Fighting the Extinction Crisis with Data
SessionExtinction Rebellion
Presenter
Event Type
Invited Talk
Applications
Computational Science
Government Strategies, Programs, and Funding
Weather and Climate
TP
XO
TimeThursday, 19 November 202010am - 10:45am EDT
LocationTrack 1
DescriptionOne of humanity’s greatest challenges is biodiversity loss, as identified by the World Economic Forum 2020. One million species are threatened with extinction as a result of unprecedented global declines, as assessed by the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), imperiling the foundations of our planet’s ecosystems, and thus our livelihoods, food security, health and ultimately our economies. The design and implementation of species conservation strategies rely on directly accessing and analyzing high variety and volumes of information such as species’ genetics, habitat, threats, legislation, climate impacts and human use. Despite promising advances in open data, with HPC technologies we are still struggling to provide essential analytics for effective decision-making to secure the survival of threatened species. In this keynote talk, Prof. Dalia Conde will introduce the Species Knowledge Index initiative which aims to map, quantify, analyze and disseminate species information to policymakers and conservation practitioners globally. By mapping information and generating development platforms, workflows and storage among open biodiversity repositories, she will outline how the application of computational methods is essential and urgently needed to move toward a healthier planet.
