MORE THAN THE NET WORTH OF MICROSOFT

Forest fires are often treated as a symptom of climate change, a byproduct of hotter, dryer conditions. We usually look at the lives lost, homes and businesses damaged and the acreage destroyed but they are also a major source of emissions.

By Kshitij Purwar

In recent years, there has been a growing conversation around carbon sequestration through afforestation efforts. However, along with creating carbon trading platforms, protecting existing forests from wildfires is equally important, if not more.

A growing concern As climate change accelerates, the frequency and intensity of fires have increased. For instance, Greece saw an average of 1,700 fires per year during 1990-1995. According to Blue Sky Analytics data, just between January and September of 2021, this number stood at 9,200, an increase of five and a half times.

August was particularly unusual —there was an average of 320 fires per month until July while in August alone, there were 6,759 fires. That’s a terrifying statistic even when you take into account that 62 | www.geospatialworld.net | March-April 2022

August is traditionally the hottest month and sees more fires as compared to other months.

An increase in forest fires leads to increased emissions. In August alone, 8.5 million tons of CO2 were emitted due to these fires. In terms of scale, this was equivalent to emissions from 1.8 million cars driven for a year. Every day in August saw an average of 0.3 million tons of CO2 emitted while the first half of 2021 saw average daily emission of 500 tons.

It is thus paramount to understand the cost of these fires and measure their consequences on the economy. But how does one estimate the direct and indirect costs of burning forests which results in emissions and loss of forest land?

Catastrophic fires raze forests on Euboea: Total number of CO2 emission (in millions tons)

Images courtesy: Blue Sky Analysis

F

orest fires are not only a threat to those in the direct path of the flames; but also a significant source of GHG emissions that exacerbate climate change. With the global impetus steered toward carbon sequestration and the Kyoto Protocol monetizing carbon emissions, CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere are often ignored. It is essential to understand that every ton of CO2e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalent) released also has a cost associated with it.

At Blue Sky Analytics, we did the math based on a simple logic — calculated it on the basis of the carbon released by a particular wildfire. The logic is based on the assumption that if there’s a cost associated with capturing carbon from the atmosphere, the same would be applicable for carbon released in the air.

Let’s talk numbers Forest and agricultural fires are the world’s secondlargest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Hence, tracking fires and associated emissions in real-time is critical to minimizing the financial repercussions.

Historically, due to a lack of appropriate monitoring infrastructure and heavy reliance on self-reporting, this was largely available in inventories updated only once in a couple of years.

However, from space, emissions can’t be missed. As founding members of Al Gore’s Climate TRACE coalition, Blue Sky Analytics, is part of a global effort to track emissions in detail with satellite and AI, technologies that didn’t exist commercially when the documentary An Inconvenient Truth was first released.

Now with Zuri, our dataset for fires and GHG emissions tracking, we can accurately track emissions from fire disasters in near real-time and finally begin to quantify their cost.

The rare winter wildfire that burnt two towns in Boulder County, Colorado, destroyed 1,000 homes and caused insured losses of approximately USD 1 billion

cost of those emissions. According to EU-ETS prices, each metric ton of carbon dioxide was worth approximately EUR 56.66 that summer at EU-ETS prices.

Thus, the ~ 8.5 million tons of emissions in August 2021 cost Greece EUR 481 million (USD 514 million).

Similarly, according to our data, between 2015 and 2021 forest fires in the US emitted 1.45 billion tons of CO2. This means the fires led to damages worth USD 83 billion in the past five years.

The final financial toll of forest fires is even more staggering. Worldwide, forest fires from 2015 to 2020 emitted 35.14 billion tons of CO2, bringing the global cost close to USD 2 trillion, which is the net worth of Microsoft.

The current approach to measuring emissions is based on perception, not reality. However, sensors and satellites reveal the truth.

For instance, the Marshall and Middle Fork fire that seared Boulder, Colorado, in December 2021 emitted 83,901.91 tons CO2. While there is no current federal price for carbon in the United States, the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act valued American carbon at USD 57.21 per ton in 2021.

For example, in our work with Climate TRACE, the scope of savanna fires surprised us all. These open fires have gone unnoticed and untracked by media, and as a result, are under-researched. That’s 4 billion tons of CO2 costing USD 228 billion over five years completely ignored!

Based on these estimates, the cost of the total emissions from the Boulder County fires comes to a whopping USD 4.8 million.

Ultimately, as advocacy for climate-smart investment, insurance, and policy gain traction, there is a need to re-evaluate how we quantify the true cost of forest fires. Accurate and real-time monitoring can help with recognizing these hidden emissions and redefining net-zero pledges and carbon sequestration projects.

Cost to countries and economies It is obvious that wildfires account for a significant expense for economies across the globe. They have disastrous consequences, destroying homes and wildlife habitats and causing air pollution. For instance, the 2021 fires in Greece burnt down 125,000 acres of forest and arable land. As the country recovers from a decade-long economic crisis, it now has to bear the

Kshitij Purwar Founder and CTO Blue Sky Analytics Kshitij@blueskyhq.io

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SPONSORED

THE HIGH-TECH CASTLE The Globe Building’s roots have made it an attractive location for data centers, geospatial intelligence firms, innovative tech enterprise, as well as a new 75,000 SF multi-tenant SCIF. By Dick Fleming

P

rior to its present status as a “location of choice” for Geospatial Intelligence companies; The Globe Building has had a storied history.

The massive Art Deco Globe Building traces its roots to the dramatic growth of St. Louis following the City’s hosting of the World's Fair and the Olympics back in 1904. Originally built to serve as one of two major railroad stations in St. Louis, it was called the Illinois Terminal Railroad Building.

In its early days, The Globe Building became a hub of logistics and transportation infrastructure, which was essential to St. Louis’ robust growth in the 1920’s.

Entrance to The Globe Building, “The High-Tech Castle” in St. Louis

The building is currently home to five separately owned and operated data centers

Given the present 2022 attraction of Geospatial Intelligence firms, it’s noteworthy that several floors of the building were taken over by the U.S. War Department to house the Defense Mapping Agency during the Second World War, with hundreds of people working there every day, mapping and plotting logistics for both Europe and the Pacific during the World War II. As the nation’s and St. Louis’ modes of transportation shifted in the 1950’s, and passenger rail service was officially discontinued in 1958 — the building as a transportation hub became underutilized.

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper, relocated in the building to accommodate larger presses, massive supplies of ink, and more paper. So, in 1959, the Illinois Terminal Railroad Building became the Globe-Democrat Building — with various floors dedicated to the advertising department, other floors for editorial departments, and massive printing presses in place, and huge barrels of ink arriving every day by rail, as well as the distribution of the newspaper every day.

The Globe Building found its next life as the new Millennium approached, its unique

infrastructure made the building an ideal location for tech firms seeking a downtown location.

As the owners of The Globe Building have undertaken the stunning high-tech adaptive reuse of this landmark Building, they’ve described the “new Globe Building” as having, Big Space, Big Power, and Big Fiber.

Big space The Globe Building’s unique physical attributes represented the necessary conditions for attracting and growing Data Centers — and now, for attracting and growing GEOINT and other tech firms: A seven story, 550,000 SF building with 150,000 SF is currently occupied by a data center and telecom tenants.  Large, contiguous floor plates of up to 84,000 SF.  Floor loads of 250 lbs (113 kg)/SF on floors 1-4, 200 lbs (90kg)/ SF on floors five to seven, 150 lbs (68 kg)/ SF on the roof.  Floor-to-ceiling height ranges from 11.5 ft to 18.5 ft.  Two full-height passenger elevators, four freight elevators with capacity to 5,000 lbs (2,268 kg).  Secure pads on-site for generators.  Around-the-clock secured Building access.  On-site, 24/7, highly secure

underground parking garage with almost 500 spaces.  Multiple widely-spaced open shafts for running vertical telecom infrastructure.  Extremely wide corridors that accommodate forklifts and pallet jacks for moving heavy telecom equipment.  “The Largest Carrier Hotel in the Region” — The Globe Building begins with 4 diverse points of entry for fiber providers, one at each corner of the building.  Diverse building conduits and 5 oversized risers running the height of the building are available to accommodate virtually any communication infrastructure.  The Globe’s redundant fiber entrances and ‘Meet Me Room’ allow for efficient cost-effective inside plant build-outs and cross connections to any carrier or facility in the building.

Big power The Globe Building has the on-site power and other infrastructure to handle individual businesses’ power and cooling needs. This infrastructure features updated electrical power with brand new, dedicated Ameren (the region’s utility) basement substations and diverse utility feeds with true ‘A+B’ utility power.

environment without incurring local loop fees.

The large climate-controlled ‘Meet Me Room’ with UPS-backed power provides diverse fiber paths throughout the building and supports multiple fiber providers.

‘Meet Me Room’ space accommodates 100 58cm cabinets.

Large open floor plates in the building allow datacenter tenants ample room to organize their power distribution infrastructure

Individual point of presence (POP) sites — dedicated spaces ranging from 900 SF to several thousand SF — are part of The Globe’s Data Center facilities.

From the mid-1990’s to today, The Globe has become a preferred location for data center companies, as well as creative agencies, video production firms, and now Geospatial Intelligence and other tech firms. They are all taking advantage of being wired into a hub of connectivity with data centers with massive access to redundant power transporting data in and out, and being securely stored.

More than 40,000 SF available on the rooftop, The Globe provides abundant roof space for cooling support equipment and wireless transmission.

Reflecting on what made the City of St. Louis an industrial giant in the past years, the same qualities and assets now propel The Globe Building forward as St. Louis aspires to become a Global Geospatial Intelligence Hub — as the St. Louis location for GEOINT leaders such as MAXAR, Ball Aerospace, the U.S. HQ for Sweden-based T-Kartor, and the North and South American HQ for Geospatial World.

Big fiber The Globe’s ‘Meet Me Room’ offers tenants, carriers, and data centers the ability to interconnect in a shared “carrier-neutral”

Complementing these Geospatial assets, Westway Services now has a 75,000 SF multi-tenant SCIF under construction that is slated to open later this year. It is the

72,000 SF of flat roof allows datacenter tenants to locate and easily service high efficiency cooling equipment

largest of such facilities outside the Washington, D.C. area.

Moreover, The Globe has joined in the dramatic renovation of the 226,000 SF former St. Louis Post-Dispatch HQ, as the eventual home of Square and Cash Ap in ‘Downtown North’, an urban innovation district in St. Louis.

They’ve been joined in the District by NGA’s Moon Shot Labs at the T-REX innovation center, and more recently, by the corporate HQ, advanced manufacturing, and international distribution center for Stereotaxis, the global high-tech leader in robotic heart surgery.

All of this is located just blocks from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) USD 1.75billion new 100-acre (40+ hectares), 3,100-job western HQ. Richard C.D. Fleming CEO, Community Development Ventures, Inc., St. Louis regionalstrategy@me.com

March-April 2022 | www.geospatialworld.net | 65

ST. LOUIS

SCIF SPACE 75,000 SF Westway multi-tenant SCIF SPACE

710 N. Tucker Boulevard, Suite 100, St. Louis, Missouri 63101 jsalvatori@globebuilding.com 314 241 0450

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