Monthly archive for November 2011. Show all posts
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STATcompiler: Visualizing Population and Health Trends
›World population is growing – earlier this week, the global community symbolically marked the arrival of the seven billionth person. But the unprecedented growth in global population over the last few decades has not affected everyone equally – in 1950, 68 percent of the world’s population lived in developing regions; today that number is 82 percent. MEASURE’s latest version of their STATcompiler tool helps visually highlight areas simultaneously experiencing the most demographic change and poor health indicators.
The revised STATcompiler – released in September – provides new ways for users to visualize data by generating custom data tables, line graphs, column charts, maps, and scatter plots based on demographic and health indicators for more than 70 countries. Users can select countries or regions of interest, and relevant indicators, including for family planning, fertility, infant mortality, and nutrition. Tables can be further customized to view indicators over time, across countries, and by background characteristics, such as rural or urban residence, household wealth, or education. In some cases, sub-national data is available. User-created tables and images are then exportable so that they may be easily used in papers or presentations.
Since STATcompiler is still in active development, certain functions are still being added. HIV data has not yet been integrated into the program, nor has the express viewer function, with customizable, ready-made tables for quick access. Additionally, updated information is not available for all countries, in all categories – for instance, the most recent data available for Mexico comes from a 1987 survey. If preferred, the legacy version remains available to users in the meantime.
MEASURE DHS – the Monitoring and Evaluation to Assess and Use Results Demographic and Health Surveys project – provides technical assistance for data collection on health and population trends in developing countries. Their demographic and health surveys, funded by USAID, provide data for a wide range of monitoring and impact evaluation indicators at the household level in the areas of population, health, and nutrition. They have become a staple data source for researchers, and the addition of better analysis functions and dissemination tools, via STATcompiler, will hopefully help advance understanding of demographic and health trends.
Image Credit: Map from STATcompiler, arranged by Schuyler Null. -
New Report Launched: ‘The World’s Water’, Volume Seven
›“The water problem is real and it is bad,” said MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and founder of the Pacific Institute Peter Gleick at the October 18 launch of the seventh volume the institute’s biennial report on freshwater resources. “It’s not bad everywhere, and it’s not bad in the same way from place to place, but we are not doing what we need to do to address all of the different challenges around water.”
“The World’s Biggest Problem”
Worldwide, more than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, while two and a half billion lack access to adequate sanitation services. “This is the world’s biggest water problem,” said Gleick, “the failure to meet basic human needs for water – it’s inexcusable.”
Gleick predicts that the world will fail to meet the Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation by 2015, and noted that measures of illness for water-related diseases are rising, rather than falling.The World’s Water series provides an integrated way of thinking about water by exploring major concepts, important data trends, and case studies that point to policies and strategies for sustainable use of water. Volume seven includes chapters on climate change and transboundary waters, corporate water management, water quality challenges, Australia’s drought, and Chinese and U.S. water policy. The new volume also includes a set of side briefs on the Great Lakes water agreement, the energy required to produce bottled water, and water in the movies, as well as 19 new and updated data tables. An updated water conflict chronology looks at conflicts over access to water, attacks on water, and water used as a weapon during conflict.Peter Gleick on climate change and the water cycle.
Despite the added data, Gleick said that vast gaps remain in our knowledge and understanding about water. We lack accurate information on how much water the world has, where it is, how much humans use, and how much ecosystems need, he said. “So right off the bat, we are at a disadvantage.”
Focus on Efficiency, Infrastructure to Better Manage Water
One of the major concepts that has connected various volumes of The World’s Water is the concept of a “soft path for water” – a strategy for moving towards a more sustainable future for water through several key focus points: improved efficiency, decentralized infrastructure, and broadly rethinking water usage and supply.
Other cross-cutting themes include climate and water, peak water, environmental security, and the human right to water (formally recognized in a 2010 UN General Assembly resolution). “I would argue that all of these combined offer to some degree a different way of thinking about water, an integrated way of thinking about water,” Gleick said.
The China Issue
The role of China has been one of the most significant changes over the course of the series, said Gleick. The growth in the Chinese economy has led to a massive growth in demand for water (see the Wilson Center/Circle of Blue project, Choke Point: China), as well as massive contamination problems. The newest volume addresses these issues as well as China’s dam policies – internally, with neighboring countries, and around the world.
Gleick pointed out that China is one of the only nations (maybe the only) that still has a massive dam construction policy, and their installed capacity is already much larger than the United States, Brazil, or Canada. In addition, Chinese companies and financial interests are involved in at least 220 major dam projects in 50 countries around world. These projects have become increasingly controversial, for both environmental and political reasons, he said.
“My lens is typically a water lens,” Gleick said, but “none of us can think about the problems we really care about, unless we think about a more integrated approach.” Gleick emphasized the need for new thinking about sustainable, scalable, and socially responsible solutions. “We have to do more than we are doing, in every aspect of water,” he concluded.
Event Resources
Photo Credit: “Water,” courtesy of flickr user cheesy42. -
Top 10 Posts for October 2011
›October brought plenty of talk about population – the UN estimates that the seven billionth person alive today was born on the 31st and that brought a flurry of media coverage from all corners. Elizabeth Leahy Madsen broke down how we got to that number and where we’re going. Peter Gleick explained “peak water,” Jon Foley impressed at the first South by Southwest Eco conference, and we highlighted some of the debate around Solomon Hsiang et al.’s article about El Niño and conflict. Here are the top 10, measured by unique pageviews:
1. How Did We Arrive at 7 Billion – and Where Do We Go From Here?
2. Jon Foley: How to Feed Nine Billion and Keep the Planet Too
3. India’s Maoists: South Asia’s “Other” Insurgency
4. Tunisia’s Shot at Democracy: What Demographics and Recent History Tell Us
5. Weathering Change: New Film Links Climate Adaptation and Family Planning
6. El Niño, Conflict, and Environmental Determinism: Assessing Climate’s Links to Instability
7. Watch: Peter Gleick on Peak Water
8. Peter Gleick: Population Dynamics Key to Sustainable Water Solutions
9. In Search of a New Security Narrative: The National Conversation Series Launches at the Wilson Center
10. Food Security and Conflict Done Badly…, via Edward Carr, Open the Echo Chamber -
Bring the Water-Energy Nexus to Rio+20
›Global demand for energy will increase 30 percent by 2030, according to estimates, but in regions that are experiencing rapid economic growth, the increased demand for energy will lead to increased demand for water. The conflicting nature of achieving both water and energy security is exacerbated by a lack of institutional policy frameworks that integrate both concepts. However, the upcoming UN Rio+20 Sustainable Development Conference could provide an opportunity to change that.
Breaking Down Sustainability
Despite its emerging importance as an international relations concept, sustainability has been fragmented to reflect different economic, environmental, social, and cultural agendas. The lack of a common framework is reflected in the disjointed understanding of the water and energy nexus. More often than not, water-basin committees are only consulted when energy decisions are related to hydropower, and they are left out of consultations about alternative energy sources and land planning, even though such decisions have a direct impact on water resources.
Other examples of energy decisions impacting the water sector include the Canadian oil sands, where extraction techniques can consume 20 times more water than conventional oil drilling; irrigated first-generation and soy- and corn-based biofuels, which consume thousands times more water than traditional oil drilling; and solar thermal electricity, as opposed to photovoltaic electricity, which consumes twice as much water as a coal power plant. According to the Wilson Center/Circle of Blue Choke Point project, China will need perhaps 20 billion cubic meters of water a year (5.3 trillion gallons) over the next decade to meet its expanding coal power needs. Meanwhile, from 2000 to 2009, China’s total water reserves fell 1.5 percent annually.
Bring It to Rio
Is this a zero-sum, Kobayashi Maru-like scenario then? It doesn’t have to be if we expand our understanding of sustainability.A holistic understanding of the water-energy nexus is already present in regional documents such as the Organization of American States’ Declaration of Santa Cruz+10. The declaration recognizes that to be sustainable, every aspect of a nation – its energy matrix, water resource management, emergency planning, forest management, and governance – needs to be addressed to reach true sustainability. The nexus is also discussed in other documents such as the Stockholm Statement, but what is truly needed is a place on the agenda of the UN sustainable development conference next year in Rio de Janeiro.OnEarth Magazine’s Ben Jarvey at SXSW Eco.
Most of the major groups of the UN Division for Sustainable Development have released statements supporting the incorporation of the water-energy nexus within the Rio+20 discussions; these groups represent children and youth, women, free trade unions and businesses, scientists, and indigenous communities. The European Union has already established the water and energy nexus as one of the main challenges for the green economy. However, many of the key players within the negotiation process, including the United States, Brazil, India, and China, have not included the water-energy nexus in their official position papers.
To gather the support of these remaining actors, representatives of the Major Groups must advocate for the proposal at the national level. For example, the U.S. Senate is reviewing the Water and Energy Integration Act of 2011 (S.1343). If this bill were to be approved, it will be easier to push for the inclusion of the nexus approach in the official U.S. position paper for Rio+20. Civil society must aim to build domestic support for the inclusion of the water-energy nexus and a whole system approach before the third UNCSD Preparatory Committee Meeting, where the overall agenda for Rio+20 will be set. The inclusion of the nexus in the final agenda will only be possible if true engagement and dialogue between state and non-state actors is developed prior to the conference.
Although it is only one step, the incorporation of the water-energy nexus in the Rio agenda would help to expand our understanding of sustainability, in as official a way as possible, to encompass its truly cross-sectoral reach. Given the importance that the previous Earth Summit had for developing sustainable development goals, global leaders need to take this opportunity to incorporate the water and energy nexus into new discussions to validate its importance as a sustainability concept. This is essential to promote and deliver comprehensive frameworks at a local and regional level that account for the intricacies of an interconnected world.
Olimar Maisonet-Guzman is a 2011 Boren Fellow to Brazil and a member of the SustainUS Youth Delegation that will participate in the Rio+20 Earth Summit.
Sources: Council of the European Union, GovTrack.us, Organization of American States, UN Development Programme, UN Environment Programme, World Economic Forum, World Policy Institute, World Water Week.
Image Credit: Adapted from UNSCD 2012 official logo.