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GEO-6 Regional Assessment for North America


and utilized to inform both policy responses and the public. Open data programmes such as open.canada.ca and data. gov are becoming increasingly popular to find data and resources for research. Data collection tools, ranging from satellite imagery and novel sensors to smart meter technologies, are effecting transformation and providing better options to respond to environmental emergencies (data.gov 2015).


Better data drives better decisions


In a time when the effects of climate change are more prevalent than ever, there is an urgent need for decision makers to identify and make use of new methods for tackling issues. The old approaches of monitoring, reporting and using laws, regulations and codes to manage and mitigate environmental problems may no longer hold. In a time of urgency, methods that provide speed, accuracy and flexibility to prevent or minimize environmental risks will have the most influence. The data revolution is well underway and offers unprecedented opportunities for businesses, governments and citizens to harness data for making informed decisions to protect the environment (IEAG 2014).


North America has made significant progress in utilizing data, informatics and analytics by getting data in the hands of decision makers to make system-critical changes; rapid assessment and detection of environmental risks; the management of complex systems and data visualization; and using behavioural economics to drive environmental performance. The iconic examples in the following section illustrate how North America is transforming data into actionable insights.


Timely and impactful decision-making


The new data landscape is permitting the delivery of usable information to decision makers who can make system-critical changes. This pathway is exploiting the power of a strong data infrastructure with near-universal reach, in combination with a vast increase in relevant data and a growing understanding of decision-maker needs. Precision agriculture is one of the most mature examples.


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Agricultural decision makers at all levels require access to quality information to address complex environmental and economic challenges. There has been exponential growth over the last decades in the amount of data collected on farms in Canada and the US Relevant and real-time data is being captured through yield monitors, smartphone apps, radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors and images from satellites or drones to support better decision-making (Heppner 2015). By taking advantage of data analytics, farmers can apply the right amount of care and resource in the right place at the right time to extract as much value from every seed and minimize the environmental impacts by reducing waste and energy use.


Nitrogen is an effective fertilizer for producing high crop yields, yet it can quickly transform from helpful to harmful as excess is leaked into the water, air and ground. This results in contamination of drinking water, eutrophication of rivers and lakes, emissions of the greenhouse gas – nitrous oxide, and other forms of nitrogen pollution. However, precision agriculture companies are offering software applications that enable farmers to efficiently apply nitrogen to their fields. Farmers can analyze and manage data collected on their fields and derive management zones from geospatial analysis to then accordingly vary the rate of applied fertilizer to those zones (Moran 2013).


The use of precision agriculture could extend well beyond the production of annual crops, it has the potential to revolutionize approaches used to monitor and manage orchards, livestock, and forests. New approaches in precision agriculture to collect real time data from the environment represent an important step towards high quality and sustainable agriculture.


This powerful data infrastructure,


universally applied, could help efforts to feed a global population of 9.6 billion by 2050 (Lowenberg-DeBoer 2015).


Rapid assessment and detection of environmental risks


Environmental emergencies, such as oil spills, groundwater contamination and the release of toxic waste, require rapid responses that demand the rapid utilization of extensive


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