New Zealand social scientists are using KAREN to contribute to ground-breaking international research to map poverty in China.

Mapping the problem

Despite China’s outstanding economic growth, its 9.6 million square kilometres hide enormous economic disparities.

With the assistance of KAREN and a Capability Build Fund grant, the Nine Million Pictures project will integrate environmental satellite data with traditional province-level household survey and census data to help work out the best way to help China’s 100 million poorest citizens.

China has a unique record of 9.6 million one kilometre square high resolution satellite images of land. These data points (and their change over time since 1988) provide an unparalleled data resource. However, it also imposes a very substantial communication and computational burden. This is where KAREN comes in.

The KAREN connection

Firstly, using KAREN will mean the New Zealand research team will be able to tackle and collaborate on a problem of a much greater scale than was previously possible.

“The use of KAREN will support the development of a new type of research in New Zealand, a spatially integrated social science.  KAREN enables us to connect geographically distributed data, tools and expertise,” said New Zealand project leader, Professor John Gibson, University of Waikato Management School.

“KAREN will effectively remove geographical barriers allowing us to work collaboratively in real-time with international experts from Stanford University in the United States and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and access large datasets and using sophisticated modeling and visualisation tools.”

The team will collaborate using Enabling Virtual Organisations or EVO, an advanced network collaboration system that includes tools such as using audio, video and instant messaging, and allows them to exchange files and share desktop applications.

“By combining this level of detailed information and using novel methods and tools we can understand how unfavourable environments contribute to rural poverty and pinpoint areas of poverty. As a result we will be able to assist planners to best target poverty alleviation measures.

Professor Gibson has pioneered this type of analysis for a much smaller country, Papua New Guinea. “Over KAREN, we'll now be able to apply similar analyses to the much larger quantity of data available in China.”

Creating a blueprint for future use

Poverty and how to tackle it is a major issue for countries around the world. This project is a world-leading exemplar of environmental integrated poverty mapping from which other researchers and countries can learn and draw from.

The project database will be accessible to other researchers for further and new analysis and the poverty maps constructed as part of the project will be available via a unique online portal.

John and his team will also help to build e-research capability among New Zealand social scientists through sharing their knowledge and experiences of using EVO.

”We are looking forward sharing the results of the research as well as the knowledge and techniques gained about carrying out international e-research collaborations with other social scientists at events in New Zealand and across the globe.”

More information

Project website: http://wms-soros.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/NR/exeres/030A6310-FD43-477D-9F2A-ACFB82960BF5.htm 

Professor John Gibson: http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/

EVO: http://www.bestgrid.org/index.php/Category:EVO

Updated: 14 January 2008