Deploy New Technology to Monitor Green Impact

Context: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change must emphasize the use of emerging technologies to create a progressive Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) framework without diluting its provisions.

Challenges to Environment Conservation in India:

• Dilution of EIA Rules: The draft rules for EIA are worrying since there seems to be a dilution of scrutiny in favour of speeding up green approvals.

• Under-resourced Environment Regulatory Bodies: leading to delay in projects and also impacts the monitoring of sensitive projects.

The solution lies in the adoption of Technology: While renewable energy and electric vehicles have been discussed, there are several other ways in which technology can aid and accelerate impact assessment.

• Use Indicator Reporting Information System – 3 (IRIS-3): Developed by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), in partnership with Abu Dhabi Environment Data Initiative.

• IRIS-3 is a web platform, available as a remotely hosted or intranet app, that makes the assessment and reporting of environmental information at local, national, regional and global scales easier, faster and more unified
• Ease of doing Business: Reduces delays in clearances and approvals.

• Utilizing the startups-and green tech companies: to create new solutions to support the use of tech in EIA

• For, E.g. Laborious and time-consuming assessment of biodiversity on natural water bodies can be sped up by using bio-monitoring tools – examining by just checking the DNA in a few litres of water.
• It makes farming a full-time job, rather than a seasonal activity, to keep farmers gainfully occupied most of the time.

• In Efficient Mapping and Monitoring: 

• Using tech for pre-project assessment and the continuing impact can help them get over the problem of resources.
• Using space-tech and image mapping of areas is another way to monitor projects.

• Improved Ecological and Predictive Modelling:

• Improved sensors/visuals combined with drones and data analytics can assist with mapping of ecosystems that may be affected by a project and monitoring impacts when a project is implemented.
• Companies can be encouraged to use the Internet of Things (IoT)-based monitoring to assess the impact on the surrounding ecology; such IoT sensors are popular among manufacturing units.