Abstract
Earth Observation (EO) data can enhance understanding of human-environmental systems for the creation of climate data services, or Decision Support Systems (DSS), to improve monitoring, prediction and mitigation of climate harm. However, EO data is not always incorporated into the workflow for decision-makers for a multitude of reasons including awareness, accessibility and collaboration models. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate a collaborative model that addresses historical power imbalances between communities. This paper highlights a case study of a climate harm mitigation DSS collaboration between the Space Enabled Research Group at the MIT Media Lab and Green Keeper Africa (GKA), an enterprise located in Benin. GKA addresses the management of an invasive plant species that threatens ecosystem health and economic activities on Lake Nokoué. They do this through a social entrepreneurship business model that aims to advance both economic empowerment and environmental health. In demonstrating a Space Enabled-GKA collaboration model that advances GKA's business aims, this study first considers several popular service and technology design methods and offer critiques of each method in terms of their ability to address inclusivity in complex systems. These critiques lead to the selection of the Systems Architecture Framework (SAF) as the technology design method for the case study. In the remainder of the paper, the SAF is applied to the case study to demonstrate how the framework coproduces knowledge that would inform a DSS with Earth Observation data. The paper offers several practical considerations and values related to epistemology, data collection, prioritization and methodology for performing inclusive design of climate data services.
Highlights
Today, approximately 3 billion people, about half of the world’s 7.5 billion population, live within 200 km of a coastline
Water is sometimes used as a dumping ground for waste disposal; this use of water could be seen as an ecosystem service for one actor (Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007)
“Environmental governance” is not equivalent to “government.” Environmental Governance refers to the interventions aimed at changing knowledge, decision-making and behaviors as it pertains to the environment
Summary
Approximately 3 billion people, about half of the world’s 7.5 billion population, live within 200 km of a coastline. Other actors who interact with the same water body and rely on fishing for subsistence, may find that the waste disposal affects this important economic activity, which could be considered an ecosystem service Another example that illustrates this is the benefits derived from tropical rain forests. Since different stakeholders perceive different benefits from the same ecosystem, the benefits can at times be conflicting or outright antithesis (Turner et al, 2003; Hein et al, 2006) These examples illustrate the complexity of theses socio-ecological systems and the importance of “Environmental Governance,” a concept in political ecology and environmental policy that advocates sustainability as the supreme consideration for managing all human activities-political, social, and economic. The SDGs set priorities that the member states choose to adopt in order to advance global and local sustainability
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