ENVIRONMENT | Protecting our natural resources
Issues
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geo-tech
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Geospatial Technologies and Urbanization
The world's human population will grow from 6.5 billion in 2005 to 9.1 billion in 2050, and so will its demand for water, sanitation, transportation, housing and health services. Geospatial technologies, which combine satellite or airborne remote sensing, computer-based geographic information systems and a satellite-based global navigation system called the Global Positioning System, are critical tools for urban planning.
"Just as nations have infrastructure for transportation, health care, education and energy," said Fernando Echavarria of the State Department’s Space and Advanced Technology Office, "governments need an information infrastructure at their disposal to make better decisions."
Related article: U.S. Agencies Hold Geospatial Training Workshop in Jordan
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fish
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International Efforts Promote Selective Fishing Gear, Techniques
Nets that harvest food fish from the sea also collect other fish and animals, putting several species of marine wildlife at risk of extinction and alters the sensitive balance of marine ecosystems. Bycatch is avoidable, but innovations in fishing gear can save sea birds, sharks, marine mammals and sea turtles. One solution is the turtle excluder device (TED), which has reduced sea turtle mortality in shrimp trawl fisheries by more than 97 percent. TEDs have been legally mandated in the United States since 1989.
"The responsibility for implementing that law fell to the Department of State," said William Gibbons-Fly, director of the State Department’s Office of Marine Conservation, "and we rely heavily on technical support from the experts at NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration].”
Related article: More Countries Encouraged To Protect Turtles
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earth-ob
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Earth Observation, Remote Sensing and Infectious Disease
NASA satellites gather from planets, comets and galaxies but they also look down at Earth, providing unprecedented views of and information about its oceans, atmosphere and land areas. That information can help predict outbreaks of diseases carried by mosquitoes, ticks and other organisms. For a decade NASA scientists have used near-real-time vegetation measurements, sea-surface temperatures and other satellite data to monitor rainfall conditions in East Africa that are associated with the outbreak of diseases, including Rift Valley fever.
“Whenever there is a concurrence of elevated sea surface temperatures in the western Indian Ocean and in the El Nino area of the tropical Pacific ... then we know you will have elevated rainfall in East Africa, but you don’t know where,” said Compton Tucker, senior earth scientist in the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. “As soon as we saw these conditions in May and June 2007 … we issued alerts that said in [certain] areas of Sudan, you can expect to have a Rift Valley fever outbreak ... and we had a 60 percent location- and time-specific accuracy for our predictions.”
Related article: Network Watches for Disease Outbreaks
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nanotech
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Nanotechnology and the Environment
Technology on the molecular and even atomic level, an engine for change in the global economic arena, plays a key role in protecting the environment and human health. Nanotechnology can increase the availability of clean water by contributing to new ways to convert seawater to fresh water, purify contaminated water, and detect pollution in oceans, rivers and streams. Nanotechnology also holds promise for reducing energy use and making energy production cleaner.
“It’s hard to overestimate the important of providing clean water to the world. More than 2 billion people globally do not have access to clean water on a regular basis,” said Robert Rudnitsky, a physicist in the State Department’s Office of Space and Advanced Technology. “Nanotechnology may have a role in alleviating some of this through better membranes, through nanocatalysts, through using magnetic nanoparticles and through sensors to detect contamination.”
Related article: Nanotechnology Unit Formed
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geo-tech
Ask America
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Global Cooperation on Climate Change
Climate change analyst Elliot Diringer discusses international collaboration on addressing global warming.
Photo Gallery
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Earth Day
The photographs in this gallery show the growth of Earth Day from its beginnings as an "Environmental Teach-In" in the United States in 1970, to the annual global commemoration of the natural world.