ICTs for e-Environment: adapting to climate change and resource depletion Richard Labelle ICT Strategist & ITU-D Consultant The Aylmer Group Gatineau, Canada

Presentation prepared with help of previous presentations prepared by: Robert Shaw, ITU Kerstin Ludwig, ITU Leila Perez-Chavolla, ITU

Overview of technologies

4 4 ICTs for e-Environment Report Objective : – Provide guidelines for developing countries on the use of ICTs for better management and protection of the environment as a key part of their development process, with particular focus on climate change Examines six areas of ICT use: – Environmental Observation – Analysis – Planning – Management and Protection – ICT Mitigation and – Capacity Building

Key ICT capabilities Increasingly powerful micro processors: – Computational power as well as increasingly intelligent algorithms for modeling of environmental systems; Geographic information systems (GIS): – For visualization and interpretation of the datasets from observation systems; Increasing bandwidth and networked communications, processing and storage capabilities: – Facilitate data sharing and undertaking computationally-intensive tasks through the use of Grid and Cloud computing. Satellite and direct sensor technology applications: – For recording and storing massive amounts of geographical and historical information with increasing resolution and geographic coverage.

ICTs for managing the environment To help observe, understand and learn about the environment To share information and data as well as processing power: – Data warehouses, clearing houses and data/information servers; environmental networks and grids; etc. To facilitate and help coordinate environmental decision-making and management: – including environmental early warning, risk assessment, mitigation and management, etc. To help mitigate environmental impact.

Software such as database management systems (DBMSs) (GIS) Fibre optic technologies Intelligent physical and embedded devices connected to the Internet: smart sensors, sensor networks, etc. Rapid and sophisticated chip sets and processors Rapid, inexpensive and increasingly high capacity storage devices Wireless technologies ICTs

Grid Connectivity Building applications that span organizations; Creating virtual organizations; Seamless integration of datasets and processing capabilities; Hiding (virtualising) or sharing use of resources, network, infrastructure; ICTs: Web based services (SOA)

Web Services Glue for heterogeneous platforms/applications/systems; Cross- and intra-organization integration; Standards-based distributed computing; Interoperability; Composability; Based on the idea of Service Orientation. ICTs: Web based services (SOA) – cont’d (1)

Web Applications Blogging, social networking; Data processing/transformation; Content upload, sharing, discovery; Storage, computation, messaging; Identity and presence management; Mashups for data sharing; Wikis and innovative user-based data entry. ICTs: Web based services (SOA) – cont’d (2)

LANDSAT (USA), Spot Satellite (France), etc. World Weather Watch (WMO) Global Observing System (WMO) World Database for Protected Areas (UNEP-WCMC) Global Biodiversity Information Facility (UNEP- WCMC) ARC-Info (ESRI) Google Earth (Google maps) - geomapping Microsoft Virtual Earth - geomapping Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Key applications

Clearing house mechanism (CHM) for environmental agreements: biodiversity, climate change, etc. Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE): Yale, UNEP, major publishers (PPP) Key applications

Google Earth, Quito,