Monitoring, surveillance and empowerment - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 112

greatly enhances the amount of data generated, but also the instanta-
neous availability of data.
Third, there is a clear development from making point source data
available in numerical tables towards the combination of environmen-
tal information with geographical mapping. Increasingly, monitoring
information is available and presented via geographical information
system maps on Internet, often in combination with data presentation
formats that make environmental information accessible and under-
standable also for nonexperts. A wide variation of models, formats
and presentation techniques appear. There is a clear tendency to link
this with increased traceability of pollutions to the geographical sources
or - if it concerns products - to the origin in product chains, putting
more emphasis on the dynamic environmental flows than on only the
static sinks.
Fourth, there is a clear tendency to include a larger number of actors
in monitoring on three fronts: with respect to monitoring agencies, with
respect to actors that have access to monitoring data and with respect
to actors that are monitored from an environmental point of view. 4 The
strong monopolisation of environmental monitoring activities, of envi-
ronmental data ownership, and of data dissemination control by the
state and economic powers seems to have gone. “One of the remark-
able stories behind the Information Age is how much environmen-
tally relevant data and knowledge is being generated and shared with-
out any plan, governmental mandate, or structured set of incentives”
(Esty, 2004 ). In that sense, one could speak of a diversification and
democratisation of environmental monitoring. Environmental moni-
toring is no longer the privilege of national governments and large
(transnational) companies. Consumers, citizens, customers, insurance
companies, nature lovers, public transport users and others are reg-
ularly involved in monitoring of various activities (production, prod-
ucts, mobility, services, utility provisioning, investments, trade, etc.)
regarding numerous environmental qualities. Although there is clearly
a democratisation taking place in monitoring activities, at first sight
this seems to be also the case with respect to access to monitoring data.

4

Matthews ( 2001 ;asquoted in Esty, 2004 ) foresees a time when humans are
equipped with a digital skin that records in detail the pollution impacts they are
facing. There are more of these - at first sight, science fiction-like - ideas that
in the end prove not to be too far from reality.