Food, Energy, and Water in Tribal Communities Workshop Report Released

Rural and Indigenous communities in Alaska and the contiguous United States face significant changes, challenges, and opportunities related to their food, energy, and water (FEW) resources as they grapple with climate change. NASA has openly available Earth science data that these communities can use to plan for climate change provided there are no barriers to their ability to successfully access and use these resources.

With ease of data use in mind, NASA recently partnered with the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), the Tribal Resilience Learning Network (TRLN) at the UAF Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center (AK CASC), the UAF Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF), and Northwest Indian College (NWIC) to hold a series of workshops with scientists and community leaders. The goal of the workshops was to test and explore NASA data tools that are relevant to food, energy, and water and that have the potential to help community resilience efforts. The final report on the workshop's activities and key recommendations is now available.

The series of four workshops, called UNBOUND for Food, Energy, and Water in Tribal Communities (UNBOUND-FEW), took place December 2023 to May 2024 and were funded by NASA's Understanding Needs to Broaden Outside Use of NASA Data (UNBOUND) project. UNBOUND aims to help groups who might not currently use or significantly use NASA Earth science data to begin or increase their use of these data.

“The UNBOUND project is about figuring out exactly what NASA can do to make the enormous amount of relevant data that we have fit directly into decision-making processes that vary widely across different communities,” said Dr. Gerald Guala, NASA UNBOUND project leader.

The Workshop Series

UNBOUND-FEW included 15 participants from Tribal communities, academic and research institutions, non-profit organizations and private companies, as well as Tribal, local, state, and federal governments. The first workshop was a listening session with participants to share and hear about Tribal food, energy, and water priorities that could benefit from analysis and plans made using Earth observation data. Their responses were used to determine the NASA data and tools relevant to addressing Tribal community needs. The following three workshops tested and explored how participants could discover, explore, and use NASA data.

"I think that there is a lot of enthusiasm and need for accessible Earth observation data in Tribal communities" said Emily Sousa from UAF-IARC and the UNBOUND-FEW project leader. “Participants were excited to have the opportunity to test tools and provide feedback so that data can meet their needs rather than solely come from a technical/academic angle. For many communities, the needs for these data are urgent, and they need to be able to access data quickly and efficiently.”

Key Recommendations

Sousa and the UNBOUND-FEW team analyzed the work and comments from workshop participants and compiled them into nine key recommendations:

• Increase training opportunities: Provide in-person or online training opportunities where users can ask specific questions and get assistance on projects
• Provide tutorials, site guidance, and additional resources: Data platforms should include easy to find and understand training resources that can be accessed by communities with limited internet connectivity
• Modify data products for low-internet access: Improve user ability to access data files specific to smaller regions of interest and create geographic information system (GIS)-ready files and file extensions that can be downloaded as smaller files
• Improve search and filter functions: Data dates, resolutions, extents, and suggested best choices should be made clear in simple terms at the beginning of a workflow so that users only download files relevant to their time frame and region
• Use common language: Make NASA data searchable with common language and applied uses; provide definitions for acronyms and scientific language
• Make steps re-traceable: Develop data search applications that provide opportunities to adjust filters, retrace steps, or undo entries to allow users to be able to troubleshoot challenges
• Enhance data availability in Tribal regions: NASA should work directly with Tribes to co-create targeted data collection campaigns and user-friendly tools for Tribal members to access and use NASA data
• Increase compatibility with GIS and other software: Data should be made available in common formats including GIS-ready data that are compatible with Esri’s ArcGIS and open-source software, such as QGIS
• Increase interlinking resources with other NASA data and publicly accessed media: NASA education and public outreach content should provide links to the NASA datasets referenced; in NASA data portals, participants would like to see hyperlinking of datasets that may be used together

Next Steps

NASA’s Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program plans to study the report and its recommendations to determine how to make its Earth science data websites, products, training, and presentations more accommodating for direct and quick application by Tribes.

"This workshop provided several new insights into Indigenous community data needs and practices, and what we need to do to make our data more directly useful within that context,” said Guala.

Please visit the Earthdata UNBOUND homepage for more information and reports from previous UNBOUND workshops.