WAT-E2090 - Water and People in a Changing World D, Lecture, 24.10.2023-30.11.2023

Topic outline

• Course home
  Welcome to Water and People course!

  
  

  Registration will open on Mon Sep 25th!
  

  The course starts on Tue 24 of October 2022 at 12:30.
  

  Note: there will be short pre-assignment to be done, due on Tue 24th of October at 11:55 am, to get familiar with the programming environment. Please do the pre-assignment in time!
  

  The course can only be done by attending to live lectures and exercises and thus pure online learning is not possible. However, all the lectures and training sessions will be recorded and thus if you are sick and cannot attend, you can still watch the lectures and training sessions. For Thursday workshops also online attendance is possible. 
  

  See more details in 'Schedule & practicalities' tab on the left. 

  Please note: 
  

  1. Tuesdays' lecture-training sessions (12:30-16:15) are compulsory and students need to attend minimum five out of six sessions in order to pass the course. Tuesday sessions are divided into two parts: lecture and hands-on training.
  

  2. Thursdays workshops (9:30-11:30) are not compulsory but recommended. These you can also attend in course Teams. The workshops are for working on weekly assignments and getting help with them.

  3. In addition, there will be voluntary online helpdesk sessions on Mondays at 13:00-15:00. These sessions are for short, last minute questions related to weekly assignments.

  
  Short description
  

  Food security and the overall wellbeing of human kind are threatened by the overexploitation of our water and land resources. Water scarcity is not only a threat to people, but also to many of the planet's key ecosystems. But how have we ended up in this situation, and how does the future look like? 

  In this course, the aim is to investigate how the world has changed over time, and how these changes have impacted on our water and land resources. Moreover, as the pressure on natural resources is expected to only grow in the future, an overview on future pathways is given. Within the course, a student will explore and assess these changes using various spatial analyses methods of R, over different global datasets. Moreover, advanced graph and map making is practised with Adobe Illustrator.  

  
  

  Contact
  

  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the teacher: matti.kummu@aalto.fi

  
  

  
  

  • 

    Announcements Forum

• Schedule and practicalities
  From this section you can find the overall schedule for the course and other practical information. 

  Please note: each lecture on Tuesdays (12:30-16:15) is divided into two parts: lecture itself and hands-on training. These Tuesday sessions are compulsory and you need to attend to minimum five out of six of them, in order to pass the course. Workshops on Thursdays are optional but you can get extra attendance points from them. Online helpdesks on Mondays are optional.
  

  Lectures and other sessions will be given in in class room. Lectures and training sessions will be recorded for those who cannot attend due to sickness. It is not possible to do the course fully remotely, as full hybrid teaching is not possible. 
  

  
  

  Course schedule:

  Lecture Tue at  12:30-14:00 @ U406a;  14:15-16:00 @ U351 (!!first week @ A046)	Theme	Workshop Thu at 9:30-11:30  @ Y344/Teams	Helpdesk Mon at 13:00-15:00  @ Teams	Home assignment due Mondays by 23:55
  Tue 24.10	1. Global water resources;    + Introduction to the course	Thu 26.10.	Mon 30.10.	Mon 30.10.
  Tue 31.10.	2. Population dynamics   + final presentation introduction	Thu 2.11	Mon 6.11	Mon 6.11
  Tue 7.11	3. Land cover change and food production	Thu 9.11	Mon 13.11	Mon 13.11
  Tue 14.11.	4. Water use	Thu 16.11.	Mon 20.11	Mon 20.11
  Tue 21.11.	5. Water scarcity	Thu 23.11	Mon 27.11.	Mon 27.11.
  Tue 28.11.	6. Socio-economics of water and food	Thu 30.11	Mon 4.11.	Thu 7.12.**
  Tue 5.12.	Final presentation -  you can decide within the small groups when is the best time for presentations. Presentation session takes 2-3 hrs.	-	-	-

  
  

  ** note the change in date; time remains same

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Course description
  

  You can download the course description from here. 

  Introductory ppt

  Introduction ppt (includes all the practicalities, grading criteria in more details, etc)

  Grading

  The grading is based on following division: active participation in Tuesday lecture-exercise sessions (12.5%), home assignments (62.5%), final presentation (25%). Please see the Introduction ppt above for more detail description of the grading, criteria, point limits for each grade, etc.

  
  

  R for own computer

  We will be using R over RStudio for spatial analyses. You can install these to your own computer; please make sure that you have the R version 4.2.1 or higher. Below are useful links:

  - R: https://www.r-project.org

  - RStudio: https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/

  - Guide to install these on Windows or Mac: https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/installing-R-windows-mac-ubuntu

  
  

  Adobe Illustrator use via VDI: 

  We use Adobe Illustrator for making the graphs and maps from R even nicer. You can access to it via VDI-connection similar way than using R via VDI connection (as explained in pre-assignment pdf, and repeated below):

  We will use the Aalto VDI service throughout the course: https://vdi.aalto.fi/. The VDI requires a two-step authentication from the user: 1) Aalto credentials and 2) your choice of the second authentication step (either Microsoft Authenticator app or text message).
  

  Video: Connecting to VDI
  

  Computers at U351 and Y344 (and in many other rooms) have Adobe products. Once you are logged in, find Adobe Illustrator and launch that. Users must sign in with an Adobe ID which has been created for all students. Thus, just use the Aalto e-mail and password.

  After that you are all set. You can move files between your own computer and these computers for example by using a coud service or Filezilla.

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Teams link & instructions, Presemo, Miro board

  Not available

• Final grades

  Not available

• Final presentation

  Not available

• Pre-assignment

  Not available

• Theme 1: Water resources

  Not available

• Theme 2: Population dynamics

  Not available

• Theme 3: Food production

  Not available

• Theme 4: Water use

  Not available

• Theme 5: Water scarcity

  Not available

• Theme 6: Socio-economic indicators

  Not available

• Supporting materials (R and Data)
  Guides to R and some of the most common packages

  • Introduction to R (html)

  • R cheat sheet (pdf)

  • RStudio interface cheat sheet (pdf)

  • Introduction to raster data with the terra package (html)

  • Simple features (polygon data) for R (html)

  • ggplot2 website containing full reference, cheatsheet, and links to tutorials (html)

  • mapping with tmap (html)

  • Scico color package (html)

  • Various other R package cheat sheets provided by RStudio (html/pdf)
  • R graph gallery (lot of example codes to produce different kind of graphs)
    

  
  Git

  • Quick Git guide and a cheatsheet

  During this course, we're applying only a fraction of Git features. If you want to dive further into using Git, see the guide above for a rather comprehensive quick-tutorial. While the use Git is not in the center in the learning outcomes of the course, it is a very valuable and useful tool to get a grip on.

  Support

  • The easiest is to google the command or task you want to do; there is lots of help in the web (including stackoverflow, various R mailing lists etc.).

  • R has a strong community around it since it's open source; most likely, someone else has had similar issues than you are having and has asked about it in some forums.

  • ?function (e.g. ?mean) in R console will open a help page.

  • Posting to Teams Discussion channel - optimally very efficient and enables learning together with your peers!

  • Naturally, the teachers will help you when needed

  Extra data related to the data introduced in hands-on sessions - all files are in data folder

  Week 1:

  • Historical runoff, precipitation and temperature data (Data/climate/historical and Data/runoff). Two-decade averages of monthly values for timesteps 1960-1979, 1980-1999, and 2000-2018 (2000-2014 for runoff).
  • Future precipitation and temperature data (Data/climate/future). Two-decade averages of 2041-2060; monthly and annual values for scenarios SSP1-RCP2.6 and SSP3-RCP7.0. More on SSPs & RCPs.

  
  

  Week 2:

  • Future total population for scenarios SSP1 and SSP3; years 2050 and 2100 (Data/population).
  • Built-up area defined as "artificial areas contiguously occupied by humans (therefore not including vegetative land cover and water, nor roads)", as fractions of cell area. See HYDE 3.1 for description.
  • Aridity class and aridity index (Data/misc). Thresholds from source Table 2.
  • 
    
  • Distance to nearest freshwater feature and distance to nearest sea (dist2water and dist2sea; Data/misc)
  • Ground elevation (Data/misc)
  • Groundwater table depth, annual long-term average (Data/misc)

  
  

  Week 3:

  • Food crop production (kcal) in 2010 as raster, Data/food_prod/crop_production_kcal_2010_025dgr.tif.
    
  • Food supply (kcal/cap/d) in Data/food_prod/food_supply.xlsx. The food supply quantity presented here is based on a national balance of total food supply = production + imports - exports + changes in stocks for all food items in FAOSTAT. From the total supply, the shares of usage for feed, seed, manufacturing for both food and non-food products, and losses during storage and transportation are subtracted before finally yielding the total food supply available for human consumption. Hence, this food supply represents the amount of calories available for human consumption, but not necessarily the amount ending up consumed as retail and household losses are not accounted for.
  • BMI (body mass index) data from NCD-RisC (http://www.ncdrisc.org/) including mean BMI as well as share of population overweight and obese: Data/food_prod/NCD_RisC_Lancet_2017_BMI.xlsx.

  
  Week 4:
  
  

  • Environmental flow requirements (EFR) in Data/wateruse/EFR_fraction_annual_1971_2010.tif. This describes the fraction of discharge/runoff used by the natural environment. If the EFR is fulfilled, the riverine ecosystems assumed to be in a fair condition. The values are computed from long-term runoff (1970-2000) as annual averages using the variable monthly flow (VMF) method described in Pastor et al. (2014).
    

  
  

  Week 5:

  • No specific extra data for this week.

  
  

  Week 6:

  • No specific extra data for this week. Most of the indicators included in the demo code have one additional timestep, which can be taken advantage of.

  
  

• Supporting materials (lectures)
  Lecture 1 (water resources):
  

  • Oki et al. 2006. Global Hydrological Cycles and World Water Resources. Science 313: 1068-1072. DOI: 10.1126/science.1128845 (you need to be in Aalto network to open the pdf)
  • Fresh water stories at National Geographic
    
  • Short video of global water crisis (3.5 min): 
    

  References in the lecture (in order of appearance):
  

  • HYDE 3.2: https://themasites.pbl.nl/tridion/en/themasites/hyde/download/index-2.html
  • WEF (2019): https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2019
  • Kummu et al (2011): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020578
  • Kummu & Varis (2011): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.10.009
  • Messager et al (2021): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03565-5
  • Grill et al (2019): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1111-9
  • Huggins et al (2022): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28029-w
  • Virkki et al (2021): https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-260
    
  • Kummu et al (2010): https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/5/3/034006
  • Haddeland et al (2014): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1222475110
  • Porkka et al (2013): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082714
  • Jalava et al (2014): https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/7/074016
  • Kummu et al (2012): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.08.092
  • Varis (2014): http://doi.org/10.1038/514027a

  
  
  

  Lecture 2 (population):
  

  • History of wastewater treatment (in Finnish only, access to HS should be available at Aalto network)
    
  • Ted talk about the population dynamics (15 min): Hans Rosling: The good news of the decade? We're winning the war against child mortality
    
  • Video (one hour) about facts of population: 
    
  • UN World population prospects (data and maps about population in the past and future)
    
  • Article on World by latitudes by Kummu and Varis (2011). Examples of graphs and maps, potentially interesting insights on how population is distributed on globe. 
    
  • Article on World by altitude and distance to sea by Kummu et al (2016). 
    
  • Article on How close do we live to water by Kummu et al (2011).

  
  References in the lecture (in order of appearance):
  

  • Klein Goldeweijk (2010): https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683609356587
  • Steffen et al (2015 - the great acceleration): https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019614564785
  • Steffen et al (2015 - planetary boundaries): https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/1259855
  • Rockström et al (2009): https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a
  • HYDE 3.2: https://themasites.pbl.nl/tridion/en/themasites/hyde/download/index-2.html
  • Gerten et al (2020): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0465-1
  • Kummu et al (in press): https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/2153/
    

  
  Lecture 3 (food production):
  

  • Gapminder (online tool Hans Rosling was using in his video): http://www.gapminder.org/tools/bubbles#_
  • Fascinating dataset of obesity and malnutrition: http://www.ncdrisc.org/v-adiposity.html
  • Article on global food availability and dependency on trade: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082714
  • Article on global food losses and waste: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.08.092
  • Article on potential of diet change to reduce water use: 10.1088/1748-9326/9/7/074016
  • Article on combined potential of future opportunities: 10.1016/j.cosust.2018.01.006

  
  References in the lecture (in order of appearance):
  

  • Tom Standage 'An edible history of humanity'
  • Foley et al (2011): https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10452
  • Kroodsma et al (2018): https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/904
  • Erb et al (2009): link
  • Gerten et al (2013): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.11.001
  • ILO (2013): labour database
  • WRI (2013): https://www.climatewatchdata.org
  • World Bank (2013): https://data.worldbank.org
  • KILM (ILO): Key indicators in labours market
  • Porkka et al (2013): http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082714
  • FAO (2012): http://www.fao.org/3/al936e/al936e00.pdf
  • Porkka et al (2016): https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/1/015001
  • Carr et al (2013): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055825
  • Heino et al (2015): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0138918
  • Kinnunen et al (2020): open-access view only version; https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-0060-7
  • Jalava et al (2014): https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/7/074016
  • Kummu et al (2016): https://www.nature.com/articles/srep38495
  • Eat-Lancet commission (2019): https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/eat-lancet-commission-summary-report/
  • Kummu et al (2017): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.01.006
  • Gerten et al (2020): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0465-1
  • WRI (2016): The global food challenge explained in 18 graphics

  
  

  Lecture 4 (water use):
  

  • Article on evolution of global virtual water trade: http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1203176109
  • Article on water footprint of humanity: http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1109936109
  • Lots of information and data on water footprint: http://waterfootprint.org/
    
  • Footprint article in Science: [link]
    

  
  References in the lecture (in order of appearance):
  

  • Richter (2014): https://islandpress.org/books/chasing-water
    
  • Kummu et al (2016): https://www.nature.com/articles/srep38495
  • Pastor et al (2014): https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-5041-2014
  • Wada et al (2014): https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/10/104003
  • Dalin et al (2012): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1203176109
  • Hoekstra & Wiedmann (2014): http://www.ayhoekstra.nl/pubs/Hoekstra-Wiedmann-2014-EnvironmentalFootprint.pdf
  • Suomen vesijalanjälki (WWF suomi 2012): http://wwf.fi/mediabank/2306.pdf
  • Jägermeyr et al (2015): https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-3073-2015

  
  

  Lecture 5 (water scarcity):
  

  • Article on global water scarcity: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/313/5790/1068
  • Review article on water scarcity indicators: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EF000518/full
  • Article on road to water scarcity: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep38495
  • Article on green-blue water scarcity: http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/18/447/2014/
  • Article on past green-blue water scarcity: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/1/015001
  • [in Finnish] Discussion on water scarcity at YLE: [link]
  • Recommended novel by Finnish author Emmi Itäranta - Memory of water (Teemestarin kirja): [link]
  • check out our interactive water scarcity atlas: https://waterscarcityatlas.org

  
  References in the lecture (in order of appearance):
  Falkenmark et al (1989): https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-8947.1989.tb00348.x
  Rockström et al (2009): https://doi.org/10.1029/2007WR006767
  Kummu et al (2016): https://doi.org/10.1038/srep38495
  Wada et al (2011): https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-15-3785-2011
  Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2016): https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500323
  Gerten et al (2011): https://doi.org/10.1175/2011JHM1328.1
  Kummu et al (2014): https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-447-2014
  Seckler et al (1998): 
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254383595_World_water_demand_and_supply_1990_to_2025_scenarios_and_issues
  Sullivan et al (2003): https://doi.org/10.1111/1477‐8947.00054
  Ohlsson and Turton (1999): https://www.soas.ac.uk/water/publications/papers/file38362.pdf
  Rosa et al (2020): https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz6031
  Liu et al (2017): https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000518
  

  
  Lecture 6 (socio-economic indicators):
  

  • Database of world development indicators: http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi
  • Social progress indicator:  http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi
  • Happy planet index:  http://www.happyplanetindex.org
  • Corruption perceptions index:  http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview
  • Article on river basin vulnerability in Asian large rivers by Varis and Kummu: pdf
  • Gridded global datasets for Gross Domestic Product and Human Development Index over 1990–2015: https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata20184 
    
  • Human footprint over the past decades: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12558
    
  • Finland among the best in the world: Statistics Finland

  
  

  References in the lecture (in order of appearance):

  • Porkka et al (2013): http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082714
    
  • Bolt et al (2014): https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0289.12032
  • World Bank (2016): https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators
  • Kummu et al (2018): https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.4
  • Angus Maddison: https://datasource.kapsarc.org/explore/dataset/historical-statistics-of-the-world-economy-1-2008-ad/information/
  • Economist (2010): https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2010/11/25/money-and-happiness
  • State of the world 2004: http://www.greeneconomics.net/StateOfWorld-2004.pdf
    
  • Economist (2014): https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2014/04/08/progress-on-progress
  • Kubiszewski et al (2013): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.04.019
    
  • Kummu & Varis (2011): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.10.009
  • Economist (2019): https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/03/21/economic-growth-does-not-guarantee-rising-happiness
  • Alexander (1993): https://www.routledge.com/Natural-Disasters-1st-Edition/Alexander/p/book/9781857280944
  • Varis & Kummu (2019): https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1040

  
  

  
  
  

• Visualisation guides and examples
  Overall guides for different visualisation types
  

  • Fundamentals of data visualisation: http://serialmentor.com/dataviz/ (very good online guide to the basics of good, informative and visually appealing visualisations)
    
  • Visualisation quick guide: https://www.domo.com/assets/downloads/resources/visualization-guide.pdf (guide to select right kind of visualisation and most important things to consider in those)
  • Data visualisation catalogue: https://datavizcatalogue.com (great catalogue of the different visualisation types, good examples, inspirations)

  
  

  Some tips for good poster design

  • https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/05/11/how-to-design-an-award-winning-conference-poster/
  • http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/design-sci-poster.html

  
  

  Specific guides 
  

  Week 1: Maps

  • Choropleth Map
    
  • Bubble map
  • Guide to map legends

  
  

  Week 2: Bar graphs & Scatter plots

  • Standard bar chart
  • Multi-set bar chart

  • Scatter plot with points
  • Scatter plot with lines

  
  

  Week 3: Histograms and tables

  • Histograms
  • Tables:

  Table 1. Example table from the week's exercise, with the most important characteristics of the table highlighted. Table shows the countries with per capita food production larger than 10 000 kcal/cap/day.

  
  

  
  

  Week 4: Vector maps and 100% stack bar

  • Choropleth Map
    
  • 100% stack bar chart

  
  

  Week 5: Stacked area graph or trajectory plot
  

  • Stacked area graph
    

  
  

  Week 5&6: Infographics
  

  • Water related infographics
  • Guides for good infographic: Venngage blog

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Home assignment collections

  Not available