Communicating science for informed decision-making

SERVIR’s primary objective is to use Earth observation (EO) information and geospatial information technologies (GIT) to address challenges in areas of societal concern such as food security, land use and land cover, water resources, weather, and natural disasters. With a tagline of “connecting space to village”, SERVIR-HKH aims to build the capacities of people and institutions in the HKH region to integrate science and technology into the decision-making processes. To achieve these broad and ambitious objectives, SERVIR-HKH provides scientific information to a wide range of audiences with different societal contexts (Chap.  1). A picture is worth a thousand words, they say; EO satellites provide pictures of the Earth surface which help scientists to understand the dynamics of natural and anthropogenic processes. Similarly, GIT tools enable analysis and visualization of data, not only for scientific exploration but also to help communicate the information to the intended users in the form of maps and charts. The cartographic principles applied during the map-making process ensure that the scientific information undergoes minimum distortion while communicating to the target audiences.