UNEP’s Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS)
Table of Contents
Part 1:
GEAS concept paper
Part 2:
GEAS implementation plan
Part 1
Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS)
Vision: Everyone in the world should have access to information about what is happening to his or her environment.
Mission: Providing scientific information for decision making.
Goal: Empowering people with engaging environmental information.
Executive Summary
Empowering people with engaging environmental information in a near-real time mode is now in the realm of reality. Decades after its birth, the Internet is slowly blossoming into a uniquely social medium that makes new information easily and continually available by harnessing the power of modern information and communication tools. UNEP's Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS) will use the Internet to provide people with online access to compelling and dynamic information about environmental changes as they occur. This vehicle will be an engaging platform that piques interest in environmental issues and a tool that can help to mitigate environmental harm. The GEAS platform could well become the standard delivery mode for up-to-date information about any and all environment-related topics and the locales affected. One can easily imagine the BBC, CNN, and Google using the GEAS ‘UNEP Living Sources’ for describing the world’s environmental affairs.
Harnessing the power of the Internet, GEAS will build on UNEP’s existing infrastructure to enhance and accelerate the flow of information from scientific research and earth observation systems to environmental decision makers and the general public. Although much information and many data sets are currently available in the public domain, there is a need for a credible information broker that searches and packages the policy-relevant material and delivers that information in an easily understood format to the public and decision makers.
The Global Environmental Alert Service has three components that would support short- and long-term decision-making:
Component 1: Near Real-time Environmental Hazards Alerts
GEAS will be a notification service that uses appropriate formats (email, web service with real-time maps) to alert people to what is happening to their environments so that timely decisions can be made
Component 2: Environmental Hotspots Alerts
Through change studies of photographs, satellite images, maps and narratives, GEAS will document visual evidence of global environmental change resulting from natural processes, human activities and the interaction between them
Component 3: Environmental Science Alerts
As a support for environmental decision making, GEAS will provide decision makers and all interested users with policy-relevant scientific findings about the environment condensed into short reports or briefing notes
The long term vision is that UNEP becomes a household word as the provider of environmental solutions to periodic routine societal queries. A related notion is that the public should be able to click on an area of interest and find out what is happening to their changing environment. This also leads to growth of Environmental Science on the Internet.
It is feasible that over time, people begin to change their everyday habits – from the coffee they drink in the morning to the way they get to work – to more environmentally benign action because information gleaned from GEAS has clearly shown the implications their personal choices have on the planet.
UNEP’s Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS)WHY?
Vision: Everyone in the world should have access to information about what is happening to his/her environment
Mission: Providing scientific information for decision making
Goal: Empowering people with engaging environmental information / WHAT?
ü Grand integrator and communicator of scientifically credible data and
information;
ü Proactive in delivery of information to users via email, web
services and other media;
ü Leverage upon partners assets and provide outlet to their products and services;
ü Harness the power of Internet and other ICT tools e.g. 3 D visualization, mapping etc.
WHY?
ü Potential of making UNEP a credible authoritative sources of
environmental information;
ü Connecting stakeholders and catalyzing actions;
ü Connecting producer of information to consumers;
ü UNEP as a source of information to CNN, BBC etc.;
ü Implementation of the Bali Plan: Catalyze national actions for
collection of data and provide public access to environmental information;
ü Value added over Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) products and services;
ü Accountability and transparency – Visualization tools. / HOW?
ü Business model between Nupedia (failed because of heavy peer review process) and Wikipedia (growing lack of credibility)
ü GEAS component 1: Near-Real Time Environmental Hazards Alerts
ü GEAS component 2: Environmental Hotspots Alerts
ü GEAS component 3: Environmental Science Alerts
UNEP’s Mandate: the Present Scope
Among UNEP’s principal mandates is the following:
“To keep under review the world environmental situation in order to ensure that emerging environmental problems of wide international significance receive appropriate and adequate consideration by governments.” (UN General Assembly 1972)
UNEP is the designated authority of the United Nations system regarding environmental issues at global and regional levels. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of consensus on environmental policies and action by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community. Through its periodically released publications, UNEP is the voice for the environment within the United Nations system, providing access to environmental data and information as well as informing the international community of policy options to address environmental issues.
To fulfill this mandate, UNEP produces a suite of Global Environment Outlook (GEO) products, including its flagship report released every five years. Released between these major reports, the GEO Year Book consists of an annual survey of the changing global environment. In addition to the GEO products, a number of thematic reports are produced. These and other published materials attempt to provide an analysis of the state of the environment at global and regional levels.
Furthermore, the Bali Strategic Plan for Technology Support and Capacity-building stipulates the following cross cutting activities to fulfill the UNEP mandate:
1. Development of national research, monitoring and assessment capacity, including training in assessment and early warning;
2. Support to national and regional institutions in data collection, analysis and monitoring of environmental trends;
3. Access to scientific and technological information, including information on state-of-the-art technologies;
4. Education and awareness-raising, including networking among universities with programmes of excellence in the field of the environment.
The mandate of UNEP’s Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA) is to provide the world community with improved access to meaningful environmental data and information, and to help increase the capacity of governments to use environmental information for decision making and action planning for sustainable human development. Thanks to the wide and rapid spread of the Internet, which has dramatically expanded the geographic boundaries of our communication abilities, UNEP will be able to broaden its ability to collect and disseminate environmental information and assist in technology support and capacity building.
A new opportunity for timely environmental alerts
An extreme decentralization of information and data through the World Wide Web makes it possible for millions of people worldwide to have easy, instantaneous access to a vast amount of diverse online information. This powerful communication medium has spread rapidly to interconnect our world, enabling near-real-time communications and data exchanges worldwide. According to the Internet World Stats database, as of 31 December 2006, global documented internet usage was 1,300 million people (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). Thus, the Internet has become an important medium to access and deliver information worldwide in a very timely fashion.
In addition, remote sensing satellites now provide a continuous stream of data. They are capable of rapid and effective detection of environmental hazards such as transboundary air pollutants, wild fires, deforestation, changes in water levels, and natural hazards. With rapid advances in data collection, analysis, visualization and dissemination, including technologies such as remote sensing, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), web mapping, sensor webs, telecommunications and ever growing Internet connectivity, it is now feasible to deliver relevant environmental information on a regular basis to a worldwide audience relatively inexpensively. In recent years, commercial companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, have started incorporating maps and satellite imagery in their products and services, delivering compelling visualization and providing easy tools that everyone can use to add to their geographic knowledge.
Information is now available in a near-real-time mode from a variety of sources at global and local levels. In coming years, the multi-scaled global information network will greatly improve thanks to new technological advances facilitating the distribution of global environmental data and information at all levels. Globalization and timeliness of communication provides an unprecedented opportunity for UNEP’s GEAS to catalyze environmental action at every level by rapidly providing its stakeholders with high-quality, scientifically credible information.
To accomplish this, however, UNEP needs a formal network to efficiently collect, synthesize and integrate information derived from earth observation systems and scientific research and to distribute that information in a timely manner throughout the United Nations decision-making structure and to policy makers and the wider public at global, regional and local scales.
The Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS)
The Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS) will complement UNEP’s current efforts in assessing global, regional and national environmental conditions and disseminating findings to nations and the public in a more timely fashion, enhancing cooperation and capacity building efforts.
GEAS builds upon the following emerging trends related to environmental information:
New approach / Traditional approach /· Continuous monitoring and prediction of changes / · One-time assessments
· Solution-oriented studies / · Problem raising studies
· Rise of civil society and growth of issue-based communities to precipitate change / · Information delivered to governments only
· Data integration from several sources / · Sole production of data
· Studies involving affected population / · Wild area studies
· Multiple-risk information / · Single-risk information
· Rapid response to real-time events / · Post-event responses
· Internet tools for mass communication with compelling, dynamic, 3D visualization / · Paper copy reports distributed to specific audiences
Using a multi-scaled approach, GEAS will build on UNEP’s existing infrastructure to enhance and accelerate the flow of information from scientific research and earth observation systems to environmental decision makers and the general public. GEAS will directly contribute to UNEP’s efforts at providing evidence of environmental change by packaging and presenting scientifically credible information from around the globe to local users, including national focal points in the environment ministries, in the form of regular briefing reports. GEAS will intimately interact with global observation systems, including the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), and deliver relevant information gleaned from such observations of environmental events occurring around the globe. The GEOSS will help all nations involved produce and manage their information in a way that benefits the environment as well as humanity by taking the planet’s pulse. GEOSS will generate better information for decision-making, and GEAS will bring this information to policy makers and other users.
Although much information and many data sets are currently available in the public domain, there is a need for a credible information broker who searches and packages the policy relevant material and delivers that information in an easily understood format to the public and decision makers. Through GEAS, UNEP and its partners will fill that gap by becoming the “Earth Situation Room”.
Through GEAS, UNEP and its partners will promote cooperation among science, observing systems and decision-making processes at various levels and scales. With its bottom-up approach, UNEP and partners, by the means of GEAS, will provide local level information to global audiences: i.e., “globalization of local information”; on the other hand, the GEAS top-down process will favor the flow of information from global sources to regional, national and local ones: i.e., ‘localization of global information”, providing technology support and meeting capacity-building needs at the country level.
Potential users consist of: (1) UNEP's Governing Council, made up of national environment ministers, which guides its activities and sets its global environmental agenda; (2) UNEP’s regional offices, charged with coordinating environmental activities within regions and maintaining close links to national environment ministries and civil societies; (3) Environmental Conventions that are tasked with assisting parties in implementing the provisions of treaties; and (4) a large public information structure to publish and disseminate information to policy makers, newspapers and civil society throughout the world.
The aim is also to take advantage of the integrated, comprehensive, and sustained Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), which would build a global architecture to better monitor, coordinate and integrate existing and future earth observation systems and to yield the science on which sound policy may be built.
The GEAS Concept and Components
The Global Environmental Alert Service has three components that support short- and long-term decision-making:
1) GEAS component 1: Near Real-time Environmental Hazards Alerts
Data and information will be automatically streamed through GEAS from earth monitoring and observing systems as well as from other sources at both local and global scales. UNEP will continuously screen and analyze the data for event detection, prioritization and scientific credibility . It will package the information into formats appropriate to a broad range of users and actively disseminate it for timely decision making (using, for example, early warning information notes, Emails, web services, real-time maps, etc.)
2) GEAS component 2: Environmental Hotspots Alerts
Through GEAS, UNEP and partners will provide a comprehensive, visual presentation of scientifically verifiable information on changes in the global environment – both the good and the bad – acquired and assessed through state-of-the-art remote sensing technology. The objective is to document visual evidence of global environmental change resulting from natural processes and human activities and the interaction between them. The change studies will contain photographs, satellite images, maps and narratives that provide insight into the many ways the environment has changed and continues to change.