30,719 research outputs found

    From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

    Get PDF
    This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

    Will Broadband Networks Make the World Greener? Evaluating Pros and Cons of Broadband Development

    Get PDF
    The environmental issue has generally received much attention from the public for decades, especially as a result of heavy industry - electrical energy, oil and gas, mining, steel and metals. Recently, attention has been paid to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its effect on the knowledge and related industries. Broadband, both fixed and mobile, is not an exception. Even though it has been recognized as a factor that has contributed to social and economic development, anegative effect can also be seen in particular regarding the environment. This paper provides a review of how government policy, in particular by the EU and Japan, are moving towards the transition to sustainability by utilizing ICT, as well as an evaluation of the pros and cons of broadband development. There are many complex effects on sustainability due to ICT. Since ICT can have environmental effects both as enabling energy efficiency and causing rebound effects, the policies should respond to both direct and indirect effects. To facilitate policy analysis and recommendations, this paper categorizes ICT impacts by five orders of aggregation. These five orders of aggregation may contribute both positively and negatively to sustainability, and each level will need targeted policies. The five orders of aggregation suggest a comprehensive and long term view of policy development, encompassing even policies that seek to improve the quality of decision making in our societies, by utilizing ICTs.broadband, sustainable development, green ICT.

    FutureFarm vision

    Get PDF
    This paper defines the first version of a vision of Future Farming project and also a knowledge management system used by European farms which will be designed and developed by the Future Farm project. An important part of the vision is a definition of external drivers and their influence on farm business in future. Paper is looking on a situation in three periods: short (2013), middle (2020) and long-term (2030). Our vision expects that the farming system will continuously converge to the situation of two types of farm: an industrial farm, which will guarantee both the food safety and the food security for European citizens, and multifunctional farms focused on environment protection. The recommendation proposes an architecture based on communication of interoperable services, so called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), for easy integration of different levels and components of farm management.Farming, external drivers, future vision, knowledge management, SOA, Farm Management,

    Factoring sustainability into the Higher Education product-service system

    Get PDF
    This paper summarises the findings of the first phase of a major study of the environmental impacts of an important service system - higher education (HE). The study assessed three methods of providing HE: conventional campus-based courses and distance/open learning courses using print-based and electronic delivery, with the following key findings. (1) On average, the distance taught Open University (OU) courses involved 90% less energy and CO2 emissions (per unit of study) than the campus based courses, mainly due to reductions in student travel and housing energy consumption, plus scale economies in campus site utilisation. (2) The OU e-learning course had over 20% higher environmental impacts than the print-based OU course, due to higher use of computing, paper consumption for printing web-based material, and extra home heating during Internet access. Programmes to reduce the environmental impacts of HE should be broadened beyond 'greening' the campus and the curriculum to include the impacts of student travel and housing. The study challenges claims that 'de-materialisation' and using ICT to provide services such as HE necessarily reduces environmental impacts. Service system environmental impacts depend mainly on its requirements for transport and a dedicated infrastructure of buildings and equipment. ICT will only benefit the environment if they reduce the service's requirements for these elements

    South American Expert Roundtable : increasing adaptive governance capacity for coping with unintended side effects of digital transformation

    Get PDF
    This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens and provided suggestions for: (i) the mechanisms underlying major unseens; (ii) understanding possible ways in which rebound effects of digital transformation may become the subject of overarching research in three main categories of impact: development factors, society, and individuals; and (iii) a set of potential action domains for transdisciplinary follow-up processes, including a case study in Brazil. A content analysis of the propositions and related mechanisms provided insights in the genesis of unseens by identifying 15 interrelated causal mechanisms related to critical issues/concerns. Additionally, a cluster analysis (CLA) was applied to structure the challenges and critical developments in South America. The discussion elaborated the genesis, dynamics, and impacts of (groups of) unseens such as the digital divide (that affects most countries that are not included in the development of digital business, management, production, etc. tools) or the challenge of restructuring small- and medium-sized enterprises (whose service is digitally substituted by digital devices). We identify specific issues and effects (for most South American countries) such as lack of governmental structure, challenging geographical structures (e.g., inclusion in high-performance transmission power), or the digital readiness of (wide parts) of society. One scientific contribution of the paper is related to the presented methodology that provides insights into the phenomena, the causal chains underlying “wanted/positive” and “unwanted/negative” effects, and the processes and mechanisms of societal changes caused by digitalization

    From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

    Full text link
    As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

    Teaching geography for a sustainable world: a case study of a secondary school in Spain

    Get PDF
    Geography has a major responsibility in delivering education for sustainable development (ESD), especially because the geographical concepts of place and space are key dimensions for the analysis and pursuit of sustainability. This paper presents the results of a research that investigated how the teaching of geography in secondary education in Catalonia (Spain) contributes to ESD. For the development of this research it was explored what is involved in understanding and resolving issues about sustainable development and how geography teachers might best conceptualize and teach in this new domain. As a result of this theoretical reflection it has been defined a proposal or model for reorienting the geography curriculum from the basis of the ESD paradigm, which is based and structured in four groups of criteria and recommendations as follows: recommendations for defining competences and learning objectives; criteria for selecting geographical contents and themes; criteria for selecting geographical areas and for the use of scale; and finally, recommendations for choosing the most suitable teaching and learning approach
    corecore