Supporting Strategic Decision-Making on Climate Change Through Environmental Information Systems: The Case of ENVIS

This case study from the University of Manchester's "Climate Change, Innovation and ICTs" research project, funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and managed by the University's Centre for Development Informatics (CDI), reviews a national environmental information network created in India, learning lessons from both its achievements and shortcomings.

The Environmental Information System (ENVIS) is a largely decentralised network of distributed subject area centres seeking to support integration of national efforts in environmental information collection, collation, storage, retrieval and dissemination. It is a clearinghouse mechanism providing pointers to distributed environmental information for decision makers, policy planners, scientists and engineers, researchers, etc. Most partners have an ENVIS-specific website (often in addition to their own corporate site), intended to act as a portal for environmental information. Some 20 of these address climate change and the underlying causes of climate change with information on topics such as clean technology, renewable energy, ecological conservation, as well as on climate change itself.

Focusing on concern with the growth of environmental issues - particularly pollution and conservation - and the need for some coordinated means of accessing information, ENVIS involves information and communication technology (ICT) as, according to this research, "an essential foundation for this activity; particularly as information users increasingly expect - and demand - quick access to user-friendly and interactive information."

Benefits are described as those of coordination and economies of scale: enabling the individual centres to develop and disseminate information on climate change and environmental issues to their audiences. However, "[a]t the time of its 2002 upgrade, ENVIS ...cemented a network of organisations working on environmental issues, and led a number of the partner organisations to expand their remit to include climate change and associated information as part of their thematic area. It created a base of information that fed into COP8, and which also encouraged greater participation with that event. And it provided a number of partner organisations the technological means and support to develop their own websites and reach out to a wider audience. Since that time, it is clear that ENVIS' role has been more challenging, as institutions have built their own ICT and web infrastructure, enabling them to interact directly with their client constituencies. There have been reports and meetings... that are constituency focused....For many of the websites - which are not actively updated - it currently seems unlikely that they are having much impact. Some individual partners for individual issues... may have been of value and/or may provide a valuable baseline for future use."

Recommendations for the websites include the following:

• Ensure that design starts with a thorough user information needs assessment and includes user participation throughout.
• Find means to get those within the individual ENVIS centres engaged with practice in some way, such as providing information for a local project or providing information for a particular piece of climate change legislation or policy.
• Incentivise the information system/website manager and clerical staff to see a value in the work being done, for example, being recognised through a best website award.
• Embrace Web 2.0, including tools and support for video-conferencing and remote collaboration and social media.