Understanding Our Methodology

STRATA’s methodology integrates geospatial data on climate, environmental, and peace and security stress indicators. It combines these with data layers on population exposure and socioeconomic vulnerability to produce hotspot maps highlighting where climate, environmental and security stresses overlap and where they coincide with populations vulnerable to these stresses.

STRATA employs a “Convergence of Evidence” methodology, developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center. In this approach, it combines the indicators from three primary domains:

• Climate and Environmental Stressors: Analyzes risks such as droughts, floods, deforestation, heatwaves, etc.
• Peace and Security Stressors: Tracks conflict-related events, such as battles, violence against civilians, protests, etc.
• Socioeconomic Vulnerabilities: Highlights exposure to risks such as food insecurity, healthcare accessibility, demographic pressures, etc.

Strata’s central feature is the hotspot map that shows the interlinkages where environmental and climate-related stresses converge with insecurity and socio-economic vulnerability. The resulted map classifies regions into four distinct categories based on the level of environmental stressors and population density. Each category is defined as follows:

• Low Stress: Identifies regions with minimal environmental stressors and sparse population densities. These areas are relatively unaffected by climate or environmental pressures, indicating low vulnerability to such stressors.
• Moderate Stress: Denotes areas exhibiting a moderate level of environmental or climate stress, yet characterized by low population densities. Despite facing environmental challenges, the limited human population mitigates the direct impact on individuals, suggesting a moderate level of vulnerability.
• High Stress: Classifies regions experiencing significant environmental stressors that affect a sizable population. Marked by a convergence of multiple stress factors, these areas see a considerable number of inhabitants directly influenced by climate change impacts, pollution, or resource depletion, increasing their risk and vulnerability.
• Critical Stress: Highlights regions under severe environmental stress affecting large populations. These areas face a broad spectrum of intense stressors, severely impacting the quality of life, health, and sustainability of large communities, and underscore the urgent need for mitigative and supportive interventions.

Strata also allows users to derived analytical statistics through  charts and diagrams that deepen insights into specific regions and indicators. These insights are available at subnational spatial resolution (adm1), lower granularity (adm2) in most cases and the upload of users specific boundaries, ensuring that hotspots are context-specific and relevant for multilevel scales. Users can view the separate data layers feeding into the Strata hotspot map, including the individual stresses, exposure and vulnerability scores. Further, users can choose from various basemap options to identify locations below the hotspots, including satellite, terrain and hybrid options. The maps, charts, and diagrams can be downloaded in picture format, as a data layer and as csv files. The Strata Guidebook provides more information about the methodology, visualisation, and interpretation of the outputs. The code-free analysis and dashboard is powered by Earth Map. The data incorporated in Strata is sourced from public, trusted sources of which most are available on Google Earth Engine. 

STRATA in a nutshell: