Eye On:
Google Data Maps Development Indicators

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

If you have not had the (purely wonky) pleasure of playing with Google's Public Data Explorer, do yourself a favor and direct your browser there now.

Born from Hans Rosling's Gapminder, Google's data explorer currently allows the user to choose from 24 different data sets, including information from the World Bank, U.S. Census Bureau, Eurostat, and Energy Information Agency. Users can then customize the dataset's variables, save their work, and even embed the resulting chart, “unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact-based world view,” as the Gapminder site puts it.

The example dataset above uses development indicators from the World Bank to show areas of the world where high fertility rate and heavy reliance on subsistence agriculture have persisted over time. It's worth noting that many of the countries in the upper right of the graph are also where we find persistent conflict, and, if one accepts the predictions that Africa will see some of the most profound effects of climate change, they also face real risk of continuing instability as declining crop yields threaten livelihoods and population growth continues.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Search

Loading
Across My Desk adaptation Afghan DHS Afghanistan Africa aging agriculture Algeria Arctic Asia Australia Backdraft Bangladesh Beat on the Ground biodiversity biofuels Bolivia Brazil Building Commitment Burundi Cambodia Campus Beat Canada Chad China climate change Colombia community-based conflict Congress conservation consumption cooperation COP-15 COP-16 COP-17 Crossroads Cuba democracy demography development disaster relief Dot-Mom DRC eco-tourism economics Ecuador education Egypt energy environment environmental health environmental peacemaking environmental security Ethiopia Europe Eye On family planning Feed the Future flooding FOCUS food security foreign policy forests From Durban From Ethiopia From Wilson funding GBV gender geoengineering Ghana global health GMHC-10 Haiti HIV/AIDS humanitarian ICFP India Indonesia international environmental governance Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan JPR Kazakhstan Kenya Korea Kyrgyzstan land Latin America Lebanon Liberia Libya livelihoods Madagascar Malawi Mali maternal health MDGs media Mexico Middle East migration military minerals mitigation Morocco Mozambique NATO natural resources NCSE 2012 Nepal Nicholas Kristof Niger Nigeria Nigeria Beyond nutrition oceans On the Beat Pakistan Papua New Guinea peace parks Peru PHE PHE Champion Philippines Planet 2012 podcast Pop Audio Pop Tweets population poverty protected areas QDDR QDR Reading Radar Reading the QDDR REDD Rio+20 Russia Rwanda Sahel sanitation Saudi Arabia security Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa South Asia Sri Lanka State Sudan SXSW Syria Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Top 10 Tunisia Turkey U.S. Uganda UK UN urbanization USAID Uzbekistan video Vietnam water World Bank Yemen Yemen Beyond the Headlines You Are Invited youth Zimbabwe