NASA invites video gamers and citizen scientists to embark on virtual ocean research expeditions to help map coral reefs around the world in an effort to better understand these threatened ecosystems. During the past several years, researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley have developed new instruments
Pulse of the planet webinar series #14
Spanish Webinar: When: Friday, April 3, 2020 / Time: 12:00 – 1:00pm (EDT, GMT-4) English Webinar: When: Friday, April 10, 2020 / Time: 12:00 – 1:00pm (EDT, GMT-4) Title / Presenter: “An X-Ray of a Pandemic” (“Rayos X de una Pandemia”) / Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio Short Bio: Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio is the Associated Vice President
Towards “BON in the Cloud”
GEO BON continues promoting the development of infrastructures supporting the production and dissemination of the Essential Biodiversity Variables and derived indicators. The workshop “BON in the Cloud”, held in Leipzig on February 13-14th, identified the most pressing needs for developing cloud-based systems in support of biodiversity observation networks. Workshop participants
GEO BON Genetic Composition WG publishes Science Letter on CBD Zero Draft Recommendations
Co leads of the Genetic Composition Working Group, Sean Hoban and Anna MacDonald, were among 21 authors (including several other GEO BON members and IUCN Specialist Group members) on a letter to Science published March 6 here. The letter is titled “Post 2020 Goals Overlook Genetic Diversity”. It concerns an
Restoring health-promoting biodiverse microbiomes
The more biodiverse the microbes living in the environments around us, and the more you are exposed to them, the healthier you may become. The Healthy Urban Microbiome Initiative (HUMI) is exploring how restoring microbial diversity in urban environments might improve the immune health of people in these areas by
Measuring ecosystem multifunctionality across scales
New paper published proposing a new way of measuring multifunctionality across spatial scales, illustrated with a European-wide dataset of 18 ecosystem services. Our assessment captures not only the diversity of ecosystem services supplied within each municipality (alpha-multifunctionality), but also the unique contribution of each municipality to the regional ecosystem service
BID-REX: bridging data and decisions
The Interreg BID-REX project has led the way in bridging the gap between data and decisions. Now the project is in its implementation phase. BID-REX, launched in 2016, involves seven European regions from six different countries – Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and the UK – in a bid to
Essential Ocean Variables and Essential Biodiversity Variables – How are they related?
Measurements of the status and trends of key indicators for the ocean and marine life are required to inform policy and management in the context of growing human uses of marine resources, coastal development, and climate change. Two synergistic efforts identify specific priority variables for monitoring life in the sea:
Policy Brief: Elevating Mountains in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework 2.0
At the last Open-Ended Working Group meeting in Rome, The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), GRID-Arendal (GRIDA), the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA), and the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) launched the Policy Brief “Elevating Mountains in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework 2.0”. This brief offers relevant facts and recommendations to support
GEO partners with Google to offer 25 licenses for the sustained use of Google Earth Engine (GEE)
The GEO secretariat has put together all the important questions and answers on the GEO–Google Earth Engine Programme.