As a result of the Mountain-EVO project, an article has appeared on-line in the journal Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability on Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs). It has been written by scholars from Imperial College, Birmingham University and Wageningen University, led by the project postdocs Timothy Karpouzoglou and Zed Zulkafli.
Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs): prospects for knowledge co-creation and resilience in the Information Age
Timothy Karpouzoglou, Zed Zulkafli, Sam Grainger, Art Dewulf, Wouter Buytaert, David M Hannah
Developments in technologies are shaping information access globally. This presents opportunities and challenges for understanding the role of new technologies in sustainability research. This article focuses on a suite of technologies termed Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs) developed for communicating observations and simulation of environmental processes. A strength of EVOs is that they are open and decentralised, thus democratising flow and ownership of information between multiple actors. However, EVOs are discussed rarely beyond their technical aspects. By evaluating the evolution of EVOs, we illustrate why it is timely to engage with policy and societal aspects as well. While first generation EVOs are primed for scientists, second generation EVOs can have broader implications for knowledge co-creation and resilience through their participatory design.
The article is Open Access and can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.07.015
Karpouzoglou, T., Zulkafli, Z., Grainger, S., Dewulf, A., Buytaert, W., & Hannah, D. M. (2016). Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs): prospects for knowledge co-creation and resilience in the Information Age. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18, 40–48. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2015.07.015
