In 2019, the USA generated 80.6 million tons of “surplus food” that went unsold or uneaten. Most of this ended up as “food waste,” going straight to landfill, incineration, or down the drain, or simply left in the fields to rot. …

Storm Filomena brings an unexpected start to 2021 in Spain. — I never, ever expected to see snow like this in Madrid. Trees are breaking under the weight of snow, all transport is suspended, and there are snow people everywhere! Snow began to fall on Thursday 7 January 2021 and Storm Filomena is exceeding all expectations. According to the news channel rtve, the last time it snowed this much was in 1971.

Data Science and GIS go hand in hand in the fight against climate change. — The problems we work on — like climate change and biodiversity loss — are transcendent. There’s no single solution to these problems, so we must bring together different communities and fields of work to find them. …

October 2020 updates. — Global Forest Watch, the online platform for monitoring forests, recently added new data, new features and updated some existing data layers. As ever, we worked closely with the Global Forest Watch team at World Resources Institute to deliver these upgrades. …

National-level efforts to protect land vertebrates tracked. — The Half-Earth Project is a call to protect half the land and sea in order to manage sufficient habitat to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity. But which half? The most recent update to the Half-Earth Map introduces the National Report Cards which summarise various aspects of conservation efforts at the…

Record-breaking wildfires are burning in the USA — again. — Sometimes, it seems to me that extreme wildfires are a recurring theme in our global headlines. Australia. Brazil. California. But why? Is what we’re seeing unusual? Or are we seeing a pattern that will repeat itself if we fail to act on climate change? To understand what’s happening and how…

For the first time, data on mangrove deforestation, carbon storage and coastline protection are easily and freely accessible online. Global Mangrove Watch — a mapping platform — highlights the importance of mangroves and provides the data that are needed to inform conservation and restoration planning. …

Design and user research go hand in hand when it comes to product development. Both are essential if you want to make a product that is useful, usable, and used. …

The Amazon was on fire. Now we know how much forest was lost in 2019. — In August 2019 the world’s eyes were focused on Brazil. The Amazon was on fire and social media was burning up in indignation. The data available at the time told us how many fires there were, but they couldn’t tell us how much forest had been lost. Today, we can…