Overview

This dataset is the repository for the following paper submitted to Data in Brief:

Kempf, M. A dataset to model Levantine landcover and land-use change connected to climate change, the Arab Spring and COVID-19. Data in Brief (submitted: December 2023).

The Data in Brief article contains the supplement information and is the related data paper to:

Kempf, M. Climate change, the Arab Spring, and COVID-19 - Impacts on landcover transformations in the Levant. Journal of Arid Environments (revision submitted: December 2023).

Description/abstract

The Levant region is highly vulnerable to climate change, experiencing prolonged heat waves that have led to societal crises and population displacement. Since 2010, the area has been marked by socio-political turmoil, including the Syrian civil war and currently the escalation of the so-called Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which strained neighbouring countries like Jordan due to the influx of Syrian refugees and increases population vulnerability to governmental decision-making. Jordan, in particular, has seen rapid population growth and significant changes in land-use and infrastructure, leading to over-exploitation of the landscape through irrigation and construction. This dataset uses climate data, satellite imagery, and land cover information to illustrate the substantial increase in construction activity and highlights the intricate relationship between climate change predictions and current socio-political developments in the Levant.

Folder structure

The main folder after download contains all data, in which the following subfolders are stored are stored as zipped files:

“code” stores the above described 9 code chunks to read, extract, process, analyse, and visualize the data.

“MODIS_merged” contains the 16-days, 250 m resolution NDVI imagery merged from three tiles (h20v05, h21v05, h21v06) and cropped to the study area, n=510, covering January 2001 to December 2022 and including January and February 2023.

“mask” contains a single shapefile, which is the merged product of administrative boundaries, including Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Palestine (“MERGED_LEVANT.shp”).

“yield_productivity” contains .csv files of yield information for all countries listed above.

“population” contains two files with the same name but different format. The .csv file is for processing and plotting in R. The .ods file is for enhanced visualization of population dynamics in the Levant (Socio_cultural_political_development_database_FAO2023.ods).

“GLDAS” stores the raw data of the NASA Global Land Data Assimilation System datasets that can be read, extracted (variable name), and processed using code “8_GLDAS_read_extract_trend” from the respective folder. One folder contains data from 1975-2022 and a second the additional January and February 2023 data.

“built_up” contains the landcover and built-up change data from 1975 to 2022. This folder is subdivided into two subfolder which contain the raw data and the already processed data. “raw_data” contains the unprocessed datasets and “derived_data” stores the cropped built_up datasets at 5 year intervals, e.g., “Levant_built_up_1975.tif”.

Code structure

1_MODIS_NDVI_hdf_file_extraction.R

This is the first code chunk that refers to the extraction of MODIS data from .hdf file format. The following packages must be installed and the raw data must be downloaded using a simple mass downloader, e.g., from google chrome. Packages: terra. Download MODIS data from after registration from: https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mod13q1v061/ or https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/search (MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices 16-Day L3 Global 250m SIN Grid V061, last accessed, 09th of October 2023). The code reads a list of files, extracts the NDVI, and saves each file to a single .tif-file with the indication “NDVI”. Because the study area is quite large, we have to load three different (spatially) time series and merge them later. Note that the time series are temporally consistent.

2_MERGE_MODIS_tiles.R

In this code, we load and merge the three different stacks to produce large and consistent time series of NDVI imagery across the study area. We further use the package gtools to load the files in (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.). Here, we have three stacks from which we merge the first two (stack 1, stack 2) and store them. We then merge this stack with stack 3. We produce single files named NDVI_final_*consecutivenumber*.tif. Before saving the final output of single merged files, create a folder called “merged” and set the working directory to this folder, e.g., setwd("your directory_MODIS/merged").

3_CROP_MODIS_merged_tiles.R

Now we want to crop the derived MODIS tiles to our study area. We are using a mask, which is provided as .shp file in the repository, named "MERGED_LEVANT.shp". We load the merged .tif files and crop the stack with the vector. Saving to individual files, we name them “NDVI_merged_clip_*consecutivenumber*.tif. We now produced single cropped NDVI time series data from MODIS. The repository provides the already clipped and merged NDVI datasets.

4_TREND_analysis_NDVI.R

Now, we want to perform trend analysis from the derived data. The data we load is tricky as it contains 16-days return period across a year for the period of 22 years. Growing season sums contain MAM (March-May), JJA (June-August), and SON (September-November). December is represented as a single file, which means that the period DJF (December-February) is represented by 5 images instead of 6. For the last DJF period (December 2022), the data from January and February 2023 can be added. The code selects the respective images from the stack, depending on which period is under consideration. From these stacks, individual annually resolved growing season sums are generated and the slope is calculated. We can then extract the p-values of the trend and characterize all values with high confidence level (0.05). Using the ggplot2 package and the melt function from reshape2 package, we can create a plot of the reclassified NDVI trends together with a local smoother (LOESS) of value 0.3.To increase comparability and understand the amplitude of the trends, z-scores were calculated and plotted, which show the deviation of the values from the mean. This has been done for the NDVI values as well as the GLDAS climate variables as a normalization technique.

5_BUILT_UP_change_raster.R

Let us look at the landcover changes now. We are working with the terra package and get raster data from here: https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/download.php?ds=bu (last accessed 03. March 2023, 100 m resolution, global coverage). Here, one can download the temporal coverage that is aimed for and reclassify it using the code after cropping to the individual study area. Here, I summed up different raster to characterize the built-up change in continuous values between 1975 and 2022.

6_POPULATION_numbers_plot.R

For this plot, one needs to load the .csv-file “Socio_cultural_political_development_database_FAO2023.csv” from the repository. The ggplot script provided produces the desired plot with all countries under consideration.

7_YIELD_plot.R

In this section, we are using the country productivity from the supplement in the repository “yield_productivity” (e.g., "Jordan_yield.csv". Each of the single country yield datasets is plotted in a ggplot and combined using the patchwork package in R.

8_GLDAS_read_extract_trend

The last code provides the basis for the trend analysis of the climate variables used in the paper. The raw data can be accessed https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?keywords=GLDAS%20Noah%20Land%20Surface%20Model%20L4%20monthly&page=1 (last accessed 9th of October 2023). The raw data comes in .nc file format and various variables can be extracted using the [“^a variable name”] command from the spatraster collection. Each time you run the code, this variable name must be adjusted to meet the requirements for the variables (see this link for abbreviations: https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/GLDAS_CLSM025_D_2.0/summary, last accessed 09th of October 2023; or the respective code chunk when reading a .nc file with the ncdf4 package in R) or run print(nc) from the code or use names(the spatraster collection). Choosing one variable, the code uses the MERGED_LEVANT.shp mask from the repository to crop and mask the data to the outline of the study area.From the processed data, trend analysis are conducted and z-scores were calculated following the code described above. However, annual trends require the frequency of the time series analysis to be set to value = 12. Regarding, e.g., rainfall, which is measured as annual sums and not means, the chunk r.sum=r.sum/12 has to be removed or set to r.sum=r.sum/1 to avoid calculating annual mean values (see other variables). Seasonal subset can be calculated as described in the code. Here, 3-month subsets were chosen for growing seasons, e.g. March-May (MAM), June-July (JJA), September-November (SON), and DJF (December-February, including Jan/Feb of the consecutive year).From the data, mean values of 48 consecutive years are calculated and trend analysis are performed as describe above. In the same way, p-values are extracted and 95 % confidence level values are marked with dots on the raster plot. This analysis can be performed with a much longer time series, other variables, ad different spatial extent across the globe due to the availability of the GLDAS variables.

(9_workflow_diagramme) this simple code can be used to plot a workflow diagram and is detached from the actual analysis.

Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, and Funding acquisition: Michael

Abstract

The high-frequency phone survey of refugees monitors the economic and social impact of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic on refugees and nationals, by calling a sample of households every four weeks. The main objective is to inform timely and adequate policy and program responses. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia, two rounds of data collection of refugees were completed between September and November 2020. The first round of the joint national and refugee HFPS was implemented between the 24 September and 17 October 2020 and the second round between 20 October and 20 November 2020.

Analysis unit

Household

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sample was drawn using a simple random sample without replacement. Expecting a high non-response rate based on experience from the HFPS-HH, we drew a stratified sample of 3,300 refugee households for the first round. More details on sampling methodology are provided in the Survey Methodology Document available for download as Related Materials.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Telephone Interview [cati]

Research instrument

The Ethiopia COVID-19 High Frequency Phone Survey of Refugee questionnaire consists of the following sections:

• Interview Information
• Household Roster
• Camp Information
• Knowledge Regarding the Spread of COVID-19
• Behaviour and Social Distancing - Access to Basic Services
• Employment
• Income Loss
• Coping/Shocks
• Social Relations
• Food Security
• Aid and Support/ Social Safety Nets.

A more detailed description of the questionnaire is provided in Table 1 of the Survey Methodology Document that is provided as Related Materials. Round 1 and 2 questionnaires available for download.

Cleaning operations

DATA CLEANING At the end of data collection, the raw dataset was cleaned by the Research team. This included formatting, and correcting results based on monitoring issues, enumerator feedback and survey changes. Data cleaning carried out is detailed below.

Variable naming and labeling: • Variable names were changed to reflect the lowercase question name in the paper survey copy, and a word or two related to the question. • Variables were labeled with longer descriptions of their contents and the full question text was stored in Notes for each variable. • “Other, specify” variables were named similarly to their related question, with “_other” appended to the name. • Value labels were assigned where relevant, with options shown in English for all variables, unless preloaded from the roster in Amharic.

Variable formatting: • Variables were formatted as their object type (string, integer, decimal, time, date, or datetime). • Multi-select variables were saved both in space-separated single-variables and as multiple binary variables showing the yes/no value of each possible response. • Time and date variables were stored as POSIX timestamp values and formatted to show Gregorian dates. • Location information was left in separate ID and Name variables, following the format of the incoming roster. IDs were formatted to include only the variable level digits, and not the higher-level prefixes (2-3 digits only.)
• Only consented surveys were kept in the dataset, and all personal information and internal survey variables were dropped from the clean dataset. • Roster data is separated from the main data set and kept in long-form but can be merged on the key variable (key can also be used to merge with the raw data). • The variables were arranged in the same order as the paper instrument, with observations arranged according to their submission time.

Backcheck data review: Results of the backcheck survey are compared against the originally captured survey results using the bcstats command in Stata. This function delivers a comparison of variables and identifies any discrepancies. Any discrepancies identified are then examined individually to determine if they are within reason.

Data appraisal

The following data quality checks were completed: • Daily SurveyCTO monitoring: This included outlier checks, skipped questions, a review of “Other, specify”, other text responses, and enumerator comments. Enumerator comments were used to suggest new response options or to highlight situations where existing options should be used instead. Monitoring also included a review of variable relationship logic checks and checks of the logic of answers. Finally, outliers in phone variables such as survey duration or the percentage of time audio was at a conversational level were monitored. A survey duration of close to 15 minutes and a conversation-level audio percentage of around 40% was considered normal. • Dashboard review: This included monitoring individual enumerator performance, such as the number of calls logged, duration of calls, percentage of calls responded to and percentage of non-consents. Non-consent reason rates and attempts per household were monitored as well. Duration analysis using R was used to monitor each module's duration and estimate the time required for subsequent rounds. The dashboard was also used to track overall survey completion and preview the results of key questions. • Daily Data Team reporting: The Field Supervisors and the Data Manager reported daily feedback on call progress, enumerator feedback on the survey, and any suggestions to improve the instrument, such as adding options to multiple choice questions or adjusting translations. • Audio audits: Audio recordings were captured during the consent portion of the interview for all completed interviews, for the enumerators' side of the conversation only. The recordings were reviewed for any surveys flagged by enumerators as having data quality concerns and for an additional random sample of 2% of respondents. A range of lengths were selected to observe edge cases. Most consent readings took around one minute, with some longer recordings due to questions on the survey or holding for the respondent. All reviewed audio recordings were completed satisfactorily. • Back-check survey: Field Supervisors made back-check calls to a random sample of 5% of the households that completed a survey in Round 1. Field Supervisors called these households and administered a short survey, including (i) identifying the same respondent; (ii) determining the respondent's position within the household; (iii) confirming that a member of the the data collection team had completed the interview; and (iv) a few questions from the original survey.

analyze the health and retirement study (hrs) with r the hrs is the one and only longitudinal survey of american seniors. with a panel starting its third decade, the current pool of respondents includes older folks who have been interviewed every two years as far back as 1992. unlike cross-sectional or shorter panel surveys, respondents keep responding until, well, death d o us part. paid for by the national institute on aging and administered by the university of michigan's institute for social research, if you apply for an interviewer job with them, i hope you like werther's original. figuring out how to analyze this data set might trigger your fight-or-flight synapses if you just start clicking arou nd on michigan's website. instead, read pages numbered 10-17 (pdf pages 12-19) of this introduction pdf and don't touch the data until you understand figure a-3 on that last page. if you start enjoying yourself, here's the whole book. after that, it's time to register for access to the (free) data. keep your username and password handy, you'll need it for the top of the download automation r script. next, look at this data flowchart to get an idea of why the data download page is such a righteous jungle. but wait, good news: umich recently farmed out its data management to the rand corporation, who promptly constructed a giant consolidated file with one record per respondent across the whole panel. oh so beautiful. the rand hrs files make much of the older data and syntax examples obsolete, so when you come across stuff like instructions on how to merge years, you can happily ignore them - rand has done it for you. the health and retirement study only includes noninstitutionalized adults when new respondents get added to the panel (as they were in 1992, 1993, 1998, 2004, and 2010) but once they're in, they're in - respondents have a weight of zero for interview waves when they were nursing home residents; but they're still responding and will continue to contribute to your statistics so long as you're generalizing about a population from a previous wave (for example: it's possible to compute "among all americans who were 50+ years old in 1998, x% lived in nursing homes by 2010"). my source for that 411? page 13 of the design doc. wicked. this new github repository contains five scripts: 1992 - 2010 download HRS microdata.R loop through every year and every file, download, then unzip everything in one big party impor t longitudinal RAND contributed files.R create a SQLite database (.db) on the local disk load the rand, rand-cams, and both rand-family files into the database (.db) in chunks (to prevent overloading ram) longitudinal RAND - analysis examples.R connect to the sql database created by the 'import longitudinal RAND contributed files' program create tw o database-backed complex sample survey object, using a taylor-series linearization design perform a mountain of analysis examples with wave weights from two different points in the panel import example HRS file.R load a fixed-width file using only the sas importation script directly into ram with < a href="http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2012/07/importing-public-data-with-sas-instructions-into-r.html">SAScii parse through the IF block at the bottom of the sas importation script, blank out a number of variables save the file as an R data file (.rda) for fast loading later replicate 2002 regression.R connect to the sql database created by the 'import longitudinal RAND contributed files' program create a database-backed complex sample survey object, using a taylor-series linearization design exactly match the final regression shown in this document provided by analysts at RAND as an update of the regression on pdf page B76 of this document . click here to view these five scripts for more detail about the health and retirement study (hrs), visit: michigan's hrs homepage rand's hrs homepage the hrs wikipedia page a running list of publications using hrs notes: exemplary work making it this far. as a reward, here's the detailed codebook for the main rand hrs file. note that rand also creates 'flat files' for every survey wave, but really, most every analysis you c an think of is possible using just the four files imported with the rand importation script above. if you must work with the non-rand files, there's an example of how to import a single hrs (umich-created) file, but if you wish to import more than one, you'll have to write some for loops yourself. confidential to sas, spss, stata, and sudaan users: a tidal wave is coming. you can get water up your nose and be dragged out to sea, or you can grab a surf board. time to transition to r. :D

analyze the current population survey (cps) annual social and economic supplement (asec) with r the annual march cps-asec has been supplying the statistics for the census bureau's report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage since 1948. wow. the us census bureau and the bureau of labor statistics ( bls) tag-team on this one. until the american community survey (acs) hit the scene in the early aughts (2000s), the current population survey had the largest sample size of all the annual general demographic data sets outside of the decennial census - about two hundred thousand respondents. this provides enough sample to conduct state- and a few large metro area-level analyses. your sample size will vanish if you start investigating subgroups b y state - consider pooling multiple years. county-level is a no-no. despite the american community survey's larger size, the cps-asec contains many more variables related to employment, sources of income, and insurance - and can be trended back to harry truman's presidency. aside from questions specifically asked about an annual experience (like income), many of the questions in this march data set should be t reated as point-in-time statistics. cps-asec generalizes to the united states non-institutional, non-active duty military population. the national bureau of economic research (nber) provides sas, spss, and stata importation scripts to create a rectangular file (rectangular data means only person-level records; household- and family-level information gets attached to each person). to import these files into r, the parse.SAScii function uses nber's sas code to determine how to import the fixed-width file, then RSQLite to put everything into a schnazzy database. you can try reading through the nber march 2012 sas importation code yourself, but it's a bit of a proc freak show. this new github repository contains three scripts: 2005-2012 asec - download all microdata.R down load the fixed-width file containing household, family, and person records import by separating this file into three tables, then merge 'em together at the person-level download the fixed-width file containing the person-level replicate weights merge the rectangular person-level file with the replicate weights, then store it in a sql database create a new variable - one - in the data table 2012 asec - analysis examples.R connect to the sql database created by the 'download all microdata' progr am create the complex sample survey object, using the replicate weights perform a boatload of analysis examples replicate census estimates - 2011.R connect to the sql database created by the 'download all microdata' program create the complex sample survey object, using the replicate weights match the sas output shown in the png file below 2011 asec replicate weight sas output.png statistic and standard error generated from the replicate-weighted example sas script contained in this census-provided person replicate weights usage instructions document. click here to view these three scripts for more detail about the current population survey - annual social and economic supplement (cps-asec), visit: the census bureau's current population survey page the bureau of labor statistics' current population survey page the current population survey's wikipedia article notes: interviews are conducted in march about experiences during the previous year. the file labeled 2012 includes information (income, work experience, health insurance) pertaining to 2011. when you use the current populat ion survey to talk about america, subract a year from the data file name. as of the 2010 file (the interview focusing on america during 2009), the cps-asec contains exciting new medical out-of-pocket spending variables most useful for supplemental (medical spending-adjusted) poverty research. confidential to sas, spss, stata, sudaan users: why are you still rubbing two sticks together after we've invented the butane lighter? time to transition to r. :D

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) provides data and have considerable potential to study the health and environmental exposure of the non-institutionalized US population. However, as NHANES data are plagued with multiple inconsistencies, processing these data is required before deriving new insights through large-scale analyses. Thus, we developed a set of curated and unified datasets by merging 614 separate files and harmonizing unrestricted data across NHANES III (1988-1994) and Continuous (1999-2018), totaling 135,310 participants and 5,078 variables. The variables convey 1. demographics (281 variables), 2. dietary consumption (324 variables), 3. physiological functions (1,040 variables), 4. occupation (61 variables), 5. questionnaires (1444 variables, e.g., physical activity, medical conditions, diabetes, reproductive health, blood pressure and cholesterol, early childhood), 6. medications (29 variables), 7. mortality information linked from the National Death Index (15 variables), 8. survey weights (857 variables), 9. environmental exposure biomarker measurements (598 variables), and 10. chemical comments indicating which measurements are below or above the lower limit of detection (505 variables).

csv Data Record: The curated NHANES datasets and the data dictionaries includes 23 .csv files and 1 excel file. - The curated NHANES datasets involves 20 .csv formatted files, two for each module with one as the uncleaned version and the other as the cleaned version. The modules are labeled as the following: 1) mortality, 2) dietary, 3) demographics, 4) response, 5) medications, 6) questionnaire, 7) chemicals, 8) occupation, 9) weights, and 10) comments. - "dictionary_nhanes.csv" is a dictionary that lists the variable name, description, module, category, units, CAS Number, comment use, chemical family, chemical family shortened, number of measurements, and cycles available for all 5,078 variables in NHANES. - "dictionary_harmonized_categories.csv" contains the harmonized categories for the categorical variables. - “dictionary_drug_codes.csv” contains the dictionary for descriptors on the drugs codes. - “nhanes_inconsistencies_documentation.xlsx” is an excel file that contains the cleaning documentation, which records all the inconsistencies for all affected variables to help curate each of the NHANES modules.

R Data Record: For researchers who want to conduct their analysis in the R programming language, only cleaned NHANES modules and the data dictionaries can be downloaded as a .zip file which include an .RData file and an .R file. - “w - nhanes_1988_2018.RData” contains all the aforementioned datasets as R data objects. We make available all R scripts on customized functions that were written to curate the data. - “m - nhanes_1988_2018.R” shows how we used the customized functions (i.e. our pipeline) to curate the original NHANES data.

Example starter codes: The set of starter code to help users conduct exposome analysis consists of four R markdown files (.Rmd). We recommend going through the tutorials in order. - “example_0 - merge_datasets_together.Rmd” demonstrates how to merge the curated NHANES datasets together. - “example_1 - account_for_nhanes_design.Rmd” demonstrates how to conduct a linear regression model, a survey-weighted regression model, a Cox proportional hazard model, and a survey-weighted Cox proportional hazard model. - “example_2 - calculate_summary_statistics.Rmd” demonstrates how to calculate summary statistics for one variable and multiple variables with and without accounting for the NHANES sampling design. - “example_3 - run_multiple_regressions.Rmd” demonstrates how run multiple regression models with and without adjusting for the sampling design.

The W5E5 dataset was compiled to support the bias adjustment of climate input data for the impact assessments carried out in phase 3b of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3b). Version 1.0 of the W5E5 dataset covers the entire globe at 0.5° horizontal and daily temporal resolution from 1979 to 2016. Data sources of W5E5 are version 1.0 of WATCH Forcing Data methodology applied to ERA5 data (WFDE5; Weedon et al., 2014; Cucchi et al., 2020), ERA5 reanalysis data (Hersbach et al., 2019), and precipitation data from version 2.3 of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP; Adler et al., 2003). Variables (with short names and units in brackets) included in the W5E5 dataset are Near Surface Relative Humidity (hurs, %), Near Surface Specific Humidity (huss, kg kg-1), Precipitation (pr, kg m-2 s-1), Snowfall Flux (prsn, kg m-2 s-1), Surface Air Pressure (ps, Pa), Sea Level Pressure (psl, Pa), Surface Downwelling Longwave Radiation (rlds, W m-2), Surface Downwelling Shortwave Radiation (rsds, W m-2), Near Surface Wind Speed (sfcWind, m s-1), Near-Surface Air Temperature (tas, K), Daily Maximum Near Surface Air Temperature (tasmax, K), Daily Minimum Near Surface Air Temperature (tasmin, K), Surface Altitude (orog, m), and WFDE5-ERA5 Mask (mask, 1). W5E5 is a merged dataset. It combines WFDE5 data over land with ERA5 data over the ocean. The mask used for the merge is included in the dataset. The mask is equal to 1 over land and equal to 0 over the ocean. Over land, orog is the surface altitude used for elevation corrections in WFDE5. For all other variables already included in WFDE5 (huss, prsn, ps, rlds, rsds, sfcWind, tas), W5E5 data over land are equal to the daily mean values of the corresponding hourly WFDE5 data. W5E5 hurs over land is the daily mean of hourly hurs computed from hourly WFDE5 huss, ps, and tas using the equations of Buck (1981) as described in Weedon et al. (2010). W5E5 pr over land is the daily mean of the sum of hourly WFDE5 rainfall and snowfall. Note that W5E5 pr and prsn over land are based on WFDE5 rainfall and snowfall bias-adjusted using GPCC monthly precipitation totals. W5E5 psl over land is the daily mean of hourly psl computed from hourly WFDE5 orog, ps, and tas according to psl = ps * exp((g * orog) / (r * tas)), where g is gravity, and r is the specific gas constant of dry air. Lastly, W5E5 tasmax and tasmin over land are the daily maximum and minimum, respectively, of hourly WFDE5 tas. Over the ocean, W5E5 data are based on temporally (from hourly to daily resolution) and spatially (from 0.25° to 0.5° horizontal resolution) aggregated ERA5 data. The spatial aggregation using first-order conservative remapping was always done after the temporal aggregation. For tasmax and tasmin, hourly tas values were aggregated to daily maximum and minimum values, respectively. For all other variables, hourly values were aggregated to daily mean values. Variables unavailable in ERA5 (huss, hurs, sfcWind, orog) were first derived from available variables at hourly temporal and 0.25° horizontal resolution and then aggregated like all other variables. huss and hurs were derived from Near Surface Dewpoint Temperature, ps, and tas using the equations of Buck (1981) as described in Buck (2010). sfcWind was derived from Eastward Near-Surface Wind (uas) and Northward Near-Surface Wind (vas) according to sfcWind = sqrt(uas * uas + vas * vas). orog is equal to surface geopotential divided by gravity. Lastly, pr and prsn were bias-adjusted such that monthly W5E5 precipitation totals match GPCP version 2.3 values over the ocean. Monthly rescaling factors used for this purpose were computed following the scale-selective rescaling procedure described by Balsamo et al. (2010).

Standardized data on large-scale and long-term patterns of species richness are critical for understanding the consequences of natural and anthropogenic changes in the environment. The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is one of the largest and most widely used sources of such data, but so far, little is known about the degree to which BBS data provide accurate estimates of regional richness. Here we test this question by comparing estimates of regional richness based on BBS data with spatially and temporally matched estimates based on state Breeding Bird Atlases (BBA). We expected that estimates based on BBA data would provide a more complete (and therefore, more accurate) representation of regional richness due to their larger number of observation units and higher sampling effort within the observation units. Our results were only partially consistent with these predictions: while estimates of regional richness based on BBA data were higher than those based on BBS data, estimates of local richness (number of species per observation unit) were higher in BBS data. The latter result is attributed to higher land-cover heterogeneity in BBS units and higher effectiveness of bird detection (more species are detected per unit time). Interestingly, estimates of regional richness based on BBA blocks were higher than those based on BBS data even when differences in the number of observation units were controlled for. Our analysis indicates that this difference was due to higher compositional turnover between BBA units, probably due to larger differences in habitat conditions between BBA units and a larger number of geographically restricted species. Our overall results indicate that estimates of regional richness based on BBS data suffer from incomplete detection of a large number of rare species, and that corrections of these estimates based on standard extrapolation techniques are not sufficient to remove this bias. Future applications of BBS data in ecology and conservation, and in particular, applications in which the representation of rare species is important (e.g., those focusing on biodiversity conservation), should be aware of this bias, and should integrate BBA data whenever possible.

Methods Overview

This is a compilation of second-generation breeding bird atlas data and corresponding breeding bird survey data. This contains presence-absence breeding bird observations in 5 U.S. states: MA, MI, NY, PA, VT, sampling effort per sampling unit, geographic location of sampling units, and environmental variables per sampling unit: elevation and elevation range from (from SRTM), mean annual precipitation & mean summer temperature (from PRISM), and NLCD 2006 land-use data.

Each row contains all observations per sampling unit, with additional tables containing information on sampling effort impact on richness, a rareness table of species per dataset, and two summary tables for both bird diversity and environmental variables.

The methods for compilation are contained in the supplementary information of the manuscript but also here:

Bird data

For BBA data, shapefiles for blocks and the data on species presences and sampling effort in blocks were received from the atlas coordinators. For BBS data, shapefiles for routes and raw species data were obtained from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (https://databasin.org/datasets/02fe0ebbb1b04111b0ba1579b89b7420 and https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBS/RawData).

Using ArcGIS Pro© 10.0, species observations were joined to respective BBS and BBA observation units shapefiles using the Join Table tool. For both BBA and BBS, a species was coded as either present (1) or absent (0). Presence in a sampling unit was based on codes 2, 3, or 4 in the original volunteer birding checklist codes (possible breeder, probable breeder, and confirmed breeder, respectively), and absence was based on codes 0 or 1 (not observed and observed but not likely breeding). Spelling inconsistencies of species names between BBA and BBS datasets were fixed. Species that needed spelling fixes included Brewer’s Blackbird, Cooper’s Hawk, Henslow’s Sparrow, Kirtland’s Warbler, LeConte’s Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Swainson’s Thrush, Wilson’s Snipe, and Wilson’s Warbler. In addition, naming conventions were matched between BBS and BBA data. The Alder and Willow Flycatchers were lumped into Traill’s Flycatcher and regional races were lumped into a single species column: Dark-eyed Junco regional types were lumped together into one Dark-eyed Junco, Yellow-shafted Flicker was lumped into Northern Flicker, Saltmarsh Sparrow and the Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow were lumped into Saltmarsh Sparrow, and the Yellow-rumped Myrtle Warbler was lumped into Myrtle Warbler (currently named Yellow-rumped Warbler). Three hybrid species were removed: Brewster's and Lawrence's Warblers and the Mallard x Black Duck hybrid. Established “exotic” species were included in the analysis since we were concerned only with detection of richness and not of specific species.

The resultant species tables with sampling effort were pivoted horizontally so that every row was a sampling unit and each species observation was a column. This was done for each state using R version 3.6.2 (R© 2019, The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform) and all state tables were merged to yield one BBA and one BBS dataset. Following the joining of environmental variables to these datasets (see below), BBS and BBA data were joined using rbind.data.frame in R© to yield a final dataset with all species observations and environmental variables for each observation unit.

Environmental data

Using ArcGIS Pro© 10.0, all environmental raster layers, BBA and BBS shapefiles, and the species observations were integrated in a common coordinate system (North_America Equidistant_Conic) using the Project tool. For BBS routes, 400m buffers were drawn around each route using the Buffer tool. The observation unit shapefiles for all states were merged (separately for BBA blocks and BBS routes and 400m buffers) using the Merge tool to create a study-wide shapefile for each data source. Whether or not a BBA block was adjacent to a BBS route was determined using the Intersect tool based on a radius of 30m around the route buffer (to fit the NLCD map resolution). Area and length of the BBS route inside the proximate BBA block were also calculated. Mean values for annual precipitation and summer temperature, and mean and range for elevation, were extracted for every BBA block and 400m buffer BBS route using Zonal Statistics as Table tool. The area of each land-cover type in each observation unit (BBA block and BBS buffer) was calculated from the NLCD layer using the Zonal Histogram tool.

1. Species invasions depend on the abundance and rate at which organisms are introduced to new localities, known as propagule pressure. Due to the challenges of measuring propagule pressure, proxy variables are often used; however, untested proxy variables may obscure the role of propagule pressure vs. ecological factors that facilitate invasion, leading to uncertainty about the invasion process and confounding management response. 2. To generate absolute estimates of propagule pressure and facilitate meaningful comparison among pathways of species introduction, we extend proxy variables by combining ecological and global trade data with hierarchical statistical models. We derive absolute propagule pressure with probability distribution functions (propagule size: the probability of introducing n propagules per event; and overall propagule pressure: the probability of introducing n propagules per year) and, based on these projections, evaluate the performance of ballast water volume (m3) as a common proxy variable. 3. Hindcast accuracy of ballast water volume was low but strongly scale-dependent, exhibiting poor accuracy (R2 = 0·058) at small scales and only marginal accuracy at large scales (overall R2 = 0·169). As a result, conclusions about propagule pressure are likely to be biased based on the ballast volume proxy, as may be conclusions about species invasion when ballast water volume has been used. Irrespective of geographic pathway, estimated propagule sizes demonstrated extreme leptokurtosis and long right tails, with maximum values between 131-fold and 2966-fold greater than median values. These characteristics signify a subset of introduction events involving extreme propagule abundance that may provide opportunity to overcome Allee thresholds or marginal environmental conditions. 4. Developing meaningful propagule supply functions is critical to resolve the role of propagule pressure within the invasion process and test hypotheses about species colonization at landscape scales. By joining absolute propagule pressure with existing theory about species extinction, the expected ecological outcome of environmental policy to manage propagule pressure can be estimated within a statistical framework. Pacific ZooplanktonSamples of zooplankton from the ballast water of ships arriving to Pacific CanadaPACDENS.txtAtlantic ZooplanktonSamples of zooplankton from the ballast water of ships arriving to Atlantic CanadaATLDENS.txtGreat Lakes ZooplanktonSamples of zooplankton from the ballast water of ships arriving to the Laurentian Great LakesGLDENS.txtShip-trip dataShip-trips between source and recipient regions, including corresponding ballast water volumertrips.txt

BRAINTEASER (Bringing Artificial Intelligence home for a better care of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis) is a data science project that seeks to exploit the value of big data, including those related to health, lifestyle habits, and environment, to support patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and their clinicians. Taking advantage of cost-efficient sensors and apps, BRAINTEASER will integrate large, clinical datasets that host both patient-generated and environmental data.

As part of its activities, BRAINTEASER organized three open evaluation challenges on Intelligent Disease Progression Prediction (iDPP), iDPP@CLEF 2022, iDPP@CLEF 2023, and iDPP@CLEF 2024 co-located with the Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum (CLEF).

The goal of iDPP@CLEF is to design and develop an evaluation infrastructure for AI algorithms able to:

better describe disease mechanisms;

stratify patients according to their phenotype assessed all over the disease evolution;

predict disease progression in a probabilistic, time-dependent fashion.

The iDPP@CLEF challenges relied on retrospective and prospective ALS and MS patient data made available by the clinical partners of the BRAINTEASER consortium.

Retrospective Dataset

We release three retrospective datasets, one for ALS and two for MS. The two retrospective MS datasets, one consisting of clinical data only and one with clinical data and environmental/pollution data.

The retrospective datasets contain data about 2,204 ALS patients (static variables, ALSFRS-R questionnaires, spirometry tests, environmental/pollution data) and 1,792 MS patients (static variables, EDSS scores, evoked potentials, relapses, MRIs). A subset of 280 MS patients contains environmental and pollution data.

More in detail, the BRAINTEASER project retrospective datasets were derived from the merging of already existing datasets obtained by the clinical centers involved in the BRAINTEASER Project.

The ALS dataset was obtained by the merge and homogenisation of the Piemonte and Valle d’Aosta Registry for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (PARALS, Chiò et al., 2017) and the Lisbon ALS clinic (CENTRO ACADÉMICO DE MEDICINA DE LISBOA, Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Lisboa-Norte, Hospital de Santa Maria, Lisbon, Portugal,) dataset. Both datasets were initiated in 1995 and are currently maintained by researchers of the ALS Regional Expert Centre (CRESLA), University of Turin, and of the CENTRO ACADÉMICO DE MEDICINA DE LISBOA-Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa. They include demographic and clinical data, comprehending both static and dynamic variables.

The MS dataset was obtained from the Pavia MS clinical dataset, which was started in 1990 and contains demographic and clinical information that is continuously updated by the researchers of the Institute and the Turin MS clinic dataset (Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Neurology Unit 1, Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino.

Retrospective environmental data are accessible at various scales at the individual subject level. Thus, environmental data have been retrieved at different scales:

To gather macroscale air pollution data we’ve leveraged data coming from public monitoring stations that cover the whole extension of the involved countries, namely the European Air Quality Portal;

data from a network of air quality sensors (PurpleAir - Outdoor Air Quality Monitor / PurpleAir PA-II) installed in different points of the city of Pavia (Italy) were extracted as well. In both cases, environmental data were previously publicly available. In order to merge environmental data with individual subject locations we leverage postcodes (postcodes of the station for the pollutant detection and postcodes of subject address). Data were merged following an anonymization procedure based on hash keys. Environmental exposure trajectories have been pre-processed and aggregated in order to avoid fine temporal and spatial granularities. Thus, individual exposure information could not disclose personal addresses.

The retrospective datasets are shared in two formats:

RDF (serialized in Turtle) modeled according to the BRAINTEASER Ontology (BTO);

CSV, as shared during the iDPP@CLEF 2022 and 2023 challenges, split into training and test.

Each format corresponds to a specific folder in the datasets, where a dedicated README file provides further details on the datasets. Note that the ALS dataset is split into multiple ZIP files due to the size of the environmental data.

Prospective Dataset

For the iDPP@CLEF 2024 challenge, the datasets contain prospective data about 86 ALS patients (static variables, ALSFRS-R questionnaires compiled by clinicians or patients using the BRAINTEASER mobile application, sensors data).

The prospective datasets are shared in two formats:

RDF (serialized in Turtle) modeled according to the BRAINTEASER Ontology (BTO);

CSV, as shared during the iDPP@CLEF 2024 challenge, split into training and test.

Each format corresponds to a specific folder in the datasets, where a dedicated README file provides further details on the datasets. Note that the MS dataset is split into multiple ZIP files due to the size of the environmental data.

The BRAINTEASER Data Sharing Policy section below reports the details for requesting access to the datasets.