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Back to GEO News issue #5

UNEP atlases communicate the value of Earth observations

By Ashbindu Singh, Regional Coordinator for UNEP’s Division of Early Warning & Assessment – North America and GEO Principal; and Bruce W. Pengra, Geographer, UNEP/GRID Sioux Falls

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that presenting well-chosen satellite images in an atlas format can be a powerful means of communicating the meaning of complex Earth observations to a broader audience. For this reason, UNEP has proposed that our Atlas of our Changing Environment series be integrated into the updated GEO Work Plan as an outreach Task in the capacity-building section.

Through a combination of ground photographs, current and historical satellite images, and narratives based on extensive scientific evidence, the UNEP Atlases illustrate how humans have altered their surroundings and continue to make observable and measurable changes to the global environment. The information we provide is not only useful in the context of the selected locations, but also underscores the intrinsic value of harnessing, visualizing and communicating technologies to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics and impacts of environmental change.

The UNEP Atlas of Our Changing Environment is a series of publications focusing on the global, regional and national levels. The atlases draw the attention of governments to environmental issues and strengthen their capacity to monitor their resources through Earth observations. Through 2010, the next deliverables in the series will be the Uganda Atlas of our changing environment; the Atlas of water resources for Africa; and regional atlases for the Arab states, Europe,  and Latin America & the Caribbean.

 

Earth observations as visual proof

In celebration of World Environment Day on 5 June 5 2005, UNEP in cooperation with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Maryland, launched One Planet, Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment. The Atlas provided a comprehensive, visual presentation of scientifically verifiable information about changes in the global environment as shown through state-of-the-art remote sensing technology.

The Atlas is based primarily on satellite imagery taken over 30 years showing how human actions have changed various parts of the world. Coverage includes the shrinking ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers, the growth of cities such as Las Vegas, forest loss in the Amazon, the decline of the Aral Sea and Lake Chad, and much more.

For the first time, therefore, images available in a popular Atlas format provided scientists and policy makers with original, scientifically valid assessment and early warning information on the recent and potential long-term consequences of human activities on the biosphere. These images have been assisting governments and civil society to identify and shape corrective measures for helping to achieve sustainable development.

This first Atlas was developed in response to UNEP’s mandate to keep under review the world environmental situation and to ensure that emerging environmental problems of wide international significance receive appropriate and adequate consideration by governments. The Atlas contains some quite remarkable satellite imagery and illustrates the alarming rate of environmental destruction. Through the innovative use of some 271 satellite images, 215 ground photos and 66 maps, the Atlas provides visual proof of global environmental changes – both the good and the bad – resulting from natural processes and human-induced activities including those of the atmosphere, coastal areas, waters, forests, croplands, grasslands, urban areas, and tundra and polar regions. The Atlas demonstrates how the world’s growing population and our consumption patterns are shrinking our natural resource base.

After the success of this global product, a regional Atlas for Africa was released in 2008 at the request of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) covering all 53 countries in Africa. In February 2009, UNEP and the Government of Kenya jointly released a national Atlas for Kenya. Now work is under way to develop similar atlases for the Arab States, Europe and the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regions.

 

Lessons learned

The concept behind these publications is to use environmental stories, satellite images, aerial photographs, maps and photographs to present examples of environmental change, in ways that are easily understood and compelling. Why? Because all of the environmental data in the world will not help guide sound environmental policy making if no one reads it and understand it. Using remote sensing images to communicate stories of environmental change can quickly, intuitively and powerfully convey information to the viewer.

The most successful sites that have been produced for this series of change atlases are the ones in which the reader does not have to ask what has changed. The question we want to raise in the reader’s mind is “why has this changed?” – not “what is the difference between these two images?”

Many very important types of environmental change can not be seen in remote sensing images. Obvious examples would be invasive species or loss of species richness. Also, many very important changes take place in diffuse distributions making them difficult to see easily in remote sensing images; for example, selective logging. No matter how important the change is, if it can’t be seen in the remote sensing image then there is no point to including those images.  It may have an effect opposite of that intended – convincing the reader that the change is not significant, even if it is.

Finding apparent change in a pair of remote sensing images is not an adequate basis for producing a change study. Often what appears to be significant change can be seasonal change, cyclical change, differences in atmospheric conditions, differences between sensors, tidal inundation, the effect of a recent rain event, and so on.

Generally, validating or “ground truthing” the changes noted in images is beyond the time and financial resources of a lot of studies. Therefore, finding documentation of the changes that are observed in the images to avoid misinterpreting what appears to be environmental change, is extremely important. A good knowledge of band combinations, sensor or data characteristics, phonological patterns, cycles of flood and drought and other variables can help minimize misinterpretation of images. It can also be very useful to use additional remote sensing images from other dates or from other sensors to support what is seen in the primary image pair or time series. 

The three principles listed above should be kept in mind through out the entire process – from identifying possible sites, selecting sites, preparing images and writing the accompanying text.

 

For more information and free download go to: http://www.na.unep.net/ 

To purchase go to: http://www.earthprint.com/ 

 

 Example of the Aral Sea

The example of the Aral Sea shown above is powerful because the reader immediately sees the change understands the scale of that change.

                                              

Growing refugee camps in Pader District, Uganda

The example of the growing refugee camps in Pader District, Uganda is much less compelling – for several reasons. Burn scars throughout the image distract the reader from the significant change in the size of refugee camps at the center of the image. The image includes too much area where the change is not taking place rather than being cropped to just the change area. The scale of the change is too small to effectively show with medium resolution imagery.

Back to GEO News issue #5

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