Geography
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Environmental governance has the potential be significantly transformed by Smart Earth technologies, which deploy enhanced environmental monitoring via combinations of information and communication technologies (ICT), conventional monitoring technologies (e.g. remote sensing), and Internet of Things (IoT) applications (e.g. Environmental Sensor Networks (ESNs)). This paper presents a systematic meta-review of Smart Earth scholarship, focusing our analysis on the potential implications and pitfalls of Smart Earth technologies for environmental governance. We present a meta-review of academic research on Smart Earth, covering 3187 across the full range of academic disciplines from 1997 to 2017, ranging from ecological informatics to the digital humanities. We then offer a critical perspective on potential pathways for evolution in environmental governance frameworks, exploring five key Smart Earth issues relevant to environmental governance: data; real-time regulation; predictive management; open source; and citizen sensing. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research directions and trans-disciplinary conversations about environmental governance in a Smart Earth world.
Publication Title
Global Environmental Change
Publication Date
9-2018
Volume
52
First Page
201
Last Page
211
ISSN
0959-3780
DOI
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.07.011
Keywords
digital, eco-informatics, ecology, environmental governance, ICT, information and communications technology, internet of things, IoT, sensors, smart earth
Repository Citation
Bakker, Karen and Ritts, Max, "Smart Earth: A meta-review and implications for environmental governance" (2018). Geography. 806.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_geography/806
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Copyright Conditions
Published source must be acknowledged with citation:
Bakker, Karen, and Max Ritts. "Smart Earth: A meta-review and implications for environmental governance." Global environmental change 52 (2018): 201-211.
