On this episode of Through the Human Geography Lens, hosts Terri Ryan and Gwyneth Holt talk with Dr. Michael Humber, Associate Research Professor at the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences, about his role as data lead within NASA’s Harvest Portal.

00:55 What is NASA’s HARVEST Portal?

- https://harvestportal.org/

02:20 What is GEOGLAM? Is it related to the NASA HARVEST Portal?

- G20 https://www.g20.org/en/about-g20/#members

- Group on Earth Observations https://www.earthobservations.org/index.php

- GEOGLAM https://earthobservations.org/geoglam.php

- Food price spike in 2008 https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/high-food-price-crisis

- And in 2011 https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2011/september/commodity-price-spike/

- Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) https://www.amis-outlook.org//

- AMIS Market Monitor http://www.amis-outlook.org/amis-monitoring#.Y93Rl-zMJfE

- Crop Monitor https://cropmonitor.org/

- FEWSNet https://fews.net/

06:50 Any recent insights, especially around Ukraine?

- Potash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potash

- Potash market spike after the start of the Ukraine war https://ycharts.com/indicators/potassium_chloride_muriate_of_potash_spot_price

11:00 Any surprises in the agricultural patterns you’re following?

- Current material sanctions list https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/ukraine-russia-related-sanctions

13:00 Assessing downstream aspects of the war in Ukraine, coupled with climate change and COVID

- Macroeconomics https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/macroeconomics

16:45 What are the biggest data gaps you’re seeing now?

(1) Field data measurements

- Global map and indicators of food system sustainability https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0301-5

(2) Data from the grain trade – the transport and storage of grain https://cee.illinois.edu/news/first-map-americas-food-supply-chain-mind-boggling and https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/transportation-analysis/gtr-datasets 1

9:45 New data resources you’re excited about?

- MODIS https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

- LANDSAT https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/

- Wildfire imagery https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@0.0,0.0,3z

- LIDAR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuTm1jJy2XY

- Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (global biomass) https://gedi.umd.edu/

- Google Earth Engine https://earthengine.google.com/

- Natural Language Processing Workflow in Geospatial Sciences https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356010869_Natural_Language_Processing_in_GIScience_Applications

- Crop Explorers USDA/FAS https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer/

- Hunger Map Live (WFP) https://hungermap.wfp.org/

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the WWHGD sponsors and should not be construed as an endorsement.

On this episode of Through the Human Geography Lens, hosts Terri Ryan and Gwyneth Holt talk with Dr. Kelsea Best, a post-doctoral researcher in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland.

01:10 An overview of her research on environmental migration in Bangladesh.

02:30 A description of her agent-based modeling tool and its utility in her research.

An overview of agent-based modeling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model

04:50 What was the academic path that led to this focus? (from chemical engineering to addressing climate justice through data analysis)

07:20 Out of 2,000 variables in your dataset, how did Machine Learning help you gain insight?

An overview of machine learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning

09:50 Did anything surprise you in your analysis?

12:05 Is the enormous dataset you're describing publicly available? (Not yet. But the Adams dataset, similarly valuable and also about Bangladesh, is available.)

The Adams dataset from Bangladesh - https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/852356/

13:30 Discussing why people do or do not want to migrate, and the many pressures around either choice.

16:00 Developing a board game to explore migration decisions, and the scientific creativity appearing as we try to understand these complex issues.

16:30 Discovering the importance of migration narratives, and deciding to collect and incorporate migration stories to enrich the meaning of survey data.

StoryMap with Bangladeshi migrant stories- https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fd168c7804ae489b99c7311a4c805b31

21:15 Where can our listeners take a close look at your agent-based modeling code?

Dr. Best's agent-based model code- https://zenodo.org/record/4526330#.Y7cNMXbMKUc

22:35 The WWHGD Human Geography Library resources on environmental migration.

WWHGD.org

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Disclaimer:

Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the WWHGD sponsors and should not be construed as an endorsement.

Join us next week for our in person event:

Climate, Migration, and Human Security Symposium
15 November 2022
National Museum of American Diplomacy, U.S. Department of State
Washington, D.C.

If you can't join us in person we will be broadcasting the event via webinar, we look forward to seeing many of you there!

Register Here: https://www.wwhgd.org/events-1/climate-migration-and-human-security-2/form