About GRID-Sioux Falls
The North American node of UNEP's Global
Resource Information Database (GRID), designated
as GRID-Sioux Falls, is located at the EROS Data
Center of the United States Geological Survey
in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. GRID-Sioux
Falls has been operational since 1991 and
functions as a partnership between the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), and the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Since the beginning of 1998, United States
Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and
United States Forest Service (USFS) have also
joined the partnership. The activities of
GRiD-Sioux Falls are guided by an advisory
committee with membership from several US
federal agencies, representatives from Mexican
and Canadian agencies, academic institutions,
international scientific bodies, NGO's, UNEP,
and the UN Development Programme. GRID-Sioux
Falls has extensive cooperative links with
a number of academic and scientific
institutions within North America.
The developments in space technology and its
applications during the last three decades have provided
important tools for environmental planning, management
and policy formulation. However, providing this complex
information to decision-makers in a timely and
understandable format has been a daunting challenge.
GRID-Sioux Falls is very active in the development and design of
scientifically credible products in a timely manner
to support decision-making in areas where the
international community is actively engaged, such as
the Great Lakes region of Africa and the Mesopotamia
Marshlands. The programme
has also facilitated the flow of developing country
data to the North American scientific community and
vice versa. It is in the forefront of providing
information technology tools -- remote sensing,
Geographic Information Systems (GIS), data management
and advanced Internet technologies, to address
sustainable development issues.
GRID-Sioux Falls has an aggressive effort to
contribute to the building of new data sets that
are relevant to both the developed and developing
world. For example, GRID-Sioux Falls is working
with a number of agencies around the world to build
a global land cover characteristics data base from
1-km Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR)
imagery, digital elevation, global watershed database,
global population data, and other source materials.
GRID-Sioux Falls is continuously working to increase
awareness and access to their data holdings by establishing
protocols within the World Wide Web (WWW) network. Links
and pointers to other metadata bases have been also established.
A geospatial data clearinghouse will be implemented in the
near future to provide global access to GRID's data sets
through the use of metadata and state-of-the-art Internet
searching. Internet map servers are being developed to
provide the Internet user with a means to zoom, browse
and create customized maps through specialized software.
Global environmental changes issues are addressed
through an integration of the historical satellite
archive available at EDC and expert knowledge contributed
by visiting scientists. EDC's global coverage of Landsat
data goes back to 1972. Visitors from Bangladesh, Mexico,
India, China, Japan, and Australia help
provide expert knowledge contributing to UNEP's effective
utilization of information found through GRID-Sioux Falls.
GRID-Sioux Falls is a part of the UNEP's Division of
Early Warning and Assessment.
Mission Statements
UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA)
"To provide the world community with improved access
to meaningful environmental data and information, and to
help increase the capacity of governments to use environmental
information for decision making and action planning for
sustainable human development."
GRID
"To help bridge the gap between the scientific
understanding of earth processes and sound management
of the environment at national, regional, and global levels."
GRID-Sioux Falls
"To assist UNEP and its partners by contributing environmental
data and information, as well as methodological techniques for
handling such data, to enhance the scientific basis for decision
making and help advance sustainable development initiatives."
Goal: To provide scientific basis for decision making.
Objectives: GRID-Sioux Falls has the following specific objectives:
- Provide 'services' and 'produce data and
information products' to support decision making;
- Facilitate access to and assist in validation of
geographic data sets of developing countries for
he North American global change research community;
- Provide access to geographic data sets developed
by North American agencies by making them available
through the GRID network;
- Catalyze development of some key global and
regional data sets by cooperating with relevant agencies;
- Provide information about spatial data handling ,
communication, networking technologies, and data
policies regarding commercial data sets to developing
countries and other UN agencies;
- Facilitate technology transfer to developing
countries in cooperation with appropriate North
American agencies and provide input to North
American agencies about the science and
technology needs of developing countries; and
- Assist other GRID nodes in technical issues
to maintain a leadership role of GRID within the UN system.
Services Available Through GRID - Sioux Falls
A cluster of services offered by GRID-Sioux Falls is given below:
- Links between sustainable development community
and global change research communities
GRID is able to bridge the gap between these
diverse groups by helping present the environmental data
needs of developing countries to the global change research
community, for example NASA's Earth Observation System
(EOS) user assessment panels. GRID can also assist
development community in understanding how data
generated by the scientific community (Earth Observation
Systems, for example) can be of value in sustainable
development activities.
- Access to georeferenced environmental and resource data
GRID's archives contain numerous high quality data sets
at various scales (global, continental, national and subnational)
on a variety of environment related themes. The data are provided
free of charge to users around the world.
- Assistance in finding environmental and resource data
If GRID does not hold a copy of the data a user needs,
GRID can try to locate it by consulting its network of
collaborating institutions throughout the world.
GRID-Sioux Falls is uniquely positioned at the
EROS Data Center to assist users looking for terrestrial
remotely sensed data for sustainable development applications.
- Data set development
GRID can respond to user needs by catalyzing and
brokering the development of core data sets--for example,
land cover, topography, watershed, demographics needed
for environmental assessment and sustainable development
planning and strategy formulation. Centralized data set
development helps client agencies avoid duplication of effort.
- Assistance in metadata, geospatial data clearinghouse
implementation and training
GRID can provide technical advice in the design and
development of metadata, clearinghouse mechanisms to meet
users current and future needs.
- Information dissemination on the information superhighway
GRID can assist users in establishing Information Servers
on the World Wide Web (WWW) . Specialized software can be
developed and staged to provide an interactive mapping
system with Internet Map Servers.
- Technology assessment
GRID stays abreast of the latest developments in science
and technology of Geographic Information System (GIS), Remote
Sensing, WWW and related fields and provides up-to-date
information to users worldwide. A comprehensive survey of
GIS and Image Processing (IP) software is performed
bi-annually and distributed widely.
- Methodology assessment and applications
GRID is actively involved in the assessment of new
methodologies that facilitate the integration of remotely
sensed and other data along with and GIS technologies in
applications relevant to developing countries to address
sustainable development issues.
- Education and training for developing country
scientists and senior officials
GRID can provide opportunities for foreign nationals
to receive hands on training and experience working with
state-of-the-art computers and software systems leading
to national capacity building.
- Assistance in formulating projects, writing proposals,
and finding donors/sponsors
GRID can assist in designing projects, writing
proposals, and finding support for implementation of
sustainable development projects that involve elements of
information technologies.
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