PROGRAM TITLE:  	Consortium for International Earth Science 
			Information Network  (CIESIN)
ACTIVITY STREAM:  	Assessment
SCIENCE ELEMENTS: 	Demographic Forces and Human Health
				Global Economic Activity
				Environmental Resource Use and Management
				Political Systems and Governance
				Integrated Assessment
				Education

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

SCIENTIFIC MERIT:  CIESIN is conducting congressionally directed 
tasks with the intent of providing access to and enhancing the use of 
information worldwide, advancing the understanding of human 
interactions in the environment, and serving the needs of science and 
public and private decision making.  CIESIN's congressionally 
mandated tasks augment the EOS data information system's utility to 
serve a much wider user community.  CIESIN provides: (1) global-
scale time series and baseline data and information on the human 
component in global environmental change; (2) advanced network 
computing tools for data access, research, and analysis across 
disciplines; (3) a bridge between the data needs of the socioeconomic 
and the natural science research communities and between the 
research and policy communities; and (4) ongoing services through 
NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and the 
U.S. Global Change Research Information Office (GCRIO).  While 
CIESIN will use the GCRIO and SEDAC structures to disseminate data, 
the crucial functions of identifying, gathering, and cataloguing data 
are being carried out with the aid of the Information Cooperative and 
CIESIN's international partnerships.  The International Cooperative is 
an operational framework that allows user communities to share 
data and information electronically among major international data 
archives and resource centers.

Guidance for CIESIN's planning and priorities are provided through 
several sources: (1) governmental ones, through the CEES/SGCR GCRIO 
and CIESIN Oversight Panels, through participating agency global 
change program offices, through IWGDMGC Subgroups and 
Committees, and through the EOSDIS DAAC Manager meetings and 
User Services Groups; (2) the scientific community, in the form of the 
CIESIN Science Advisory Committee, the CIESIN Visiting Committee, 
Data Strategy Panels (appointed in conjunction with the NSF), and 
through Data Base Advisory Panels; (3) the user community, in the 
form of the SEDAC User Working Group, the Commission on Global 
Environmental Change Information Policy (Kennedy School of 
Government, Harvard), and through the Information Cooperative 
User Workshops; and (4) from the international community through 
the CIESIN International Study Commission, and as co-chair of the 
Committee on Earth Observation Satellites Working Group on Data 
Auxiliary Data Sets Subgroup.

STAKEHOLDERS:  The International Geosphere Biosphere Programme 
(IGBP), the Human Dimensions Programme (HDP), the World Climate 
Research Programme's START initiative (WCRP-START), and the 
Third World Network of Scientific Organizations.

POLICY RELEVANCE:  Primary - Human Dimensions and Economics
			Secondary - Education and Public Awareness
PROGRAM CONTACT:  	Dixon Butler
				Office of Mission to Planet Earth
				NASA Headquarters, Code YD
				Washington, DC 20546
				tel: (202) 358-0256
				E-mail: D.BUTLER/omnet