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on the Internet at http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/ and on CD-ROM. The website provides the most recent Module
updates and further information on other associated tools, such as an e-Learning module for the Portal
and a User Guide (http://www.grid.unep.ch/wsis/). 4

Although the GEO Data Portal is open to everyone and provides data for all countries of the world,
for national-level environmental reporting authoritative data sources are more likely found within the
country itself from the government (environmental and other ministries, bureau of statistics), research
organizations, NGOs and other sources. Therefore, when using the portal you should also plan on
cross-referencing with national databases. Abu Dhabi, UAE

EXERCISE
GEO Data Portal

The following exercise is intended to give you practice using the GEO Data Portal. There
are two themes for this exercise, Population Indicators and Making Globalization Visible. For
the first part of the exercise, choose a theme and work with a partner on the exercise. For
the second part, do the exercise on your own. Use the handouts provided with this activity
to follow the steps.

1. Population indicators: A global view
Geodemography is one of the most commonly used themes for mapping in geography,

mainly because population data are often readily available and lend themselves quite well to
mapping, particularly at the global level. Mapping geodemography allows us to go beyond
basic population numbers to the population indicators that give us a more complex picture
of the population dynamics of a place, such as birth rate, death rate, total fertility rate, and
infant mortality rate. This exercise gets you started comparing population indicators at a
global scale.

Step 1

At your computer, launch your browser and go to the GEO Data Portal at http://geodata.
grid.unep.ch/.

First, let’s focus on the fertility rate data. The fertility rate is a relatively useful indicator of
forthcoming changes in population density for a country.

IEA Training Manual Workshop for the National Reporting Toolkit (NRT) 41