ICT Application in Environment Management. Manohar K Bhattarai Senior Advisor, Computer Association of Nepal Kathmandu, Nepal

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1 ICT Application in Environment Management Manohar K Bhattarai Senior Advisor, Computer Association of Nepal Kathmandu, Nepal

2 Keywords: ICTs IT Cloud Computing Crowd sourcing...

3 Overall context... Many environmental challenges, including... climate change, improving energy efficiency and waste management, addressing air pollution, water quality and scarcity, and loss of natural habitats and biodiversity...

4 Our Footprints, Our Future Setting the context, The Himalayan glaciers will disappear in years. Assuming global temperature rise of 4.4 C, India's agricultural output will fall by 30-40%. OECD and FAO projections tell of volatile agriculture prices over the next decade. Tropical countries will become net importers of cereals from countries in temperate zones. IPCC warns 35 million refugees will flee Bangladesh's flooded delta by % of premature deaths, about 537,000 daily, are attributed to exposure to ambient particulate matter Approximately 20 30% of all respiratory diseases appear to be caused by air pollution (WHO 2000).

5 ICTs in the context of ways in the study and management of the environment: To help observe, describe, record and understand the environment (for environmental research and for comparative analysis), including tools to manipulate and visualize environmental information; 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 reduce and/or mitigate the environmental impact of human activity; To facilitate learning about the environment.

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7 Example:

8 ICT capabilities and tools used to understand the global environment: Satellite and direct sensor technology >> ability to record and store massive amountsof geographical and historical information with increasing resolution and geographic coverage; Geographic information systems (GIS) >> visualization and interpretation of the datasets made available through these observation systems; Increasingly faster and available micro processors which have provided computational power as well as increasingly intelligent algorithms that have allowed modeling of environmental systems and thus a better understanding of the complexity of the physical and biological systems that are part of the environment; Increasing bandwidth and very rapid distributed communications, processing and storage capabilities that facilitate data sharing and undertaking computationally-intensive tasks through the use of Grid and Cloud computing.

9 Overview of Technologies Database management systems (DBMSs) >>that can manipulate digital data. This includes geographic information systems (GIS); specialized database management systems that use textual, numeric, alphanumeric and imagery data including especially maps. Of particular use are spatial imagery and data and the possibility of linking data sets and images to map coordinates. Fiber optic technologies and especially wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)-based technologies >> permit increasing volumes of data to transit fiber optic systems. An increasing number of intelligent physical and embedded devices that are connected through the Internet sometimes known as the Internet of Things. These devices will be integrated into larger systems, where they will perform control functions and communicate with one another over the Internet. These include: o Smart tags using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology; o Smart devices: including devices embedded in sensors for telemetric data collection and remote sensing, in appliances of all sorts, in testing and medical equipment, etc.; o Smart offices where roomware in the workplace will ensure greater efficiency and better working conditions. Increasingly rapid and sophisticated chip sets and processors containing an increasing number and density of transistors operating at an increasingly rapid number of transactions per second using increasingly rapid data buses and working collaboratively and in parallel to manipulate the data in concurrent streams and power software.

10 ICTs and environment: Waste Management with Smart ICT Waste management often linked to farming because of methane emissions In the context of ICT, there is Industrial waste during production Waste due to obsolescence A cradle to cradle raw material and recycling approach aims to keep all the materials in circulation [1] Design includes easy disassembly Obsolete products returned to factory No need for mining of raw materials

11 Work in Mitigation Reduction of energy consumption by ICT equipment through new standards; E.g. The promotion of Next Generation Networks (reducing power consumption by up to 40%) Better use of spectrum to reduce energy consumption of wireless devices. Advancing on new standards to promote reduction of emissions by other sectors Smart grids and smart buildings Intelligent transport systems Remote working technologies Sensor-based networks 13

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13 Back home, Nepal Context Nepal and its challenges Environmental management challenges Environ vs development trade-offs Climate change and food security Natural disaster preparedness Political fluidity Seismic vulnerability Inclusion, participation and empowerment Persistent poverty and its political ramifications

14 Context: Nepal and its challenges Climate change and food security Natural disaster preparedness Seismic vulnerability Political fluidity Unitary to federal Inclusion, participation and empowerment Poverty reduction challenges, MDGs Gaps in delivery of public services/governance deficit Education, health, agriculture extension

15 Positioning ICTs within Environmental challenges Few initiatives currently underway..

16 Glacial lake inventory of HKH region

17 Crowdsourcing Agriculture monitoring for food security

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19 Sources of Airborne Pollutants The most common airborne pollutants are sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM10 with a diameter of 10 μm or less and PM2.5 with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less), nonmethane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC), ammonia (NH3), ozone, and heavy metals. The sources of these pollutants in the urban and industrialized c entres of Nepal are the same as those found in such centres all over the world.

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23 ICT innovation trends to watch GIS/RS Technologies Contents driving costs down

24 Interesting interventions

25 Standard for a universal charger for mobile phones Universal power adapter and charger solution for mobile terminals and other ICT devices (ITU-T Recommendation L.1000) specifies general requirements covers charger for mobile phones Future version will cover other ICT devices

26 ITU s universal charger standard Instead of this have this: Recommendation rev. L.1000 Approved June 2011 New

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28 THANK YOU