Global Environmental Change Understanding the Human Dimensions (1992) / Chapter Skim
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6 Data Needs
6 Data Needs
Pages 200-222
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From page 200... ...
We begin with three illustrative research problems and then proceed to a systematic account of issues of data availability, data quality, and collection needs. THREE HYPOTHETICAL RESEARCH PROJECTS CAUSES OF GLOBAL WARMING: A CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY Global change researchers want to understand the relative contributions to global warming of population growth, economic growth, technological change, and various aspects of national policy and social and economic structure.
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From page 201... ...
For most of the international data sets that are available, information on data quality is scanty and of uncertain reliability. , HUMAN CONSEQUENCES OF DEPLETION OF STRATOSPHERIC OZONE Global change researchers want to be able to monitor the possible effects on things humans value of ongoing changes in the level of stratospheric ozone and to attribute the effects to ozone depletion rather than other possible causes.
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From page 202... ...
. , Slty in forests Economic Value of selected agricultural products in countries or selected localities; health care expenditures Stratospheric ozone concentration Measured values from satellite observation for selected regions UV-B incident radiation Measurements at ground level Policy responses Enactment of policies to limit CFC releases; implementation of such policies; introduction of education campaigns for avoidance of direct exposure to sun; measures of resultant behavior change Data on these variables are also uneven.
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From page 203... ...
Data needed to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the loss of biological diversity might come from studies of: Intensive versus extensive land use Evolution of intensive versus extensive systems; how human-land relationships affect intensity of use Markets, Jaws, and traditional values How economic, legal, and social systems affect which species and ecosystems can be used and which cannot Consequences of economic measures Effects of gross national product, discount rate, and other measures on biological diversity Alternative systems of economic valuation Mechanisms that could address adverse effects of neoclassical and Marxian paradigms on living systems; use of common, biologically active elements le.g., nitrogen, carbon) instead of rare, inert ones (e.g., gold, silvery in accounting systems Socioeconomic determinants of conservation Comparing effects of different standards of living on society's conservation ethics and different conservation ethics in societies with comparable standards of living As is the case with the other examples, data on these types of variables are uneven.
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From page 204... ...
After World War II, these agencies developed standards for gathering data, trained statisticians throughout the world, and inaugurated a vast array of serial publications of statistical data. The United Nations and most of its related agencies such as the
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From page 205... ...
. Other similar archives are the University of Connecticut's Roper Center for Public Opinion Research national sample survey and the Louis Harris Data Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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To do this, steps must be taken to establish a viable information network. AN INFORMATION NETWORK Because research on global change i ~ ~ is so broad and draws on data, empirical research, and analysis from a wide variety of disciplines and countries, few social or natural scientists are familiar with more than a narrow portion of it.
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From page 207... ...
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research already plays this role for much social science research thousands of important data sets are available to all member institutions at nominal cost. It should be noted that a public information system would benefit the entire community of researchers on phenomena related to global environmental change.
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From page 208... ...
Again, several existing data centers serve as models. Data transformation Data gathered on different temporal and spatial scales will need to be stored in a form that allows transformation to a variety of spatial or temporal formats.
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From page 209... ...
EOS will have important new capabilities. Social scientists should be involved in its planning to ensure that the potential of this system for studying the human dimensions of global environmental change is fully realized.
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From page 210... ...
The decision on how to organize the network should be based on advice from a group widely representative of natural and social scientists, information systems specialists, and librarians and archivists. As part of the network, we recommend that the federal government should seriously consider establishing a national data center on the human dimensions of global change parallel to the existing national centers for data on climate, oceans, geophysics, and space science.
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From page 211... ...
Clearly, pricing of major data sources to recoup costs of data collection will inhibit global change research that necessarily relies heavily on comparative international data in economics and other areas. This is an area in which the U.S.
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From page 212... ...
In the physical and biological sciences there is some tradition of using remotely sensed data, but it is a novelty to the social sciences. Very little effort has been devoted to developing methodologies that would make such data useful for understanding the human dimensions of global change.
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From page 213... ...
The biases introduced by poor coverage are likely to be substantial in research on global change. It is the affluent industrialized nations that generally have the most sophisticated statistical systems and the richest data bases, while the poorer nations often have no estimates for many key variables.
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From page 214... ...
In the 1950s and 1960s, when concern with population growth was at the center of the international research agenda, the problems of coverage for basic demographic data such as fertility rates and the prevalence of contraception were similar to those that exist now for key global change variables. Careful efforts over several decades have greatly improved coverage as well as the quality of measurement.
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From page 215... ...
It is easy to find published values of gross national product per capita, rate of population growth, or CO2 emissions for most nations of the world, but it is more difficult to document the full chain of research that produces those numbers for each nation Much cross-national research simply accepts the published figures at face value, ignoring serious problems that may be hidden in their production. A few case studies that trace the production of data on key variables would be very helpful.
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From page 216... ...
Social scientists have developed many procedures for dealing with such data and for improving data quality. Analyses and data collection efforts in the physical and biological sciences could benefit from application of some of them.
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From page 217... ...
There are important synergies between the development of theory and the collection of data, so premature data collection may yield data of little value for future research. Since the study of the human dimensions of global environmental change aims at understanding dynamic processes, it is crucial that baseline data be available so that change can be ob served.
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From page 218... ...
This difficulty may be of little consequence for national social, economic, or environmental policies, but it is significant for analyses at the global level. Because poor countries often do have not the resources or statistical personnel to collect and process data, their social, demographic, economic, and environmental data are usually of poor quality.
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From page 219... ...
For the countries chosen, there would be national-level data collections bearing on the relevant institutional structures, assessment of environmental variables beyond what can be inferred from satellite data, trends in public opinion, and others as illustrated by the lists presented earlier in this chapter. It is true, however, that the nation is not the only relevant sampling unit.
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From page 220... ...
Cross-national data collections and analyses are at an intermediate level, between gIobal-level data and intensive local studies. Operating at this level of analysis has the advantage of providing greater richness of information than what is likely to be available at a global level while affording better coverage of key variables than what is usually available from a scattering of episodic case studies.
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From page 221... ...
and of driving forces originating elsewhere, such as commodity demand, means that analysis cannot be successfully conducted only within the bounds of the region in question. Locales that import resources from elsewhere are resistant to local environmental changes but vulnerable to changes occurring in the supply areas.
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From page 222... ...
The locales and the programs to study them be selected according to criteria including: -groups of locales should be chosen together on grounds of similarity and difference that would illuminate important global change questions {e.g., similar natural environment but different political systems! ; social scientists and natural scientists should work together on the same ongoing research; projects should preferably contribute new methods or measures that could be applied elsewhere; and projects should employ measures for the locales taken from global data archives and return quantitative data on the locates to the same archives.
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