Page - 5 - in options, Volume summer 2020

News in brief EXPLORING TROPICAL FORESTS’ POTENTIAL AS GLOBAL CARBON SINKS THINKING SMALL FOR FASTER DECARBONIZATION MAPPING MALNUTRITION IN INDIA Tropical forest ecosystems are crucial players in the global carbon cycle as they take up and store large amounts of CO2. IIASA research however shows that we will only be capable of providing accurate projections of future carbon sink-strength if we account for the complexity within ecological systems and what this means for atmospheric feedbacks, such as emissions of greenhouse gases further increasing global warming. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/Carbon-sinks-20 An international team of researchers collected data on a variety of energy technologies at different scales and tested how well they performed against nine characteristics of accelerated low-carbon transformation including cost, innovation, and accessibility. They found that low-carbon technologies that are smaller scale, more affordable, and can be mass deployed are more likely to enable a faster transition to net-zero emissions. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/Granular-tech-20 Malnutrition remains a humanitarian crisis in India. Children growing up under such detrimental living conditions are more likely to perform poorly at school and be less productive later in life, thus hampering the country’s future developmental outlook. IIASA research shows that the problem is concentrated in specific geographic areas, which could help policymakers working to address the issue. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/malnutrition-20 Empowering the crowd to restore Indonesia’s forests For the tropical archipelago of Indonesia, which is home to some of the world’s largest tropical forests, combining forest and landscape restoration with economic development that still heavily relies on agricultural expansion, poses a unique challenge. Addressing these issues requires vast amounts of high-quality data and analyses, as well as collective action to implement them. Systems analysis can provide an inclusive response by crowdsourcing the data required and thus empower the public to participate in identifying forest and landscape restoration potential. To help model the impact of different restoration scenarios, IIASA teamed up with Indonesian partners under the RESTORE+ project to establish a national platform for participatory data collection campaigns in Indonesia. Urundata (in English, donate data) is a tailor-made crowdsourcing platform that allows communities to get involved in efforts to restore forests and landscapes through mobile applications and contribute to scientific assessments supporting policymaking efforts. “The platform aims to make the collection of massive amounts of data possible and more efficient. By using their mobile phones, people can engage in data-generating activities in a number of campaigns related to landscape restoration potential. As different campaigns require different approaches, Urundata provides several mini-apps to crowdsource the needed data. People can choose what kind of topics they are interested in and provide information accordingly,” explains Ping Yowargana, an IIASA researcher and science policy coordinator of RESTORE+. According to Yowargana, an added benefit of the Urundata platform lies in the fact that the crowdsourced data collection allows people that would not normally be concerned with land use issues to get involved, thereby significantly raising awareness around conservation issues and increasing the chance for collective action among Indonesians. Plans are underway to expand the usage of the Urundata app in addressing other complex sustainability issues in Indonesia. Further info: www.iiasa.ac.at/news/Urundata-19 Ping Yowargana: yowargan@iiasa.ac.at By Ansa Heyl 5Optionswww.iiasa.ac.at Summer 2020