Strata can be used by anyone interested in exploring the convergence of environmental and climate stressors with social and economic variables relevant to peace and stability. Strata has been developed for analysts, practitioners and policymakers in climate change adaptation, ecosystem management, and peace and security. Its objective is to streamline data and insights on climate-related risks to peace in their daily work and to support informed decision-making and policy and programme development. It can also be a useful tool for researchers and students.

Yes, Strata is an environmental Digital Public Good and is free to use.

Access the platform at strata.earthmap.org or browse our Quick Start Guide.

Strata includes many features like a hotspot map highlighting areas at risks of environmental and climate stressors with social and economic variables relevant to peace and stability; visualisation of individual layers including climate projections; details statistics on the hotspots; a pixel inspector; and easy export and sharing options.

To combine the indicators across the three baskets into a hotspot map, Strata uses a methodology based on a Convergence of Evidence approach: a methodology developed by the European Commission Joint Research Centre for the World Atlas of Desertification. For each of the selected variables related to climate and environmental security, a threshold is defined above the level of that variable that is considered a stress. The Convergence of Evidence approach stacks all the data layers of the selected indicator and counts how many of them surpass a critical threshold. The hotspot map shows the sum of all the red flags, i.e., the number of indicators that passed their threshold across the chosen indicators, weighted by the population exposure and vulnerability. Some indicators have absolute thresholds fixed across all locations (e.g., peace and security); others have thresholds relative to past conditions (e.g. drought and deforestation) or relative to other locations (e.g. internally displaced people and access to healthcare).

No, Strata has no predictive or future modelling capacity. However, STRATA does include supplementary indicators related to predictions on flood likelihood, precipitation, and temperature based on the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) 4.5 and 8.5, for the years 2030, 2050, and 2080. The inclusion of climate projections is intented to be used as supporting information to the current available indicators on STRATA, but it is not included on the overall application of the Convergence of Evidence methodology.

Within Strata, a hotspot is a location where there is a convergence of stresses related to climate and environment, socioeconomic vulnerability, and peace and security. A hotspot implies that further attention is required in that location; it does not mean an event has occurred, nor does it imply any quantitative probability of anything occurring.

Strata works with baskets of indicators: * Climate and environment: Drought (agricultural), drought (meteorological), heatwave, deforestation, land degradation, flood likelihood, and coastal inundation risk. * Peace and security: Recent explosions/remote violence, recent violence against civilians, recent protests, recent riots, history of battles. * Socioeconomic vulnerability: Population density, percentage of elderly, children, and female population, number of internally displaced people, urban expansion, travel time to urban area, sanitation (freshwater availability), access to electricity and healthcare, irrigation, and food insecurity. * Climate projections: Predictive trends for flood likelihood (future), precipitation (future), and minimum and maximum temperature (future).

Strata uses publicly available geospatial datasets, most of them derivatives of satellite imagery. All datasets incorporated into Strata have been tested and validated scientifically to a defined set of criteria relevant to climate security and the provision of safe and trusted data. The data sources for each indicator are specified on the online platform. Details on all the data sources are explicitly included in the Overview of Indicators.

We are always looking to improve our data. If you are experiencing issues with a dataset or believe it is outdated or inaccurate, please contact our support team as described in the Contact tab.

UNEP Strata 2024. United Nations Environment Programme. unepstrata.org (date accessed: Day Month Year).