IHDP
UPDATE
N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L H U M A N D I M E N S I O N S P R O G R A M M E O N G LO B A L E N V I R O N M E N TA L C H A N G E
02/2002 FO CUS:
CONFLICTING DEMANDS
MONITORING
Photo: Barbara Summey, NASA GSFC
Confidentiality Promises and Data Availability | BY R ONALD R. R INDFUSS
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O N T E N T S
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Conflicting Demands: Confidentiality Promises and Data Availability | R. R. Rindfuss
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Editorial
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Monitoring Coral Reefs: Ecosystems in Crisis | A. L. Dahl
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Integrated Environmental Monitoring of the Asia-Pacific Region | M. Watanabe, Jiyuan Liu, S. Murakami, Qinxue Wang, S. Hayashi
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Sustainable Development Indicators for Taiwan | Jiunn-ong Yeh, Ling-Ling Lee
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Masthead
10 GeoScope-GeoMind-GeoAction | Interview with C.C. Jaeger 11 Taking the Pulse of the Carbon Cycle | P. Ciais 13 Observation – A Challenge to Sustainability Science | W. Lucht
Simulated view of a satellite flying above the Earth ➤ As the human dimensions research community moves towards fine-grain, spatially-explicit studies, we face a confidentiality conflict which arises from the need to serve three quite different goals: a) link people and the environments they affect, b) protect the confidentiality of respondents, and c) make data available to the entire scientific community. Linking data on people and their environments is at the very core of IHDP. Protecting the confidentiality of respondents is a moral imperative of those involved in collecting data from humans. Making data available to the entire scientific community is a goal increasingly shared by those in the IHDP community. All three are reasonable, indeed laudable, goals, yet their commingling produces a fundamental conflict that we need to solve, otherwise the quantity and quality of research will be impeded. As a research community, we need to completely understand the underpinnings of this conflict across reasonable scientific goals prior to building the momentum for solutions. This is a discussion begun in People and Pixels (Liverman, Moran, Rindfuss, and Stern, 1998). To simplify, I write from the perspective of land use change research, but extension to other research areas using geographically explicit data is straightforward. ➤
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14 Environmental Sustainability Indicators | T. Srebotnjak 15 Core Projects: Carbon Flows between Eastern and Western Europe | N. Poussenkova, A.J. Wieczorek National Committees 16 Strong Need for Social Sciences in Climate Research in Switzerland | K. Pieren, D. Meyer Wefering 17 Mauritian Human Dimensions Research Programme | T. Ramjeawon 18 Austrian Prize for Dissertation Concepts in HDGEC | K.W. Steininger, M. Payer 18 In Brief 19 Publications, Meeting Calendar 20 Contact Addresses
W W W. I H D P. O R G I H D P U p d a t e i s p u b l i s h e d b y t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l H u m a n D i m e n s i o n s P r o g r a m m e o n G l o b a l E n v i r o m e n t a l C h a n g e ( I H D P ) , Wa l t e r - F l e x - S t r. 3 , 5 3 1 1 3 B o n n , G e r m a n y, V. i . S . d. P. : E l i s a b e t h D y c k