FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. David Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, has looked at the impacts of increasing wheat and corn crops in Africa, South Asia, Mexico and the United States; and has studied the effects of extreme heat on the world’s staple crops.
Lindsay Krall was a MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC, 2019-2020. She couples Earth science with energy policy to study the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, focusing on geologic repository development. She began this research in 2009, coincident with the termination of the United States’ project to develop a repository for high-level nuclear waste. After completing her bachelor's degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan in 2011, she moved to Stockholm to work at the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company. In 2017, Lindsay was awarded a Ph.D. in geochemistry by Stockholm University, and between 2017 and 2020, she was a MacArthur post-doctoral fellow, first at George Washington University and then, at CISAC. During this time, she assessed the technical viability of concepts to dispose of spent nuclear fuel in deep boreholes and she characterized the radioactive waste streams that might be generated in advanced fuel cycles and discussed their implications for geologic disposal.
Every summer, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program brings together international leaders who are pioneering new approaches to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. The fellows spend three weeks living and taking classes on the Stanford campus, visiting Silicon Valley tech companies and building a network.
Representing business, government and the nonprofit sector, fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies spoke to five of the fellows about the impact of the Draper Hills program on their work and activism. These are their stories.
Shaili Chopra, India
Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I run a platform called SheThePeopleTv. It's a platform for women, and it aims to share news, opinions, data and statistics through a gendered lens. Women are a critical part of democracy — from where I come, in India, we have 600 million women. That's half of the country's population. I think they must also have half of the country’s voice, which they don't.
“I think a big plus of a program like Draper Hills is that when we are all working in the general construct of democracy, we have shared problems, and we also look for shared solutions. It's very empowering to be around people who understand these situations, or have found solutions or overcame them in their countries, or are going through similar problems. You can discuss them and get a sense of solidarity and a sense of empathy.”
Wiem Zarrouk, Tunisia
Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I’ve been working for the Tunisian government for three years as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation. I am leading the government reforms to improve Tunisia's ranking in the World Bank Competitiveness Report - Doing Business.
“In Tunisia, we’ve set up most of our democratic institutions, and now we want to improve the business environment to attract more investment in local businesses. Eight years ago, the people went into the streets demanding more jobs. The challenge in Tunisia right now is economic, that’s why economic reforms are important to our government.
“I think the impact of the Draper Hills program will be immediate. I’ve learned a lot here about the link between development and democracies, so it really covers the scope of my work. And it's been great to learn about the theoretical side — the professors are really speaking about things that impact our daily work.”
Ujwal Thapa, Nepal
Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner
“Bibeksheel Nepali is basically a political startup. It’s a youth-led movement, and we’re focused on changing the norms and mindsets of the culture in Nepal. We work a lot with citizens to instill the values of transparency, empathy and humility because we think democracy needs to be more emotional instead of just logical. I think liberal democracy needs to be understood more in the context of humanity. So it’s an experiment that we're doing in Nepal.
“When we started with the experiment, we decided not to focus only on the state, but thought about a few more components: one is our citizens, another is the society and the third is the government. Nepal recently came out of a violent civil war, and we just built a new constitution that is much more tolerant. Transparency is another value that we want to instill, because of the long isolationist and autocratic dictatorship that has existed in the past.
“Draper Hills is bringing all of these practitioners together who are experimental and innovative. And the world needs better collaboration from people who really believe in the ideals of the 21st century, which are liberal, democratic and more humanistic. That’s one of the strongest aspects of the Draper Hills program.”
N.S. Nappinai, India
N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I'm a lawyer — I specialize in cyber laws. My work throughout my career has been focused on ensuring responsible technology and the use of technology to fight crime. Two years ago I was appointed by the Supreme Court of India as Amicus Curiae on a matter related to protecting against the uploading of videos and images of gang rape and child pornography online.
“Some of the social media platforms had very good reporting mechanisms, whereas it was more hidden on other platforms. So we ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront so that people know that these are things that can be reported and some action can be taken. The whole idea was that as long as you identify such content at the earliest possible time, then you help the victim that much more.
“For me, balancing victims' rights with free speech is very important. This was a big dilemma that I faced, in terms of ‘How much of what I am doing is likely to stifle free speech?’ A lot of discussions at Draper Hills have helped formulate and structure my thoughts, and it's very nice to get the perspective from people from 26 other countries.”
Hinda Bouddane, Morocco
Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I'm involved in women's empowerment and education for girls in Morocco. And especially for women in rural areas — they are less privileged, and many of them don't know their rights. So my fight through JA Worldwide and my activism is to empower these women and to raise awareness about their rights and the importance of education for girls.
“Education for girls is really important in fighting discrimination against women. Education empowers women to become financially independent, say no to violence, and to get engaged in the public sphere. Through that, women can be a part of the democratic process not only by voting, but also by taking part from within and running for office.
At Draper Hills, we're deepening our knowledge about topics like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and hearing many different perspectives. And importantly, we are building a great network to connect many intelligent people from around the world, and we will work together to foster democratic values.”
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The 2019 Draper Hills Class of 2019 at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Photo: Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
David M. Lampton gave a talk titled “Chinese Power and Rail Connectivity in Southeast Asia” before the Stanford China Program audience on February 6th. He addressed three issues in particular: the scope of his research project, conducted in partnership with two co-authors based in Singapore and Malaysia; the long genesis of this railroad construction idea from Southeast Asia to China; and, third, the overarching question of whether China can effectively implement the gargantuan feat – technologically, financially, and politically. The high-and conventional-speed rail project will span seven Southeast Asian countries, plus China, Lampton highlighted. This project is not only geographically forbidding, but the political terrain, and its socio-economic variety, is an even greater challenge. Lampton’s talk comprised part of Stanford China Program’s 2019 Colloquia Series, “A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations.”
Lampton began by clarifying that the vision of rail connectivity through Southeast Asia into China is not the brainchild of either China’s leadership or Xi Jinping. This idea has a long history, he stated, beginning with the British and the French in the 19th century when they were occupying Burma and Indochina, respectively; and even during World War II when Japan further entertained building railroads from the Korean Peninsula to Singapore to advance their military ambitions. In contemporary times, ASEAN had articulated a plan in 1995 to develop a rail line from Singapore to Kunming city, P.R.C. In 2010, ASEAN again put forth a master connectivity plan for 2025 where railroad development comprised a prominent part. Only in the aftermath of these many plans and proposals did Xi Jinping, in 2013, officially announce China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an infrastructure initiative with a scope far greater than simply Southeast Asia. The idea of infrastructural connectivity in the region, in other words, has a long history that predates China entering the picture as a major actor. Only recently has China amassed the technological capacity and financial wherewithal to realize this enormous project, with economic, diplomatic, and strategic military implications.
Next he described the key role that Beijing’s industrial policy has played in the rapid development of China’s high-speed rail. From a nonexistent industry in 2001, China has built a sector that is now an international powerhouse in high-speed rail technology. As of 2014, China boasted four trunk lines, North and South; and four trunk lines, East and West, crisscrossing the P.R.C. China’s industrial policy has clearly delivered striking results (as well as some setbacks) not only with respect to high-speed rail but also in other industries. In light of this, Lampton opined that China is not likely to yield to U.S. demands for major structural reforms in onoing trade talks with China.
Lampton described the progress in high-speed and conventional-speed rail construction with partners in Southeast Asia (ASEAN) that the Chinese have made, with Laos and Thailand furthest along in implementation. Nonetheless, Beijing also has met with significant resistance due to the complicated political situation in various regions. Lampton described, for example, the drawn-out financial negotiations between Singapore and Malaysia with respect to the rail line connecting Singapore to Kuala Lumpur; and the jockeying among various heads of Malaysia’s federation of local states. The election of Mr. Mahathir in 2018 also put an at least temporary halt to the construction and planning of two rail projects for many reasons, including the corruption of the preceding regime of Najib in Kuala Lumpur. Although Lampton expressed overall confidence that the rail lines will get built to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, for example, in the not-too-distant future, the political complexities of the region and China’s ability to successfully navigate them are still open questions.
He also described the competing world views regarding infrastructure construction and economic development. There are powerful constituents in China – now backed by Xi Jinping himself – who believe that infrastructure development drives growth: i.e., “if you want to get rich, build a road.” By contrast, the U.S. and entities such as the World Bank are more cautious, seeing all the negative social and environment extenalities such massive projects create. They also want to see greater assurances of projected returns from these infrastructure projects before devoting resources. Having said this, both multilateral financial and development institutions, and the United States Government, are gradually adopting a more supportive posture on large infrastructure projects, in part not wishing to abandon the commercial and strategic battlegrounds of the future to the PRC.
Lastly, Lampton debunked the notion that the BRI is a unified, top-down “plan.” Rather, he described it as Beijing’s “umbrella policy” that “creates a predisposition [among Chinese entities] to build infrastructure.” It incentivizes “entrepreneurial SOEs, provinces, localities, overseas Chinese . . . to push their pet projects . . . onto . . . the national largesse.” This being the case, Lampton described the BRI as a dynamic, chaotic and, sometimes, even a rapacious process for the transit countries. Yunnan Province, for example, started a rail line even before the central government had approved it; and Guangdong Province began developing its own special economic zone and port construction in Malacca all without central approval. As Lampton stated, the “BRI isn’t just about Xi Jinping and Beijing . . . . [I]t’s about local initative, and how Beijing can or cannot control or . . . under what circumstances, it chooses to control [its local actors].”
The recording and transcript are available below.
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David M. Lampton, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Research Scholar at APARC, speaks at Stanford's China Program on February 6th, 2019.
Abstract: Russia is a major energy exporter and has used those exports to advance its geopolitical goals. Based on her book "The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas” (Harvard UP, 2017), Dr. Agnia Grigas will discuss the recent transformation in global energy markets and the resulting shift in the geopolitics of energy, specifically relations between key producing and competing states such as Russia and the United States, and key consuming regions such as Europe and developing Asia. Focusing on natural gas, Dr. Grigas will address Russia’s energy challenge to European security and steps the United States can and should take to mitigate this challenge.
Dr. Agnia Grigas is a strategic advisor on energy and geopolitical economy for US government institutions and multinational corporations. She is the author of three acclaimed books: "The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas," "Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire," and "The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and Russia." She serves as nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Associate at Argonne National Laboratory and advisory board member for the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs at Occidental College, the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis and LITGAS. She holds a Master’s and Doctorate in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a BA in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University. Follow via: @AgniaGrigas & grigas.net
Corruption of the information ecosystem is not just a multiplier of two long-acknowledged existential threats to the future of humanity—climate change and nuclear weapons. Cyber-enabled information warfare has also become an existential threat in its own right, its increased use posing the realistic possibility of a global information dystopia, in which the pillars of modern democratic self-government—logic, truth, and reality—are shattered, and anti-Enlightenment values undermine civilization around the world.
Efficient responses to climate change require accurate estimates of both aggregate damages and where and to whom they occur. While specific case studies and simulations have suggested that climate change disproportionately affects the poor, large-scale direct evidence of the magnitude and origins of this disparity is lacking. Similarly, evidence on aggregate damages, which is a central input into the evaluation of mitigation policy, often relies on country-level data whose accuracy has been questioned. Here we assemble longitudinal data on economic output from over 11,000 districts across 37 countries, including previously nondigitized sources in multiple languages, to assess both the aggregate and distributional impacts of warming temperatures. We find that local-level growth in aggregate output responds non-linearly to temperature across all regions, with output peaking at cooler temperatures (<10°C) than estimated in earlier country analyses and declining steeply thereafter. Long difference estimates of the impact of longer-term (decadal) trends in temperature on income are larger than estimates from an annual panel model, providing additional evidence for growth effects. Impacts of a given temperature exposure do not vary meaningfully between rich and poor regions, but exposure to damaging temperatures is much more common in poor regions. These results indicate that additional warming will exacerbate inequality, particularly across countries, and that economic development alone will be unlikely to reduce damages, as commonly hypothesized. We estimate that since 2000, warming has already cost both the US and the EU at least $4 trillion in lost output, and tropical countries are >5% poorer than they would have been without this warming.
The Congo Basin is rich in biodiversity and stores an estimated 25%-30% of the worlds tropical forest carbon stocks. As agricultural land becomes increasingly scarce in Southeast Asia, and regulatory pressures continue to intensify, the Congo Basin could become the next frontier for oil palm expansion. Most of the roughly 280 million hectares (Mha) of additional land suitable for oil palm in the Congo Basin are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (60%), Cameroon (11%) and the Republic of Congo (10%).
Many heavily forested countries in the Congo Basin are setting national targets to increase production to meet national and regional demands. Land area allocated to oil palm increased by 40% in the Congo Basin and five additional top-producing countries in Africa between 1990 and 2017. Without intervention, future production increases in the region will likely come from expansion rather than intensification due to low crop and processing yields, possibly at the expense of forest.
Sustainability strategies initiated by companies and aimed at certifying palm oil mills are unlikely to be effective at curbing deforestation in the Congo Basin. Smallholder farmers are an engine of growth in the regions palm oil sector, and recent evidence suggests they are actively clearing forest to expand. Because of the proliferation of non-industrial processing facilities (artisanal mills), a substantial fraction of the palm oil produced by smallholders never passes through a company's jurisdiction. Smallholders are also disadvantaged by power imbalances and limited access to technical and financial resources. Including smallholders in sustainability strategies offers opportunities to achieve multisectoral goals.
Recommendations to improve the sustainability of the palm oil sector in the Congo Basin include (1) improving access to finance for smallholders and non-industrial mill managers; (2) implementing policies to safeguard natural resources and facilitate access to appropriate market opportunities that offer incentives to prevent future deforestation; (3) intensifying production by replanting aging plantations, rehabilitating abandoned plantations with disease-resistant and high-yielding varieties, and increasing fertilization, without further expansion into high conservation value or high carbon stock forest areas; and (4) improving processing capacity and extraction rates by upgrading mill technologies. Sustainable palm oil development in the Congo Basin will require careful consideration of the governance, institutional, environmental and socioeconomic factors that underpin the complex regional supply chains.
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Accurate measurements of maize yields at field or subfield scales are useful for guiding agronomic practices and investments and policies for improving food security. Data on smallholder maize systems are currently sparse, but satellite remote sensing offers promise for accelerating learning about these systems. Here we document the use of Google Earth Engine (GEE) to build “wall-to-wall” 10 m resolution maps of (i) cropland presence, (ii) maize presence, and (iii) maize yields for the main 2017 maize season in Kenya and Tanzania. Mapping these outcomes at this scale is extremely challenging because of very heterogeneous landscapes, lack of cloud-free satellite imagery, and the low quantity of quality ground-based data in these regions.
First, we computed seasonal median composites of Sentinel-1 radar backscatter and Sentinel-2 optical reflectance measures for each pixel in the region, and used them to build both crop/non-crop and maize/non-maize Random Forest (RF) classifiers. Several thousand crop/non-crop labels were collected through an in-house GEE labeler, and thousands of crop type labels from the 2015–2017 growing seasons were obtained from various sources. Results show that the crop/non-crop classifier successfully identified cropland with over 85% out-of-sample accuracy in both countries, with Sentinel-1 being particularly useful for prediction. Among the cropped pixels, the maize/non-maize classier had an accuracy of 79% in Tanzania and 63% in Kenya.
To map maize yields, we build on past work using a scalable crop yield mapper (SCYM) that utilizes simulations from a crop model to train a regression that predicts yields from observations. Here we advance past approaches by (i) grouping simulations by Global Agro-Environmental Stratification (GAES) zones across the two countries, in order to account for landscape heterogeneity, (ii) utilizing gridded datasets on soil and sowing and harvest dates to setup model simulations in a scalable way; and (iii) utilizing all available satellite observations during the growing season in a parsimonious way by using harmonic regression fits implemented in GEE. SCYM estimates were able to capture about 50% of the variation in the yields at the district level in Western Kenya as measured by objective ground-based crop cuts.
Finally, we illustrated the utility of our yield maps with two case studies. First, we document the magnitude and interannual variability of spatial heterogeneity of yields in each district, and how it varies for different parts of the region. Second, we combine our estimates with recently released soil databases in the region to investigate the most important soil constraints in the region. Soil factors explain a high fraction (72%) of variation in predicted yields, with the predominant factor being soil nitrogen levels. Overall, this study illustrates the power of combining Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery, the GEE platform, and advanced classification and yield mapping algorithms to advance understanding of smallholder agricultural systems.
Low-intensity tillage has become more popular among farmers in the United States and many other regions. However, accurate data on when and where low-intensity tillage methods are being used remain scarce, and this scarcity impedes understanding of the factors affecting the adoption and the agronomic or environmental impacts of these practices. In this study, we used composites of satellite imagery from Landsat 5, 7, and 8, and Sentinel-1 in combination with producer data from about 5900 georeferenced fields to train a random forest classifier and generate annual large-scale maps of tillage intensity from 2005 to 2016. We tested different combinations of hyper-parameters using cross-validation, splitting the training and testing data alternatively by field, year, and state to assess the influence of clustering on validation results and evaluate the generalizability of the classification model. We found that the best model was able to map tillage practices across the entire North Central US region at 30 m-resolution with accuracies spanning between 75% and 79%, depending on the validation approach. We also found that although Sentinel-1 provides an independent measure that should be sensitive to surface moisture and roughness, it currently adds relatively little to classification performance beyond what is possible with Landsat. When aggregated to the state level, the satellite estimates of percentage low- and high-intensity tillage agreed well with a USDA survey on tillage practices in 2006 (R2 = 0.55). The satellite data also revealed clear increases in low-intensity tillage area for most counties in the past decade. Overall, the ability to accurately map spatial and temporal patterns in tillage should facilitate further study of this important practice in the United States, as well as other regions with fewer survey-based estimates.
FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. 
Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner
Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner
Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner
N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner
Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner
