The Global Resource Information Database (GRID) is a worldwide network of 15 environmental data centres managed by the Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA) of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Based in Geneva’s International Environment House, GRID-Europe has a scientific and administrative partnership with University of Geneva (UNIGE).

GRID-Europe specialised in handling and analysing spatial and statistical data on environmental and natural resource issues through computerised Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remotely-sensed imagery. Over the years, GRID-Europe has compiled an archive of global and European geospatial and tabular databases, and makes them accessible to the global community through Internet-based applications.

Grid-Europe has expertise in Geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, and modelling to provide: better insights to decision-makers, sustainable use of natural resources, analysis of emerging environmental problems and threats. Recent applications in this domain include:
- Lake Balaton Integrated Vulnerability Assessment, Early Warning and Adaptation Strategies project1.
- IMOS: Evolution of the Mesopotamian marshlands ecosystem.

The group specialised also in the integration, dissemination and communication of geographic information visually on the World Wide. GRID-Europe is responsible for the complete design, data gathering and formatting, and on-line interface of several data portals and map servers such as:
- FP6 METAFUNCTIONS project, is pooling expertise in bioinformatics, computer science, geographical information systems and marine sciences to develop a data-mining system that correlates genetic patterns in genomes with contextual environmental data.
- The GEO Data Portal, the authoritative source for data sets used by UNEP and its partners in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report.
- FP7 ACQWA project data warehouse and spatial direct interface.

The project will essentially be implemented by:

  • Dr. Anthony Lehmann was trained as an aquatic biologist who specialized in GIS and statistical analyses. He is the Project Coordinator (see link in the UNIGE article above for more details).
  • Ron Witt is the Director of UNEP/GRID-Europe and will coordinate the project with UNEP activities in this field and region.
  • Dr. Nicolas Ray is a biologist specialized in GIS and spatially-explicit modelling. He is the Project Manager (see link in the UNIGE article above for more details). He will contribute to all tasks related to grid infrastructure support and gridification of applications.
  • Gregory Giuliani After obtaining a degree in Earth Sciences, he went on to complete a master in Environmental Sciences, specializing in remote sensing and GIS. He previously worked as a GIS Consultant for the World Health Organization, as a University tutor in remote sensing and GIS and as a GIS Developper in a local Swiss GIS company. He works at UNEP/GRID-Europe since 2001 and is the focal point for Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). In 2008, he also started to collaborate closely with the enviroSPACE laboratory where he begins a Ph.D thesis and works also for the FP7 ACQWA project. In enviroGrids, he is involved as WP2 leader where his objective is to coordinate SDI and Grid technology researches.
    Personal page: https://www.unige.ch/climate/Team/Giuliani.html
    is a geologist and environment scientist who specialized in GIS analyses and Internet map server. He will be Work package leader of WP2 on SDI.
  • Dr. Hy Dao is a geographer who will coordinate the task on demographic scenarios.
  • Dr. Andrea de Bono is a geologist specialized in GIS analyses who will contribute to the demographic and climatic scenarios.
  • Karin Allenbach is a geologist specialized in remote sensing who will contribute to task on this topic.