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Asia Monitor
UNU e-Newsletter Issue 19. January 2007 The role of environmental monitoring in achieving sustainable
development Fukuya Iino, January 2007 Just this past winter, an
example of successful scientific prediction made possible by the use of
environmental monitoring was seen in El Niño (see http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/el-nino-story.html
) Using remote sensing data & climate models, meteorologists were able to
more accurately predict the impact of certain weather patterns and,
consequently, limit the predicted damage. These climate events
affect numerous activities from business, fishery, and agriculture to
people’s everyday life. The successful prediction of environmental behaviors
will give people opportunities to cope with them. Providing the necessary data to
governments should allow policy makers to effectively prepare
communities. Environmental
monitoring is therefore a critical factor in achieving sustainable
development. As for this year’s abnormal
weather, the prediction was correct. Environmental monitoring data useful to
take risk aversion strategies and maximize your profits were provided on
time. The question is “were you prepared for unusual climate of these latest
months, and are you for these coming months?” If your ill preparedness is
significantly affecting your life somehow right now, who is responsible? Environmental monitoring
allows us to know the past, present, and future. Although there are always
uncertainties associated with the data and prediction, assessing the
environmental conditions using scientific models with the latest
environmental monitoring input data offers the best available way to predict
the future of the environment. The technologies and capacities of environmental
monitoring should be further promoted to increase accuracy of scientific
predicted results to achieve sustainable development. Enhanced capacities of
environmental monitoring are surely a factor for many to measure
sustainability. It is often the case, however, that there is an obstacle in
the path from monitoring data to policies. The obstacle causes and/or is
usually caused by miscommunication between scientists and policy makers. The removal of this obstacle would
result in the analytical results of the monitoring data being fully reflected
into an environmental policy. Of
course, this begs the question—how do we improve the communication between
among all stakeholders? One of the UNU’s missions is to bridge such a gap between
international academic communities, policy makers, and the public. I would
like each reader of this newsletter to take a moment and think about how you
are benefiting in your daily life and/or business from environmental
monitoring data such as weather forecasts, satellite images, air & water
pollution monitoring, earthquakes & tsunami, ambient CO2 &
global temperature, and ecosystems. As discussed here,
provision of environmental monitoring data is the first step toward achieving
sustainable development but obviously more follow-ups are needed in-between.
In the several following issues, what are needed to link the environmental
monitoring to a sustainable society will be discussed. In the next issue, I
would like to briefly discuss what adequate environmental monitoring is.
Please let us hear your opinions about this matter. This
newsletter is a quarterly bulletin made possible with the support of
Shimadzu, Japan |
