A Community of Practice Approach to Link Earth Observations to Biodiversity-influenced

1. A Community of Practice Approach to Link Earth Observations to Biodiversity-influenced Human Health Concerns World Congress on Public Health--Panel Session: Integrating Biodiversity and Human Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach Gary J. Foley, PhD United States Environmental Protection Agency August 24, 2006

2. On Tuesday, A Panel looked at …. • The Challenge: Imagine a world in which we can predict where the next outbreak of malaria, SARS or West Nile virus is likely to hit. Suppose we could more effectively forecast climate, drought and air and water quality?

3. … And Introduced the GEOSS Perspective … to access and provide the right information, in the right format, at the right time, to the right people, to make the right decisions. www.earthobservations.org

4. Today, the Panel will address …. Integrating Biodiversity and Human Health: the USEPA’s Multidisciplinary Approach Chair: Barbara Hatcher – WFPHA/APHA-USA Panelist: Joe Roman – USEPA - USA Panelist: Gary J. Foley – USEPA - USA

5. … and will address the challenge … Imagine a world in which we can not only predict where the next disease outbreak is likely to hit, but also understood how to manage the biodiversity in ecosystems so that the services they provide would prevent or lessen certain disease outbreaks.

6. The Group on Earth Observations The goal is to “take the pulse of the planet”, that is, for the international community to develop a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation system, called GEOSS (a Global Earth Observation System of Systems), that will promote better understanding about and solutions for global environmental and economic challenges, and

7. …enhance delivery of benefits to society in the following initial areas • Disasters • Reducing loss of life and • property from natural • and human induced • disasters. • Health • Understanding environmental • factors affecting human • health and well being. • Energy • Improving management of • energy resources. • Biodiversity • Understanding, monitoring • and conserving biodiversity. • Weather • Improving weather information, • forecasting and warning. • Agriculture • Supporting sustainable • agriculture and combating • desertification. • Climate • Understanding, predicting, • mitigating and adapting to • climate variability • and change. • Water • Improving water resource • management through better • understanding of • the water cycle. • Ecosystems • Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, • coastal and • marine ecosystems.

8. …such as reducing the occurance of vector-borne diseases in humans • Disasters • Reducing loss of life and • property from natural • and human induced • disasters. • Health • Understanding environmental • factors affecting human • health and well being. • Energy • Improving management of • energy resources. • Biodiversity • Understanding, monitoring • and conserving biodiversity. • Weather • Improving weather information, • forecasting and warning. • Agriculture • Supporting sustainable • agriculture and combating • desertification. • Climate • Understanding, predicting, • mitigating and adapting to • climate variability • and change. • Water • Improving water resource • management through better • understanding of • the water cycle. • Ecosystems • Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, • coastal and • marine ecosystems.

9. …through understanding, monitoring and conserving biodiversity • Disasters • Reducing loss of life and • property from natural • and human induced • disasters. • Health • Understanding environmental • factors affecting human • health and well being. • Energy • Improving management of • energy resources. • Biodiversity • Understanding, monitoring • and conserving biodiversity. • Weather • Improving weather information, • forecasting and warning. • Agriculture • Supporting sustainable • agriculture and combating • desertification. • Climate • Understanding, predicting, • mitigating and adapting to • climate variability • and change. • Water • Improving water resource • management through better • understanding of • the water cycle. • Ecosystems • Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, • coastal and • marine ecosystems.

10. …and understanding and enhancing the services that ecosystems provide • Disasters • Reducing loss of life and • property from natural • and human induced • disasters. • Health • Understanding environmental • factors affecting human • health and well being. • Energy • Improving management of • energy resources. • Biodiversity • Understanding, monitoring • and conserving biodiversity. • Weather • Improving weather information, • forecasting and warning. • Agriculture • Supporting sustainable • agriculture and combating • desertification. • Climate • Understanding, predicting, • mitigating and adapting to • climate variability • and change. • Water • Improving water resource • management through better • understanding of • the water cycle. • Ecosystems • Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, • coastal and • marine ecosystems.

11. …through an innovative approach built on multi-disciplinary collaboration • Health • Understanding environmental • factors affecting human • health and well being. INNOVATION • Ecosystems • Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, • coastal and • marine ecosystems. • Biodiversity • Understanding, monitoring • and conserving biodiversity.

12. …called the “Community of Practice” • Health • Understanding environmental • factors affecting human • health and well being. • Ecosystems • Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, • coastal and • marine ecosystems. • Biodiversity • Understanding, monitoring • and conserving biodiversity.

13. …one type of network that is naturally forming in this information era • Health • Understanding environmental • factors affecting human • health and well being. • Ecosystems • Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, • coastal and • marine ecosystems. • Biodiversity • Understanding, monitoring • and conserving biodiversity. “Those who get better at collaboration will prosper!!!” “The world is intuitively weaving itself into networks.”

14. Communities of Practice (CP) A user-led community of stakeholders, from providers to the final beneficiaries of Earth observation data and information, with a common interest in specific aspects of societal benefits to be realized by GEOSS implementation. The Communities of Practice will be self organized and will include stakeholders required to achieve benefits.

15. Earth observations & earth system models Data-to-Information archiving & services Scientific Knowledge Decision support tool development Decision making Assessment of benefits Earth system scientists and modelers Earth system service providers Sci Discipline Researchers Env., Economic & Health modelers & researchers Policy Makers, Env. Managers & PH Officials Public officials, advocacy groups and the Public The Generic Communities From observations To societal benefits

16. A Possible Biodiversity & HealthCommunity of Practice The Public & Public Officials

18. http://www.idrc.ca/ecohealth/ A call for concept notes for research on the use of ecosystem approaches to human health in the control and prevention of communicable diseases with a thematic focus on three public health priority vector-borne diseases in the region: Chagas disease, dengue and malaria.

19. GLOBAL EMERGING DISEASES* EMERGING RE-EMERGING ZOONOTIC VECTOR-BORNE * Modified from Morens et al. 2004 Nature 430:242

20. From the Center for Disease Control Department of Health & Human Services United States www.cdc.gov/eid

21. WHAT ARE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES?(from the Ecological Society of America) • Natural ecosystems perform fundamental life-support services upon which human civilization depends. • The many services include • Maintaining biodiversity and • Regulate disease carrying organisms

22. This report identifies methods for assigning economic value to ecosystem services—even intangible ones—and calls for greater collaboration between ecologists and economists in such efforts.

23. http://www.epidemio.info/index.php?section=homepage • There is a growing international awareness about the importance of the epidemiology of diseases and it is recognized that improved up-to date information of the environment, in which infectious diseases occur, will help epidemiologists to study, understand and predict threats to human health.Within the scope of the project "Epidemio" satellites will join this field as data source of epidemics. The scope of this ESA - founded project is to demonstrate and use the potential of Earth Observation for a new service which supplies new types of environmental information for epidemiology.

24. The Environment & Human Health Programme United Kingdom a three-year inter-disciplinary capacity-building programme All applications must link the environmental sciences with clearly defined and significant problems in human health. We are looking to encourage multi- and inter- disciplinary teams combining environmental scientists with researchers from other disciplines, in particular medical and related fields (e.g. biomedical, public health). Proposals from teams that also include relevant social, biological, mathematical, physical and engineering sciences are strongly encouraged.

25. The Environment & Human Health Programme United Kingdom Science Themes include Emerging infectious diseases • risk assessment, the use of indicators, and anticipatory modelling of novel pathogen dynamics • influence of global and local environmental change (e.g. climate change, N deposition, deforestation; as well as land use change, • ecology of wildlife reservoirs & vectors in emergent diseases

26. ESSP (Diversitas) Joint ProjectsGlobal environmental change and human health The Challenge • Human activities increasingly affect the structure and functioning of ecosystems. In turn, these changes can influence the entire chain of factors involved in the infectious disease cycle: pathogens, vectors, reservoir species and human populations. Seemingly unrelated human activities can thus have serious consequences for human diseases, both infectious and non-infectious.

27. ESSP Joint Projectshttp://www.diversitas-international.org/essp_global.html The Challenge • The scientific community recognises the growing need to better understand the multi-faceted and complex linkages between global change (including climate change, land and sea use change, global biodiversity loss and change, global socio-economic change) and human health. However, as yet, little systematic research has been undertaken on the many important aspects of this topic. Nor has there been any sustained attempt to establish an international research community.

28. 3-7 April 2006 at the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, SwitzerlandWWRP/THORPEX Health Demo Project Team Kick-off Meeting and WWRP/THORPEX Health Application Workshop

29. Land-Cover Pattern Explains Lyme Disease Incidence Rate in Suburban Maryland Dev. low intensity Dev. med. intensity Herbaceous (incl. lawn) Non-farm residences L.E. Jackson and E.D. Hilborn, U.S. EPA ORD/NHEERL • Regression model (R2 = 0.85) estimates highest rates in landscapes with: • 50% forest / 50% herbaceous • High degree of interspersion Results suggest practical public-health guidelines using large-scale landscape design, with associated environmental benefits. Imagery: Reclassified from the National Land Cover Dataset 2001, zone 60 (Homer et al. 2004). Parcels: MdProperty View 2000, Maryland Department of Planning.

31. Examining the Links Between Biodiversity and Human Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach USEPA Exploratory Research Grants

32. Biodiversity and Human Health: A Contribution to GEO • Reducing the emergence and spread of vector-borne diseases is a societal benefit • Producing information that links human health and biodiversity can contribute to this societal benefit • Help to demonstrate the value of working through the GEO structure • At the local level, experts in public health and ecology will carry out basic science and identify data needs – how can earth observations fill these gaps? • Economists can help identify data needed to do valuation • Social scientists can help with communication and gauge community knowledge of and responses to risk • Determine whether studies and assessment done at the local level are scalable to the global level

33. Fall Workshop on Biodiversity and Human HealthSeptember 14-15, 2006Washington, DC Convene interdisciplinary workshop of researchers, practitioners, and decision makers in ecology, public health, social sciences, and remote sensing to discuss • the state of the science • important research priorities • types of earth observations and models needed to create a monitoring and forecasting network

34. Expected Results • Improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying the biodiversity-human health relationship • Development of tools that integrate data on important factors that describe the relationship between biodiversity and human health to enhance and restore ecosystem services and protect human health • Development of tools that can help forecast risks to the condition and sustainable productivity of ecosystem services that directly impact human health • Use of earth observation and field data to track and analyze the global relationship between habitat alteration, biodiversity loss, vector ecology, and the emergence and spread of infectious disease – and, to inform decision-making to benefit society

35. Expected Results • Valuation of the health benefits of protecting ecosystem services using earth observation data, providing a link from GEOSS to societal benefits • Development of new constituency, momentum, and approaches for conserving biodiversity and protecting endangered species • Applicability of the understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying the ecology-human health relationship to other diseases.

36. In Conclusion… • Understanding the dynamics and mechanisms underlying the biodiversity-human health relationship is about understanding earth systems • Valuation of the health benefits of protecting biodiversity can show value of an earth observation system that supplies information on ecosystems, biodiversity and disease • Societal benefits are interconnected - studied in the same context, can enhance decision-making to promote collective and multiple benefits for health and the environment • This research initiative will place EPA and US GEO at the forefront of a new field focusing on the central role of biodiversity in human health and well-being

37. A Possible Biodiversity & HealthCommunity of Practice The Public & Public Officials

38. Questions for the Audience • How interested is the Public Health Community (researchers, practioners & officials) in taking multi-disciplinary approaches to forecasting and preventing disease outbreaks? • What will get the Public Health Community to be engaged in GEO? • Are there other Public Health programs that are relevant here?