Geography

Smart Environments: Implications for Environmental Governance

Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

Environmental governance has the potential to be significantly transformed by Smart Environments technologies, e.g., technologies that enabled enhanced environmental monitoring and analytic procedures via combinations of information and communication technologies (ICT), conventional monitoring approaches (e.g., remote sensing), and Internet of Things (IoT) applications (e.g., Environmental Sensor Networks (ESNs)). This chapter offers an update of a 2018 paper that assessed these developments through the term “Smart Earth, ” and which likewise engaged the potential implications and pitfalls of new digital technologies for environmental governance. Here, we offer a meta-review of research on what we now call “Smart Environments, ” ranging from ecological informatics to the digital humanities. We pair this with a critical perspective on pathways for evolution in environmental governance frameworks, exploring five key Smart Environments issues relevant to environmental governance: data, real-time regulation, predictive management, open source, and citizen sensing. We conclude with suggestions for future research directions and transdisciplinary conversations about environmental governance in a Smart Environments world. © The Author(s) 2025.

Publication Title

Smart Life and Smart Life Engineering: Current State and Future Vision

Publication Date

1-2025

First Page

91

Last Page

112

ISBN

9783031758874

DOI

10.1007/978-3-031-75887-4_5

Keywords

data, environmental governance, nature, smart technology

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