Author: EarthTrends

  • WRI Climate Data Now Available In Google Public Data Explorer


    WRI is working with Google to make our data related to climate change more approachable and interactive than ever.

    Google’s Public Data Explorer is a new tool that makes large data sets easier to understand and explore. Users can reimagine data sets from a growing list of providers (like the U.S. Census, Eurostat, the World Bank, and, now, WRI’s Climate Analysis Indicators Tool – CAIT) as interactive charts and maps that illustrate data relationships and trends over time. These new data visualizations can be embedded in other websites and easily shared via email or social networks.

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  • New Mapping Website Tracks Changes and Threats to Southern U.S. Forests

    SeeSouthernForests.org provides a new way to learn about, and protect, the forests of the southern United States.



    Changes over a large area are often hard to see. This can be especially true when it comes to forests where incremental forest loss often goes unnoticed until it is too late. A new website and report by the World Resources Institute seek to change this and allow people to visualize the trends and drivers of change affecting southern forests.

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  • Sanitation: Access and Health

    Human waste may be a topic that people generally do not or prefer not to think about. However, its capture and disposal (often referred to in terms of sanitation) play a vital role in human health and development. The importance of sanitation as a basic human need has made it an international development priority and a key target in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Even though since 1990 the percent of the global population with access to improved sanitation has increased (see Figure 1.), lack of improved sanitation still threatens human health and development particularly in developing regions of the world.

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  • Piracy and Governance in the Gulf of Aden

    The number of piracy attacks reported this year have already far exceeded those of last year. According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), as of September 23, 2009, 294 piratical incidents have been reported, with 97 occurring in the Gulf of Aden and 47 off of the remaining coasts of Somalia. Figure 1 shows the placements of pirate attacks within the Gulf of Aden from July to September, 2009.

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