INTRODUCTION
To analyse the causes that are effecting our environment, let’s brain storm and list down various aspects and analyse where technology can assist us find a solution:
1. Pollution factors: The major factors contributing to pollution are transportation (vehicles on air, roads, and sea), factories being built, and new construction everywhere.
2. Human behaviour / habits: Due to religious/social reasons, weather patterns, consumption for resources / needs would differ from place to place (villages/cities)
3. Resources Identification / Harvesting: Certain cities/villages may have abundant water supplies but shortage of electricity - vice versa could be the case with another village. There may be resources which are probably under utilised – like a construction of Dam, etc.
4. Consumption statistics – Wastage: Identify consumption statistics for a village/city over the year. This would help us identify spikes for which further analysis can be carried out.
5. Research and development of new techniques: Investing into R & D for innovating into solar energy, natural resources, new projects like Dam construction etc.
COMPUTERISATION
The major areas where IT systems/computerisation can play an important role are:
1. Data Warehousing/Mining:
o Capture data from various sub-systems; provide various interfaces for capturing data.
o Warehouse historic data
2. Reporting:
o Village/city-wise reporting to check consumption statistics, demand shortfalls.
o Reports on allocated funds
o Feasibility reporting for decision making and take corrective actions
3. Transparency and remove corruption: Automation and reporting can help track corruption and bring about transparency in processes.
SOLUTION PROPOSAL
1. Introduce a Grading system:
The quickest way to tell how any place, city or individual is performing is via Grades. Introducing a Grading system for the factors/aspects listed above; this vital step will introduce transparency into the system and immediately reflect on whether appropriate actions are taken to address/improve problems.
• Grade locations/cities for Resources: Each city or village should have grading, which determines its resources. An example of grading system is given below:
City: Pune, Maharashtra
Water resources: 7/10 (plenty of rivers dams)
Electricity: 4/10 (shortage of xxx)
CO emission: 2/10 (one of the highest polluting cities)
Innovation: 7/10 (New projects undertaken for water harvesting, solar power)
Overall Rating: 6.5 / 10
2. Introduce an Environment Tax: This may not go down very well with Citizens but taxes should be levied for polluting/wasting resources in our environment.
3. Rebates: Provide rebates/refunds for eco-friendly usage or initiatives like planting trees, providing proper facilities for sewage disposal etc.