Environmental issues result from complex interactions between natural processes and communities’ characteristics. Risks related to natural hazards are determined by a combination of physical hazards, the vulnerability of a society or social-ecological system and its exposure to such hazards. Consequently, environmental policy questions are frequently answered via the integration of data from multiple disciplines, which are spread across numerous sources, and stored in different (sometimes incompatible) formats.

During this class, students will learn practical skills to collect, manage, and present multidisciplinary information to support community decision making and action planning. Students will be exposed to various tools and techniques used to analyze environmental and socioeconomic data, at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Students will learn to identify reliable data sources, analyze and synthesize data, and to effectively communicate complex concepts to policy makers and non-specialists. This class will cover multidisciplinary data including: sea levels and temperature, as well as socioeconomic measures such as poverty and inequality. Each week, students will learn a new set of tools and techniques, and apply them to produce a specific deliverable (e.g. a slide, chart, or map), which will address a relevant policy question, within a domestic or international context.