Mapping Natural Resources & Poverty

World Bank Article: How Can Poverty Mapping Support Development in Bhutan?

As my plane glides over the lush, green forest on the side of the mountains and descends into the narrow valley where the airport is located, I start to feel ...happy? Yes, happiness is the motto of the country of Bhutan—which is actually a kingdom. Interestingly, Bhutan is known for its development philosophy of Gross National Happiness.

While working to finalize the poverty mapping work that our World Bank team has been collaborating on with Bhutan’s National Statistics Bureau (NSB) and the Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC), I realized that I am happy not just because I have had the opportunity to be in such a beautiful place, but also as I have had the chance to work with some highly dedicated, capable (and yes, happy!) civil servants.

The poverty-mapping exercise in Bhutan was carried out by a joint team of staff members from the NSB and the World Bank. The team uses a “Small Area Estimation” method developed by Elbers et al. (2003) . This method uses both the 2005 Population Census and the 2007 household living standard survey (BLSS) to produce reliable poverty estimates at lower levels of disaggregation than existing survey data permits. In the case of Bhutan, the team managed to come up with reliable poverty estimates at the sub-district (known as Gewog in Bhutan) level .This work was also supported in part by AusAID through the South Asia Policy Facility for Decentralization and Service Delivery. 

The Bhutanese team has worked hard to master this new technique. Here’s how Mr. Faizuddin Ahmed, a poverty consultant based in Dhaka Office, described the effort in training the team from Bhutan. “... I want to mention three names of NSB staff ... Mr. Phub, Ms Neema and Ms. Tshering. They participated in a training workshop on poverty mapping. In that training workshop, they were imparted hands-on training starting from data preparation to simulation work of poverty mapping applying the Small Area Estimation (SAE) technique. I should admit that after the training, they were fully capable of doing poverty mapping works themselves. I am very happy about their performances in the training course.” 

Learning about spatial aspect of poverty 

We can learn more from the poverty map by compare it with other maps such as maps of transport networks, locations of public service centers, and market access. Using the poverty map may also help identify the investments necessary to lift such areas out of poverty. For example, we can put the poverty map side by side with a map of market accessibility indicator and learn about the pattern.

Looking at the two maps, one can see a correlation between poverty and accessibility. In general, poor areas tend to have low access to markets and poor connection to road networks. For example, the poorest dzongkhags in the South have very little access to road networks and markets. On the other hand, areas in western Bhutan that are highly connected to markets also have the lowest poverty levels. It is also worth noting that the maps only show correlations, and not causal relationships.

Remote areas are not necessarily always poor. For example, the remote sub-district of Lunana in the far north appears to be quite well off. This seems to defy conventional wisdom given that the area is high up in the mountains and can only be reached after 9 days of intense trekking from the district headquarter. And that district headquarter is not even connected to any roads!

It turns out that the local yak herders in Luana supplement their income by collecting a type of fungus called Cordyceps. In English, it is commonly known as caterpillar fungus. Its Chinese name easily translates to “winter worm summer grass,” and it is considered a medicinal mushroom in traditional Chinese medicine. Cordyceps commands top dollars in China; a kilogram of the fungus can fetch as much as $15,000! The fact that there is a sparse population where Cordyceps is found is of great benefit to the local residents, especially because a special permit ensures that only the local population is allowed to collect Cordyceps in the national park and that the harvest is sustainable.

What’s next? 

Poverty mapping can be used to improve the targeting of resources. A more disaggregated picture can help reveal pockets of poverty that might otherwise be overlooked, thereby potentially improving the design of targeted interventions. As of now, the GNHC has been using the poverty estimates at the Gewog level to allocate annual block grants. In the future, performance monitoring can also be improved with the availability of poverty maps that permit the tracking of poverty at the local level over multiple time periods.

The Bhutanese team is planning to apply the technique they recently learned to other indicators. What may be next for them could very well be… gross national happiness mapping.

Source: http://blogs.worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/how-can-poverty-mapping-support-development-bhutan

Competing Claims in the South China Sea Remains Issue After Nearly 70 Years

Since 1947, the South China Sea has been a major area of dispute in Asia Pacific. Just last week, a clash between Vietnamese and Chinese vessels sparked violence near the largely disputed Paracel Islands. While China lays claim to roughly 80% of these oil and gas rich waters, there are overlapping areas of dispute with not one but five other countries - the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, and Malaysia. China has recently chosen to make some major power moves in the region, not only reclaiming what is estimated by US officials to be 1,500 acres of land this year alone, but also began construction on several new artificial islands just last year. China insisted that “the islands would help with maritime search and rescue, disaster relief, environmental protection and offer navigational assistance as well as have undefined military purposes,” however with a reported $5 trillion of ship-borne trade passing through these waters every year, it is no wonder that the boundary disputes persist.

Read more on this issue and it’s history on Bloomberg.com

China remains at center of transboundary water conflicts

Last August, the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses came into effect and immediately put into question the practices and issues that exist in border disputed areas of South Asia, namely with those countries that share borders with China. Transboundary water conflicts have existed in this area for quite some time creating deep seated feelings of mistrust and animosity between nations.

Of course, only those nations that ratify the convention are held to it’s standards and it seems that many are not yet ready to adopt the neighborly and sustainable water management practices the convention supports. As Yu Xiaogang, environmentalist and director of Green Watershed, a NGO in Yunnan, southwest China states:

The Convention is based on the principles of cooperation and mutual benefit, friendship between neighbors, development that is not significantly harmful to other watercourse states, and sustainability. It will form a sound basis for good management of international watercourses.

Even if these countries choose not to ratify the convention in the near future, there is hope that it will have “a clear impact” in that it might “elevate the international customary law of transboundary water conflicts, creating a new reference point… It offers legitimate and effective practices for data sharing, negotiation and dispute resolution that could be followed in bilateral or multilateral water-sharing arrangements.

… At government level, the influence of this Convention cannot be avoided when countries in South Asia come to the negotiating table. Downstream countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan will refer to it to support their arguments. And of course there will always be pressure from the international community to sign it.”

While no one is expecting these countries to sign anytime soon, it is expected that South Asian nations and China will be forced to re-examine their positions when it comes to transboundary water rights.

Read more on this issue here.

MERS Virus Spreads Across South Korea

South Korea has confirmed that a third person has died from the Middle Eastern Respiratory System (MERS) Virus on Thursday. This is the 36th case in South Korea, the most to ever occur outside of the Middle East. Following this recent outbreak, more than 1,100 schools have been closed and more than 1,500 people who are thought to have been directly exposed to the virus have been asked to participate in a voluntary quarantine. It has been reported that the virus was brought into the country by a man returning from a business trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Neighboring countries such as North Korea and China are taking extra precautions in an attempt to keep the virus at bay, however China has already confirmed one case in Hong Kong.

According to the WHO, MERS has caused 442 deaths worldwide. The virus is thought to be spread from close person to person contact and approximately 27% of patients with MERS have died.

Keep updated on the spread of MERS on Reuters.com

Nepal: How did the earthquakes help to expose the country's serious energy security issues?

One month after the first devastating earthquake hit Nepal, the biggest challenges are only just beginning to emerge. While natural disasters come with their own set of problems, it is often the issues that existed beforehand that are magnified and become the hardest to overcome. In Nepal’s case, one such issue is energy security - Nepal is country that relies largely on hydropower yet is plagued by landslides even during a good year. In the past, these landslides have been known to knock out hundreds of megawatts of power from the grid. The recent earthquakes have made this situation even more vulnerable, especially as monsoon season (AKA peak landslide season) arrives.

A recent report written by Gagan Thapa, a member of Parliament and chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Energy, and Natural Resources, and Kashish Das Shrestha explores the vulnerability of Nepal’s energy infrastructure and it’s need to diversify. This article, published on the New York Times website, states:

“Nepal is one of the 15 countries considered most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and some experts have long listed it as one of the countries most at risk from earthquakes...

What is clear is that Nepal cannot afford to delay diversifying its energy portfolio and the process must involve the devolution of the country’s energy production and distribution to community and municipal levels.”

These two believe that by switching to microgrids and localizing energy with a focus on capturing solar energy, Nepal can move towards a more resilient, independent and diversified energy grid. “While the April 25 earthquake revealed our vulnerability, it also revealed the value of distributed energy systems.”

Find out more about Nepal’s energy infrastructure on energypedia.info

Nepal: Where is help needed most and where is it being given?

Canadian Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) Provides Aid to Remote Areas of Nepal

As aid agencies and nonprofits pour into Kathmandu in hoards from around the world and millions if not billions of dollars have been donated, one must begin to wonder where is aid truly needed the most? Where are the people who are trapped and whose supply routes have been severed by destruction? The Canadian Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART as it is more commonly known, is seeking to find just those people in those remote areas.

Nepal is a country that is nearly impossible to navigate in normal circumstances, especially for non-locals. But with landslides and rubble now everywhere, this has become an even greater challenge. According to an interview with CBC News Canada, ‘"What we're finding right now is the most affected areas in Nepal are the bordering areas ... the remote areas bordering China," Canadian Red Cross president and CEO Conrad Sauvé said. He added that some of those affected areas can take up to two days to reach, even under good conditions.” The primary fear that those who suffered injuries living outside of Kathmandu can not make it to the clinics, thus are only growing sicker. So DART is hiking to them. By setting up mobile clinics in these remote areas, DART hopes that a greater number of people can be provided with adequate care and supplies before it’s too late.

Picture from Canadian Forces Photos Flickr

Crowd-Source Mapping and Disaster Relief: How are GPS and satellite images helping Nepal post quake?

As humanitarian organizations flock to Nepal after the devastation of two earthquakes, one organization is making waves through the work of thousands of people from thousands of miles away. You might assume that this work is being done through monetary donations, but rather it is through donations of time and attention. OpenStreetMaps is described as a project to create a free and open map of the entire world, built entirely by volunteers surveying with GPS, digitizing aerial imagery, and collecting and liberating existing public sources of geographic data. The information in OpenStreetMap can fill in the gaps in base map data to assist in responses to disasters and crisis. As the OSM wiki page states: When there is a humanitarian crisis, such as the Nepal earthquake, OpenStreetMap (OSM) volunteers from around the world rapidly digitize satellite imagery to provide maps and data to support humanitarian organizations deployed to the affected countries. It is the largest crowd sourced mapping project on the internet and the need for it only continues to grow.

OSM gained much popularity and attention while working in Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake. The goal is not only to create better and more accurate maps after disasters, but to be better prepared for future disasters and thus reduce the threats they pose. As the Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) states, “Nobody would argue that data preparedness is better than a scramble after an event.”

Since the first earthquake occurred on April 25th, 2015, OSM reports that 4,826 citizen mappers have made 113,141 changes to the map.These OSM volunteers help to create accurate and detailed maps that include roads, villages, important landmarks, and areas most affected.  By partnering with relief organizations, HOT can use this information to assess where aid is needed most and how to most effectively deliver that aid.

Want to find out more or become an OSM volunteer? Visit the links below:

http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1030

http://hotosm.org/get-involved

http://hotosm.org/updates/2015-05-01_nepal_earthquake_we_have_maps

Lack of safe drinking water threatens Nepal

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, sanitation is more often than not the most pressing issue. The threat of the outbreak of disease, most commonly contracted from unsafe drinking water, can do as much damage as the actual disaster. Nepal is no exception.

After the recent earthquake, one of the biggest issues has been lack of access to safe drinking water and proper toilets. Even before the earthquake, the World Health Organization reports that only 37% of the population in Nepal has access to adequate sanitation facilities. While much progress has been made in sanitation in the past few years, the fear is that the earthquake has undone even that 37%. “The town water supply is completely broken down,” says Arjen Naafs, the South Asia regional technical adviser for WaterAid. People have abandoned their normal hygiene habits, thus contaminating what clean water there is. As monsoon season approaches, these problems will only worsen due to flooding.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is, a cholera outbreak is almost guaranteed.
 

Read more on this issue on Newsweek.com and the Unicef website.

Seismotectonics of the Himalaya and Vicinity

 

Seismicity in the Himalaya dominantly results from the continental collision of the India and Eurasia plates, which are converging at a relative rate of 40-50 mm/yr. Northward underthrusting of India beneath Eurasia generates numerous earthquakes and consequently makes this area one of the most seismically hazardous regions on Earth. The surface expression of the plate boundary is marked by the foothills of the north-south trending Sulaiman Range in the west, the Indo-Burmese Arc in the east and the east-west trending Himalaya Front in the north of India. 

The India-Eurasia plate boundary is a diffuse boundary, which in the region near the north of India, lies within the limits of the Indus-Tsangpo (also called the Yarlung-Zangbo) Suture to the north and the Main Frontal Thrust to the south. The Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone is located roughly 200 km north of the Himalaya Front and is defined by an exposed ophiolite chain along its southern margin. The narrow (<200km) Himalaya Front includes numerous east-west trending, parallel structures. This region has the highest rates of seismicity and largest earthquakes in the Himalaya region, caused mainly by movement on thrust faults. Examples of significant earthquakes, in this densely populated region, caused by reverse slip movement include the 1934 M8.1 Bihar, the 1905 M7.5 Kangra and the 2005 M7.6 Kashmir earthquakes. The latter two resulted in the highest death tolls for Himalaya earthquakes seen to date, together killing over 100,000 people and leaving millions homeless. The largest instrumentally recorded Himalaya earthquake occurred on 15th August 1950 in Assam, eastern India. This M8.6 right-lateral, strike-slip, earthquake was widely felt over a broad area of central Asia, causing extensive damage to villages in the epicentral region. 

The Tibetan Plateau is situated north of the Himalaya, stretching approximately 1000km north-south and 2500km east-west, and is geologically and tectonically complex with several sutures which are hundreds of kilometer-long and generally trend east-west. The Tibetan Plateau is cut by a number of large (>1000km) east-west trending, left-lateral, strike-slip faults, including the long Kunlun, Haiyuan, and the Altyn Tagh. Right-lateral, strike-slip faults (comparable in size to the left-lateral faults), in this region include the Karakorum, Red River, and Sagaing. Secondary north-south trending normal faults also cut the Tibetan Plateau. Thrust faults are found towards the north and south of the Tibetan Plateau. Collectively, these faults accommodate crustal shortening associated with the ongoing collision of the India and Eurasia plates, with thrust faults accommodating north south compression, and normal and strike-slip accommodating east-west extension. 

Along the western margin of the Tibetan Plateau, in the vicinity of south-eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, the India plate translates obliquely relative to the Eurasia plate, resulting in a complex fold-and-thrust belt known as the Sulaiman Range. Faulting in this region includes strike-slip, reverse-slip and oblique-slip motion and often results in shallow, destructive earthquakes. The active, left-lateral, strike-slip Chaman fault is the fastest moving fault in the region. In 1505, a segment of the Chaman fault near Kabul, Afghanistan, ruptured causing widespread destruction. In the same region the more recent 30 May 1935, M7.6 Quetta earthquake, which occurred in the Sulaiman Range in Pakistan, killed between 30,000 and 60,000 people. 

On the north-western side of the Tibetan Plateau, beneath the Pamir-Hindu Kush Mountains of northern Afghanistan, earthquakes occur at depths as great as 200 km as a result of remnant lithospheric subduction. The curved arc of deep earthquakes found in the Hindu Kush Pamir region indicates the presence of a lithospheric body at depth, thought to be remnants of a subducting slab. Cross-sections through the Hindu Kush region suggest a near vertical northerly-dipping subducting slab, whereas cross-sections through the nearby Pamir region to the east indicate a much shallower dipping, southerly subducting slab. Some models suggest the presence of two subduction zones; with the Indian plate being subducted beneath the Hindu Kush region and the Eurasian plate being subducted beneath the Pamir region. However, other models suggest that just one of the two plates is being subducted and that the slab has become contorted and overturned in places. 

Shallow crustal earthquakes also occur in this region near the Main Pamir Thrust and other active Quaternary faults. The Main Pamir Thrust, north of the Pamir Mountains, is an active shortening structure. The northern portion of the Main Pamir Thrust produces many shallow earthquakes, whereas its western and eastern borders display a combination of thrust and strike-slip mechanisms. On the 18 February 1911, the M7.4 Sarez earthquake ruptured in the Central Pamir Mountains, killing numerous people and triggering a landside, which blocked the Murghab River. 

Further north, the Tian Shan is a seismically active intra-continental mountain belt, which extends 2500 km in an ENE-WNW orientation north of the Tarim Basin. This belt is defined by numerous east-west trending thrust faults, creating a compressional basin and range landscape. It is generally thought that regional stresses associated with the collision of the India and Eurasia plates are responsible for faulting in the region. The region has had three major earthquakes (>M7.6) at the start of the 20th Century, including the 1902 Atushi earthquake, which killed an estimated 5,000 people. The range is cut through in the west by the 700-km-long, northwest-southeast striking, Talas-Ferghana active right-lateral, strike-slip fault system. Though the system has produced no major earthquakes in the last 250 years, paleo-seismic studies indicate that it has the potential to produce M7.0+ earthquakes and it is thought to represent a significant hazard. 

The northern portion of the Tibetan Plateau itself is largely dominated by the motion on three large left-lateral, strike-slip fault systems; the Altyn Tagh, Kunlun and Haiyuan. The Altyn Tagh fault is the longest of these strike slip faults and it is thought to accommodate a significant portion of plate convergence. However, this system has not experienced significant historical earthquakes, though paleoseismic studies show evidence of prehistoric M7.0-8.0 events. Thrust faults link with the Altyn Tagh at its eastern and western termini. The Kunlun Fault, south of the Altyn Tagh, is seismically active, producing large earthquakes such as the 8th November 1997, M7.6 Manyi earthquake and the 14th November 2001, M7.8 Kokoxili earthquake. The Haiyuan Fault, in the far north-east, generated the 16 December 1920, M7.8 earthquake that killed approximately 200,000 people and the 22 May 1927 M7.6 earthquake that killed 40,912. 

The Longmen Shan thrust belt, along the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, is an important structural feature and forms a transitional zone between the complexly deformed Songpan-Garze Fold Belt and the relatively undeformed Sichuan Basin. On 12 May 2008, the thrust belt produced the reverse slip, M7.9 Wenchuan earthquake, killing over 87,000 people and causing billions of US dollars in damages and landslides which dammed several rivers and lakes. 

Southeast of the Tibetan Plateau are the right-lateral, strike-slip Red River and the left-lateral, strike-slip Xiangshuihe-Xiaojiang fault systems. The Red River Fault experienced large scale, left-lateral ductile shear during the Tertiary period before changing to its present day right-lateral slip rate of approximately 5 mm/yr. This fault has produced several earthquakes >M6.0 including the 4 January 1970, M7.5 earthquake in Tonghai which killed over 10,000 people. Since the start of the 20th century, the Xiangshuihe-Xiaojiang Fault system has generated several M7.0+ earthquakes including the M7.5 Luhuo earthquake which ruptured on the 22 April 1973. Some studies suggest that due to the high slip rate on this fault, future large earthquakes are highly possible along the 65km stretch between Daofu and Qianning and the 135km stretch that runs through Kangding. 

Shallow earthquakes within the Indo-Burmese Arc, predominantly occur on a combination of strike-slip and reverse faults, including the Sagaing, Kabaw and Dauki faults. Between 1930 and 1956, six M7.0+ earthquakes occurred near the right-lateral Sagaing Fault, resulting in severe damage in Myanmar including the generation of landslides, liquefaction and the loss of 610 lives. Deep earthquakes (200km) have also been known to occur in this region, these are thought to be due to the subduction of the eastwards dipping, India plate, though whether subduction is currently active is debated. Within the pre-instrumental period, the large Shillong earthquake occurred on the 12 June 1897, causing widespread destruction.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us2000292y#general_summary

Harnessing the Power of Big Data with Geospatial Mapping

Big Data and Geospatial Mapping. In recent years it has become apparent that this combination can work magic. From the military, to businesses, to disaster relief non-profits, this duo is taking the world by storm. How so? According to one article found on IT Business Edge,

Geospatial mapping can show real-time changes to weather, locations of field staff, supply chains impacted by world events, and customer patterns. The competitive advantages an organization can attain when armed with real-time location data and visualization are almost endless.

By combining layers of data from all over the Internet of Things, information can be visualized in a way that can’t be rivaled. Simply providing more accurate predictive modeling makes tracking everything from disease to consumer trends far simpler and faster.

GIS Lounge asks us to imagine how powerful it would be if we could analyze vast data streamed from social media, smart devices, international statistics, spatial logs and more - in order to predict the precise location of the next outbreak of a disease and have the ability to prepare for the same. With Navvi we can.

Check us out on Navvi.com

#LivingAtlas #Bethesource #MapWhatMatters

How are drones helping to save endangered species in Africa?

Drones - Not long ago, they were considered unearthly and far too complicated to actually work. But in recent years they have proved to be very practical and in many cases extremely valuable. From military use to disaster relief, drones have demonstrated their ability to be very versatile and even have helped to save lives. And now, they are being used to help save endangered species.

In a new project entitled Air Shepherds spearheaded by the Lindbergh Foundation, drones are being used to track poachers who kill elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns. By using infrared cameras, drones are stealth enough to locate poachers during the night and then send their locations to park rangers. Both rhinos and elephants are considered endangered species in many parts of Africa and if nothing is done to help them, they could be extinct in less than 10 years. Air Shepherds aims to stop this. Drones have proved to be very cost effective and much easier to control than other tested methods such as airplanes.

John Peterson, chairman of the Lindbergh Foundation states, “It works. Flying in one area where as many as 19 rhinos were killed each month, there have been no deaths for six months. None at all.”

Read more on the Air Shepherds project here.

Bloomberg Philanthropies announces launch of Data for Health program in emerging countries

Last month, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a $100 Million Data for Health program. This program, which will be launched in partnership with the Australian government, will help 20 middle to low income countries better collect public health data. One article recently published by PR Newswire states:

“Each year the World Health Organization estimates that 65% of all deaths worldwide – 35 million each year – go unrecorded. Millions more deaths lack a documented cause. This gap creates major obstacles for understanding and addressing public health problems. The Data for Health initiative seeks to provide governments, aid organizations, and public health leaders with tools and systems to better collect data – and use it to prioritize health challenges, develop policies, deploy resources, and measure success.”

Using IoT (Internet of Things) devices such as smartphones and other communication technologies, the program hopes to help 1.2 billion people in 20 countries live healthier, longer lives.

IBM to invest $3 Billion in IoT Unit

 

"Our knowledge of the world grows with every connected sensor and device, but too often we are not acting on it, even when we know we can ensure a better result." - Bob Picciano, senior vice president, IBM Analytics

According to the Wall Street Journal, IBM (International Business Machines) announced plans on Tuesday to invest $3 Billion in a new sensor data unit. By partnering with the Weather Company, which owns information providers such as the Weather Channel, IBM will be able to interpret a multitude of data about weather conditions in order to help businesses make better decisions.

This approach will help IBM compete to manage vast streams of data from smartphones, Internet-connected cars, machine tools, smart home appliances, jet engines, and other sources, also known as IoT (Internet of Things).  

An article on Forbes.com explains: “The suggestion here is that over the next decade, integration of IoT in business operations and decision-making will transform business. But today, it is estimated that 90 percent of all data generated by devices like smartphones, tablets, connected vehicles and appliances is never analyzed or acted upon – as much as 60 percent of this data begins to lose value within milliseconds of being generated.”

Shaping the Future of Energy Development

In the past decade, China’s energy demand has nearly doubled. With this has come a rapid development of the countries hydropower industry - not only investing in hydropower in China itself, but in hydropower around the world. Involvement goes so far as Latin America, including work on a dam in Ecuador that is expected to supply the country with 45% of its total power. This may seem like a strange partnership, but Chinese banks are willing to finance projects in countries with poor credit ratings - ones that historically have had difficulty accessing sufficient capital for major infrastructure projects such as these.

Chinese involvement in hydropower is only expected to increase in the coming years, with plans for construction of reservoirs in a multitude of South and Central American countries including Argentina, Belize, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guyana, Honduras, and Peru.

Read more on this here.

Lack of safe water and sanitation continues to be overlooked by health sector.

Clean Water. What should be a basic human right remains to be a major issue around the world. According to a recent joint report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, access to clean water has fallen extremely short of millenium development goals. The report estimates that a shocking 38% of health centres have no access to water in lower and middle income countries and 35% do not even provide water and soap for staff and patients to wash their hands and maintain basic hygiene. What may be even more shocking however, is that only 25% of countries have funded plans to address this issue.

Dirty water is said to be one of the top five killers of women worldwide and Wateraid reports that one in five newborn deaths could be prevented with safe water, sanitation and clean hands.

“It’s an embarrassment for the health sector that this issue is so ignored. It’s a fixable crisis. It’s a crisis because it’s hidden.” - Bruce Gordon, coordinator of water, sanitation, hygiene and health for the WHO

John Perry Barlow: A Good Ancestor

Our evening spent with John Perry Barlow felt like an oracle experience: every story astounding, every twist and turn visionary, every insight profound. A magnetically brilliant mind; a dynamically inspiring life; a terrific second installment of Startup Grind Jackson Hole.

Resume points fail to capture Barlow’s charisma, though they do impress: Cyberlibertarian, Grateful Dead songwriter, Wyoming cattle rancher, wastewater pioneer. Given free reign by Natalie Spencer of Navvi, Barlow regaled the full house with his matchless skills as a storyteller. With wit and wisdom, he sketched his life not as a line but an ever-looping system, akin to the way he views the world and its resources.

Take, for instance, his arc from working in finance to working in biofuel. As advisor to Herb Allison, then president of Merrill Lynch, he helped “electronify” all financial transactions and assemble bundles of speculative assets. During this time, he underwent back surgery to alleviate his chronic pain from an old ranching injury. Suddenly he saw a pain-free horizon, and something clicked: Instead of building wealth, he wanted to build infrastructure and address the “amount of alterations we are already enacting on Planet Earth,” he said. “We are not necessarily making it warmer, but weirder.”

Focusing on the global preponderance of poisonous water, he teamed up with a crew of young upstart scientists and formed Algae Systems, which converts biowaste into clean water and biofuel using . “All of these biological systems have to loop back into each other,” he said, something he learned during his contentious tenure as president of the Wyoming Outdoor Council. When he approached land use as a feedback loop as Council President, he raised the ire of both fellow ranchers and the Sierra Club. Instead of a loop, most people see “a continuous line of limitless resources at one end and limitless ability to waste stuff at the other.” Algae Systems bucks this notion.

As does Barlow: His allegiance to sustainable systems underpins every frontier he has found himself in, like the Internet. “When I first saw the Internet, literally, it was a religious experience for me,” he said. “Wow: This is a nervous system.” He knew the Internet would engage all humanity in the creation of “the collective organism of mind.” Since then, “I’ve been doing everything I can to be open to anyone, anywhere, so that they are able to find out everything that can be known on any topic to the limits of their curiosity,” he said. “Young people are teaching themselves how to see and experience and know beyond the dreadful education system, which is designed to produce interchangeable machine parts.”

Even casual descriptions evidenced his approach to the world as an independent organism: Grateful Dead songs, though often scrawled in the studio, “had to grow and metamorphose, more like marsupials.”

Over tea with Mardy Murie (who has been called the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement”), Barlow picked up a credo he would carry close for the rest of his life, a self-truth he’d like inscribed on his tombstone. “Environmentalists can be a pain in the ass,” Murie said to him. “But they make great ancestors.”

“I want to be a good ancestor,” John Perry Barlow said. Goal achieved.

Written by Katy Niner

Are smart cities the solution to a more sustainable future?

A Smart City can be defined as a city that uses digital technologies to enhance performance and well being, to reduce costs and resource consumption, and to engage more effectively and actively with its citizens. Key 'smart' sectors include transport, energy, health care, water and waste. A smart city should be able to respond faster to city and global challenges than one with a simple 'transactional' relationship with its citizens.

With overcrowding, pollution, inadequate use of finite resources, and many other factors, it has become obvious to many cities that our current way of life is not sustainable. Thus many urban locations are turning to newer, more adaptive, “smarter” ways of thinking and growing.

Malmo, Sweden: A former polluted industrial center home to several nuclear power plants. Malmo has turned over a new leaf, pledging to become carbon neutral by 2020 and to run entirely on renewables by 2030. Projects such as sustainable building developments, aquifer storage systems, and mandatory building codes that include requirements for vegetated roofs and walls are only part of what makes this city “smart.”

Read more on Malmo and other leading Smart Cities on Mashable.com

Stockholm Environment Institute: Could Sweden take the lead in promoting a more proactive approach to disaster risk reduction in international policy?

In the 2014 Policy Report Water and Risk: Developing Sustainable and Resilient Communities published by SEI, Research Fellow Ase Johannessen calls upon Sweden to take the lead in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) policy. Sweden already plays a very influential role in international policy and DRR efforts, thus is in an ideal position to strengthen its authority.

The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) plan created in 2005 is due to expire this year, thus creating the need for a new agenda for Disaster Risk Reduction. This new plan will need to reinterpret risk reduction. As Johannessen states, “To create the further reduction of risk, DRR needs to become an integral part of development, and not an add-on separated from it.” In summary, this means building resilience and being able to better predict, adapt to, and learn from disasters rather than simply react to them.

“To build on past efforts and take the opportunity to become a leading player, it is crucial that Sweden develops a policy statement providing a comprehensive approach to resilience building, focusing on the integration of DRR into development aid programming. This is crucial to ensuring that long term development is safeguarded from disasters by addressing underlying causes of risk, and that development and humanitarian programs do not create new forms of vulnerability and risk. Swedish actors with expertise in resilience and DRR need to be actively consulted and involved in the formulation of such policy.”

Visit the SEI website to read the SEI 2015-2019 Strategic Plan

Could investing millions in hydro-meteorological services save billions in emerging countries?

According to a recent article published by Reuters, the World Bank is working with other development finance institutions to raise some $500 million to modernise weather and flood forecasting services in Africa. Why is this such a priority? According to World Meteorological Organization figures, 90% of natural disasters in sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade were climate or weather-related. More recently, flooding has devastated some southern African countries such as Malawi and Mozambique, both of which have suffered severe damage to homes, crops, and infrastructure, not to mention the loss of hundreds of lives.

The aftermath of the floods does not look promising either. Fears of cholera outbreaks along with malaria are very real. Without shelter, or clean water, mosquitoes multiply. And as Mandinda Zungu, Programs Coordinator for Catholic Development Commission in Malawi reports to BBC News, cholera can be described as “a ticking time bomb: ‘Because pipes are blocked or destroyed, clean water supplies are cut off," she explains. ‘People are bathing in streams then drinking the same water further down. They are going to the toilet in fields, which, when it rains, spreads into the rivers.”

Thus the need for more investing in advanced weather forecasting services can be rationalized: “Globally, investment in hydro-meteorological services could lead to a realization of up to $30 billion per year in increased economic productivity and cut losses from disasters by up to $2 billion.” - Disaster risk specialist Daniel Kull, World Bank, Reuters

Syria: the “Center of the Middle East," the “Gateway of the World,” and the “World’s Most Grave Humanitarian Disaster”

“So it begins. You take a step. You exit one life and enter another. You walk through a cut border fence into statelessness, vulnerability, dependency, and invisibility. You become a refugee.” - Paul Salopek, Fleeing Terror, Finding Refuge

What started as the Arab Spring has now become a very hard winter for the Middle East, with Syria in the eye of the storm. In a recent article published by National Geographic entitled Fleeing Terror, Finding Refuge, journalist Paul Salopek studies the history that led up to what Doctor’s Without Borders goes so far as to call the “world’s most grave humanitarian disaster.” After 9,000 years of occupation and civilization, Syria has become a country where 7.6 million people are internally displaced and 3.2 million are refugees, 75% of which are women and children. As Salopek so eloquently writes, “It was here that humankind first settled down, founded cities, invented the idea of a fixed home. Yet for months I had been stumbling across a vast panorama of mass homelessness.”