Roberta Balstad Miller

Cities from space: potential applications of remote sensing in urban environmental research and policy

Abstract The rapidly expanding urban areas of the world constitute an environmental challenge for the 21st century that requires both new analytic approaches and new sources of data and information. Management of the urban environment must consider phenomena at three scales, including the physical environment within cities, environmental systems consisting of cities and their regional hinterlands, and the environmental implications of the global network of megacities. Increasing availability of remotely sensed observations and a variety of other geospatial information could facilitate the development of new tools and approaches for understanding the urban environment. These new applications should take advantage of the special characteristics of remotely sensed data, including their broad spatial coverage, their capacity for routine and unobtrusive updating and their ability to provide self-consistent measurements of critical physical properties that would be difficult or expensive to obtain in situ. In many cases, using remote sensing data to measure and monitor urban environmental conditions will be more straightforward than using them for urban planning purposes, where traditional sources of governmental and private sector data are more easily obtained and understood. In developing countries, however, remote sensing may provide fundamental observations of urban growth and environmental conditions that are not available from other sources.

Why monitor the climate

Abstract A successful global climate monitoring system must fulfill clear societal objectives. For some aspects of climate monitoring, the societal goals are understood and are clearly stated, but long-term, decadal/centennial climate predictions have, in the past, been judged more in terms of curiosity-led criteria. A curiosity-led climate programis not, however, the effective way to achieve the required societal objective, which is to produce thebest possible long-term climate projections. In terms of the universal use of numerical models for climateprojections, this leads to the need for monitoring programs that provide data to test model output against reliable observations. This requires an operational climate model (which the United States does not now have), and observationsthat emphasize accurate and reproducible data designed to provide critical tests of model output. The priorities for specific monitoring programs can be formulated in terms of these requirements, which can also provide metrics o...

Science and society in the early career of H.F. Verwoerd

The early career of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd has rarely received either scholarly or political attention. Yet the period between 1924, when he was awarded a PhD in Psychology at Stellenbosch, and 1936, when left academia to become editor of Die Transvaler, was critical in providing him with the organisational and political experience that later made him so successful as a National Party politician and administrator. Equally important, Verwoerd was neither a strident Afrikaner nationalist nor a doctrinaire white supremacist during these years. He played a central role in the campaign against white Afrikaner poverty in the 1930s and sought to encourage joint English‐Afrikaner co‐operation in this work. He was also instrumental in shaping the early South African social welfare movement, where he drew heavily on American experience and research. These activities, combined with his ambition and energy, gave him both the prominence and the platform for launching his political career after 1936.

Research on the human components of global change: Next steps☆

Abstract Although research on human interactions in global change is advancing rapidly, future research in this field will require changes in the scale and scope of social science research projects. The social sciences will also require new institutional structures that can organize and manage largescale, multinational, and multidisciplinary research. This article (a) summarizes what has taken place in planning for research on the human components of global environmental change; (b) assesses the readiness of the social science community to undertake large-scale research in this field; (c) identifies areas where large-scale research can and should be undertaken; and (d) suggests criteria that should guide the social science community as it moves towards large-scale research projects.

Remote sensing applications in African agriculture and natural resources: Highlighting and managing the stress of increasing population pressure

Abstract Given current population trends and projections in sub-Saharan Africa, it is anticipated that substantial intensification of agricultural cropland is certain within the next decades. In the absence of adoption of improved technologies poor rural populations in this region will continue to degrade and mine the natural resources to ensure their survival. All these actions will have far-reaching implications for environmental quality and human health. However, only through the integration of environment and development concerns with greater attention to these link can we achieve the goal of fulfilling the basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed eco-systems and a safer, more prosperous future. The paper reviews case studies and provides examples of the integration, analysis, and visualization of information from remotely sensed, biophysical and socioeconomic information to assess the present situation hindering agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa. These studies show the interactions between socio-economic and environmental factors that can help governments and policy-makers assess the scope of the problems, examine alternatives and decide on a course of action. Sound decisions depend on accurate information, yet most African countries face severe competing demands for the financial and human commitments necessary to staff an information system equal to its policy-making requirements. The role of international data centers is reviewed in terms of their abilities to develop and maintain information systems that bring together available accumulated knowledge and data. This permits comparative studies, which make it possible to develop a better understanding of the relationships among demographic dynamics, technology, cultural behavioral norms, and land resources and hence better decision making for sustainable development.

Social Policy Experimentation

policy experiments could provide new sources of data on the effects of social conditions on individual and group behavior. These data would feed directly into the growing interest in the use of experimentation as a research strategy in a number of social science disciplines. Until now, social science research has been heavily dependent upon data collected for other purposes (e.g., vital statistics and the census) or upon self-reported assessments of previous actions, conditions, perceptions, or attitudes (e.g., most surveys). The experimental tradition has been largely concentrated in the laboratory. Although these sources of research data will continue to be useful, there is a growing sense among social scientists of the limitations of conventional social science data. In many research areas, what is currently needed to advance our understanding of social behavior are controlled experiments that would provide directly observable data on human responses in specific situations. These could be provided by social policy experiments.

Indicators of science: Notes and queries

Some science indicators can be found inSocial Indicators 1976 as well asScience Indicators-1976, but the coverage of science is limited. Neither volume contains data on cognitive aspects of science and technology or on their social consequences. The authors make suggestions for then-and-there assessments of cognitive advance in science and for prospective and retrospective checks on the validity of these assessments.

Reply [to “Comment on ‘Righting the balance: Gender diversity in the geosciences’”] by Floyd Herbert

In our article “On Gender Equity in the Geosciences,” we are not advocating a quota of 50% women in the geosciences, but rather, suggesting that the field would be strengthened if all the individuals with doctorates in the geosciences (including the 28% of all Ph.D.s who are women) were to remain active in these fields [National Science Board, 2002; Kastens, 2003]. Currently, only about 13% of employed Ph.D.s in these fields are women, which means that there is a considerable loss of trained scientists in the Earth, atmospheric, and oceanographic sciences. Even the entry-level hires at Ph.D.-granting institutions are only 20% female [Holmes et al, 2003].

International Research: Programs and Databases

The availability and diversity of databases for international and global research have increased significantly in recent decades. This phenomenon is related to changes in the focus of social science research, the existence of international institutions and research programs capable of developing and disseminating international databases, and advances in information technologies that permit the aggregation, integration, dissemination, and analysis of large-scale international databases

The Information Society

This essay discusses the ways that information technology is transforming research and how it is creating a new environment for the use of social science data in public policy. It also discusses how the very opportunities created by the information society at the intersection of research and policy could cause problems for both social scientists and public policy. Keywords: telecommunications, information technology, social science research, public policy.