NASA's Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET) offered a two-part training course, "Introduction to Population Grids and their Integration with Remote Sensing Data for Sustainable Development and Disaster Management," on March 30 and April 6. The course was organized by Susana Adamo, research scientist at Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), on behalf of NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and the POPGRID Data Collaborative, an international network of data providers, users, and sponsors concerned with georeferenced data on population, human settlements, and infrastructure.
In the first session of the course, Prof. Steven Leyk of the University of Colorado and CIESIN associate director for Geospatial Applications Greg Yetman provided an overview of gridding population data, from its origins to present day applications in such areas as health, humanitarian response, sustainable development, and environmental management. The second session, organized around case studies of specific applications, featured lectures by CIESIN director Robert Chen, senior geographic information specialist Linda Pistolesi, and Charles Huyck, executive vice president of ImageCat Inc. More than 1,000 people from around the world participated in the course. Each session was given twice during the day, with live question-and-answer periods. View recordings of the sessions from Introduction to Population Grids and their Integration with Remote Sensing Data for Sustainable Development and Disaster Management.