Environmental Informatics
We develop international capacity building and brainstorming workshops focused on advanced information technologies in environmental management.
Hydrologic Data Sharing Workshops in Southeast Asia
With support from the U.S. Department of State researchers of Community Commons traveled to several Mekong River countries to present three capacity building workshops on hydrological data infrastructure and climate adaptation modeling. The Mekong River supplies water to millions of people in six different countries. Sharing data about river conditions among them is critical for developing joint strategies to improve quality of drinking water manage water resources for irrigation and household use, and prepare for extreme events such as massive floods. The workshops introduced open-source software for publishing, sharing, visualizing and integrating hydrological data, discussed international water data exchange standards, and presented approaches to modeling water resources under the conditions of climate change. The workshops were conducted in Bangkok (Thailand), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia) in Summer 2013.
See our workshop at the Mekong River Commission (MRC) for more details. Download workshop report prepared by the MRC.
Online visual exploration of wetland sample images and metadata collected by researchers from the Wetland University Network
Vietnam precipitation service created in the course of the workshops, and analysis of precipitation dynamics with open source software
Participants in the capacity building workshop conducted at the Mekong River Commission, summer 2013 (funded by the US Department of State)
LMI Workshop on Tiger Habitat Protection
In the fall of 2014, Community Commons organized and led a two-week training workshop for protected area managers and land use planners and conservation experts from 7 countries in Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) presents a platforma and mechanisms for advancing local and regional emnvironmental efforts. The international workshop was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The workshop website with presentations, data, exercises, notes, etc. is at https://sites.google.com/site/lmihabitatprotectionworkshop/ We focused on improving technical capacity of research, management and planning personnel of protected areas in the tiger habitat range countries, examined bottlenecks and gaos in skills, available technologies and data needed for regional collaboration in habitat conservation, and presented findings to policy makers. Download workshop report to learn more.
Main themes and groups of modules presented at the workshop
Online software for integrated analysis of camera trap images and metadata
Workshop participants, hosts and sponsors (photo from the opening ceremony)