National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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1 in 8 Chance of Catastrophic Solar Megastorm by 2020
The Earth has a roughly 12 percent chance of experiencing an enormous megaflare erupting from the sun in the next decade. This event could potentially cause trillions of dollars’ worth of damage and take up to a decade to recover from. Read More »
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Analysis of 2018's 14 Separate Billion-Dollar Disaster Events in Context
During 2018, the U.S. experienced a very active year of weather and climate disasters. In total, the U.S. was impacted by 14 separate billion-dollar disaster events: two tropical cyclones, eight severe storms, two winter storms, drought, and wildfires. The past three years (2016-2018) have been historic, with the annual average number of billion-dollar disasters being more than double the long-term average. The number and cost of disasters are increasing over time due to a combination of increased exposure, vulnerability, and the fact the climate change is increasing the frequency of some types of extremes that lead to billion-dollar disasters.
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Bryan Sivak: Chief Disrupter At HHS
The term disruption is perhaps a bit overused in the technology and healthcare sectors these days, but if there is one place where it’s needed most, that just might be the federal government. Read More »
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Data Innovation, Crowdsourcing On The Horizon For Innovation Fellows Program
After the first two rounds of the Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program showed marked success, the White House announced applications are open for Round 3 of the program. "We are accepting applications right now through April 7," said Jennifer Pahlka, deputy chief technology officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and one of the executives that runs the PIF program.
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FEMA Was Overwhelmed by Hurricanes and Wildfires in 2017, GAO Says
The back-to-back devastation of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, followed by catastrophic wildfires in California, overwhelmed federal disaster responders in 2017, according to a government report released Tuesday. The unprecedented sequence of storms and fires forced Federal Emergency Management Agency staff to jump from one disaster to another and in some cases use uncertified workers to fill key roles. “They were 30% understaffed when Harvey hit,” said Chris Currie, director of emergency management issues at the Government Accountability Office, which wrote Tuesday’s report. “By the time Maria hit Puerto Rico, they were down to the bottom of the barrel.”
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Food Fraud: Labels On What We Eat Often Mislead
Despite trend in local, "authentic" foods, many aren't what they seem. Read More »
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Geodata-Fueled Map Relates Storms To Energy Facilities
A new interactive map for tracking storms in real time, released on July 9 by the Energy Information Administration, aggregates some 30 sets of geodata from a wide range of agencies and organizations -- all in an effort to monitor the effect such storms could have on critical energy infrastructure. Read More »
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Geospatial Intelligence: A Diagnostic Dashboard For A Healthier Nation
When it comes to public health, and identifying the events and behaviors that affect it, agencies charged with protecting the health and welfare of citizens need to leverage every available tool at their disposal to quickly and effectively respond to growing threats. Data mapping is a tool to answer the call...In the case of emergencies, planning and crisis response, open-source information is readily available via the CDC...
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Houston’s Flooding Shows What Happens When You Ignore Science and Let Developers Run Rampant
Since Houston, Texas was founded nearly two centuries ago, Houstonians have been treating its wetlands as stinky, mosquito-infested blots in need of drainage.
Even after it became a widely accepted scientific fact that wetlands can soak up large amounts of flood water, the city continued to pave over them. The watershed of the White Oak Bayou river, which includes much of northwest Houston, is a case in point. From 1992 to 2010, this area lost more than 70% of its wetlands, according to research (pdf) by Texas A&M University...
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How Open Government Is Helping With Hurricane Relief in Puerto Rico
Just weeks after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, two more "unprecedented" hurricanes made their way to the southeastern United States. Although changes in Hurricane Irma's path spared Florida from the bulk of the damage, both Irma and Maria directly hit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hurricane Maria was particularly devastating for the more than 3.5 million American citizens living in these U.S. Caribbean territories. The CEO of Puerto Rico's sole electric company indicated that the grid had been "basically destroyed." Without electricity, communications were severely limited. In the aftermath of a natural disaster, embracing open government principles—such as open data, collaboration between citizens and government, and transparency—can save lives.
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Ohio City To Continue Water Ban After New Tests
New tests Sunday showed some toxins still contaminating Lake Erie, leaving regional water supplies off limits and some 400,000 residents in parts of Ohio and Michigan headed into a third day of scrambling to stock up on drinking, cooking and bathing water...
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Op-Ed: There’s A Leadership Void In Addressing Critical Geospatial Issues
Last month, nearly 1,000 global government and industry representatives from around the world attended a Mexico-hosted conference on the economic, societal and governmental benefits of geospatial technology. Notably absent were U.S. government officials. [...] Read More »
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Open Source A Challenge With Geospatial Data
Open-source geospatial technology has proved its mettle in state and local government and the nonprofit and private sectors, providing significant services, value, innovation, transparency and a healthy return on investment. But significant barriers remain if federal agencies are to realize the same successes. Read More »
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The New Seafloor Map That Could Help Find Flight MH370
...The lack of good information about ocean floor topography has complicated the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Now, two ocean floor mapping experts have gathered all the available data to make a new map of a 2,000 km by 1,400 km (1,240 mile by 870 mile) area in the Indian Ocean near where two boats may have detected pings from the plane’s black box...
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U.S. Publishes New “Open Data Action Plan,” Announces New Data Releases
On the one year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s historic executive order to open up more government data, U.S. chief information officer Steven VanRoekel and U.S. chief technology officer Todd Park described “continued progress and plans for open government data” at the WhiteHouse.gov blog....
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