is big data the answer?

Join the revolution

Big data is the collection, processing and availability of significant amounts of data in real time. In the past, it would have been impossible to reap the benefits of big data. The technology just wasn’t able to keep up.

Big data can be used for tons of purposes, including predicting the weather, guess future stock prices, and even analysing customer data. It may also be beneficial for protecting the environment and conserving our natural resources.

Fundamental elements of human rights must be safeguarded to realize the opportunities presented by big data: privacy, ethics and respect for data sovereignty require us to assess the rights of individuals along with the benefits of the collective.

There is also a risk of growing inequality and bias. Major gaps are already opening up between the data haves and have-nots. Without action, a whole new inequality frontier will split the world between those who know, and those who do not. Many people are excluded from the new world of data and information by language, poverty, lack of education, lack of technology infrastructure, remoteness or prejudice and discrimination.

Creating, storing, updating, indexing and copying data all requires resources. The comparison exists that if all data centres in the world would be a country, it would be the fifth largest consumer of energy. Data is also unintentionally duplicated, incorrect and unused wastes resources.

Many products and systems can derive from big data for multiple environmental protection uses. Sensors connected to water pumps can track access to clean water. Combining satellite imagery, crowd-sourced witness accounts and open data can help track deforestation. Maritime vessel tracking data can reveal illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities. Social media monitoring can support disaster management with real-time information on victim location, effects and strength of forest fires or haze

The paper "Oportunities for big data in conservation and Sustainability" by Rebecca Runting, Phinn, Xie & Venter, revealed ‘bright spots’ amongst the broad pattern of decline and crucially identify the key drivers, including deliberate policy interventions. For instance, while Hansen revealed dramatic declines in forest extent across the globe, forest loss in Brazil was decreasing by 1318 km through the 12 year period to 2012, primarily due to a progressive legal framework covering forests during the study period (although the change in government in 2019 has since reversed this trend).

Alan Keeso in his paper for Oxford University "Big Data and Environmental Sustainability: A Conversation Starter" talks about struggles with data reusability when one party should share with the others the information obtained. Lack of general standards by uniformity harmonisation and centralisation on global scale, data inconsistency between businesses sectors and countries.

It also suggest that there is a frustration from companies to see the lack of reciprocity data raised for sustainability proposes on their costumers. Only 30% in recent studies shop thinking about sustainability. This could plateau corporate big data developments toward sustainability efforts due to lowered incentive to invest in them.

It is essential that barriers to analysing big data and accessing derived products are removed. The governments and companies that own the technology to produce big data should open their resources to public use. The European case of example is Copernicus.

We need to develop tools to standardise data and get a proper diagnose environmental situation. Users need to understand the importance of this tools to promote investment,

How can we avoid that data collected is used for negative proposes?