Report on environmental problem

Practical solutions to environmental challenges: using GIS as action tool for civil society

Human behavior, often lacking environmental awareness and the sense for responsibility leaves its marks on our pristine nature: polluted rivers, waste dumps and hazardous spills are consequences of our life style. Together they have a huge impact on our environment.

Different authorities try to reduce and control the various kinds of pollution by enforcing a diverse framework of environmental legislation, spending considerable resources in their efforts. However, the results are questionable and any effort, which does not educate and involve the public, might ultimately fail. Thus, a public initiative, lately named “Guarding Earth”, evolved in Lithuania, a small Eastern European country with the aim to provide a tool to link the concerned public with environmental authorities to stimulate concrete action to combat environmental pollution.

“Guarding Earth” is based on ESRI technologies; it integrates web-based GIS with a desktop application, allowing the general public to easily report observed environmental problems by precisely locating and describing the location on the map. This information is directly passed on to environmental NGOs, who operate as solution-oriented intermediaries to the environmental authorities.

How the “Guarding Earth” tool looks like?

This is the Lithuanian version of the web page.

You can zoom the map here.

The status of the problem indicates the stage of the problem solution:

False information – this status is attributed to problematic locations were environmental violations were not recorded after inspection. This status is also attributed to anonymous reports and reports that are not addressed to environmental issues.

Not solved - this status is attributed to environmental challenges which were not solved due to technical or financial circumstances or a proper solution was not found.

Being solved – this status means that the report was sent to the responsible authorities and we are waiting for their response about the solution; or the problem is communicated with the responsible authorities and the most appropriate solution is in search.

Solved – responsible authorities informed us that the problem is solved or will be solved shortly. This status is also attributed to such cases when the violator is fined and is obliged to eliminate the violation.

Solved and inspected – this status is attributed to the problems which are solved and inspected in order to find out, whether the violation is eliminated.

All– all reported problems are indicated on the map

There are several initiatives, which use similar technological approaches, offering the public GIS-based solutions. What is it that makes “Guarding Earth” unique and successful? It is the specific workflow, its transparency, interactive approach and the real impact on the environment.

Cooperation between sectors within the workflow. “Guarding Earth” enables the cooperation between civil society, business and state environmental authorities on environmental problems reported by individuals. The process is facilitated through motivated environmental NGOs. Business, which specializes on working with GIS, provides the GIS baseline data and the technological solutions necessary to conduct “Guarding Earth”. The technology enables civil society to report its observations about environmental challenges in form of a simple data sheet, which is stacked to the marked place in high-resolution digital maps. The reported problem is immediately reported to an environmental NGO, where the data are stored in the database. The NGO’s volunteers then classify the type of the problem and identify the institution which is responsible for addressing and solving the problem. They alert the institution to the problem as well as feedback to the individual, which has submitted the case. If needed, they attain additional information on the reported problem to enable proper decision-making. They also monitor the implementation and evaluate the result. The project design allows citizens to provide specific case-related information to a one-stop shop channel without having to know anything about environmental legislation and responsible institutions.

Transparency on-line. This feature allows observing the status of each registered problem “live” and on-line. The GIS based map provides statistical data about the status of registered problems in a geographical dimension. Such information enables interested and involved parties to follow the process of addressing each individual problem. The data sheet supplied for each problem provides information about the problem itself; it names the institution dealing with the specific problem and gives information regarding the solution status. The overall view on the status of all problems in the region or nationally allows an estimate of the general performance of the initiative. The ArcGIS version 10 provides even more opportunities – the user can add a comment to each problem from the field, attach pictures and provide evidence useful for the enforcement institutions. In this way the project offers feedback opportunities to interested individual and groups to track the real progress: an illegal toxic waste dump might have been reported to the authorities; the perpetrators might have been identified and are legally prosecuted, while the dump itself has not been cleaned up.

The interactive approach encourages participation by everyone. “Guarding Earth” runs on an interactive maps (www.maps.lt) portal based on ESRI technologies and has 25 000 visitors daily. It is integrated with other tools, such as finding addresses and locations; planning travel routes and measuring distances. This ensures a great number of contacts and wide visibility amongst users interested in map features. The initiative is also communicated to specific communities such as environmentalists, travelers and anglers through web banners and media coverage.

The project’s positive impact on the environment. Over a period of 1.5 years of project implementation more than 1000 reports were received from the public. The biggest number of the reports (63%) dealt with the illegal dumping of waste (a third of these reports concerned the dumping of used cars). The majority of the reported problems could be solved as a result of well-managed workflow run by the motivated NGO volunteers as well as cooperative and well-informed environmental authorities. The status of the problems reported is monitored on a regular basis. If progress is lacking or too slow then the NGO volunteers remind the authorities concerned after a period of one month.

For more information please see section “RESULTS”.