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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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Regional Activities and Outputs (28k)