environmental challenges

This paper explores how the Internet and the ICT and related research communities can help tackle environmental challenges in developing countries through more environmentally sustainable models of economic development, and examines the status of current and emerging environmentally friendly technologies, equipment and applications in supporting programs aimed at addressing climate change and improving energy efficiency. Discussion focuses on the role of ICTs in: (i) climate change mitigation (e.g.

The Adi tribal community inhabit the Siang river valley and foothills of the Eastern Himalayas of NorthEast India. Most farmers are smallholders, and practice jhum (slashandburn) cultivation. Together with difficult mountainous terrain, regular natural calamities, irregular monsoon rainfall, etc., this means agriculture is only for subsistence. 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and agricultural productivity has been among the lowest in India.

This White Paper aims at providing information on: - Impacts of ICT in mitigation of the Climate Change problems; - National policies to deploy and promote Green ICT activities; - Green ICT activities of various SDOs, consortia and fora; - Performance indicators to facilitate Green ICT; and - Green ICT use cases to reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency. This document also intends to help Green ICT stakeholders such as government, SDOs, companies, and R/D engineers understand current status on Green ICT deployment and standardization activities.

For disaster exploration and surveillance application, this paper aims to present a novel application of a multi-robot agent based on WSN and to evaluate multi-hop communications supported by robotics used in subterranean tunnel. The paper proposes a Primary-Scout Multi-Robot System (PSMRS) and reports on the implementation of a chain topology in a subterranean environment using a trimmed ZigBee2006 protocol stack to build the multi-hop communication network.

Higher frequency and diffusion of climate fluctuations are likely to produce more severe and frequent droughts and floods, which are the main causes of short-term fluctuations in food production in semiarid and sub-humid areas. Taking this into account, it is crucial to identify information and communication systems that the farmers need in order to cope with the new conditions. This paper aims to provide more information and knowledge on the role of information and communication technologies for community-based adaptation to climate change.

In developed nations, information systems are now an indispensable part of most people’s lives. In developing nations, information systems are a means of enabling communication and exchange where no such infrastructure existed before, and that in turn creates many new opportunities from education to economic development. But the development of the global communications network, and the equipment attached to it, has come at a cost.

This paper considers the extent to which climate change has become a strategic priority for information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) organisations. Through a survey of 30 ICT4D organisations primarily from developing countries, as well as an overview of the thematic interests of authors participating in a recent publication on ICTs and environmental sustainability, it shows that there is a predominant interest in adaptation strategies in developing contexts.

Climate change presents two types of disaster threat in developing countries. One is the potentially devastating impact on vulnerable communities of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events. This contributes to the second threat, the compounding of what are already complex development problems leading to a potential downward development spiral for the world’s poor. Effective disaster response demands rapid access to reliable and accurate data and the capacity to assess, analyse and integrate information from varied sources. ICTs can contribute to improve this.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have proven useful in tailoring responses to situations arising out of the climate-water nexus. ICTs have emerged as a strong way to understand water security challenges. They are increasingly being adopted as key decision support mechanisms for adapting to climate change effects in the developing world. However, ICTs must not be considered simply a panacea for water security. Rather, they are tools that can be smartly used in developing appropriate responses to problems in the water climate change arena.

This module provides government officials and policymakers with an overview of disaster risk management (DRM) and presents an approach for identifying information needs in DRM. It then matches the needs with ICT. The module also describes and provides examples of existing ICT applications for DRM and discusses benefits and barriers for utilizing ICT in DRM.