Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Policy Analytics Tool to Identify Gaps in Environmental Governance

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Policy Analytics, Modelling, and Informatics

Part of the book series: Public Administration and Information Technology ((PAIT,volume 25))

Abstract

Persistent and emerging social and environmental issues require new approaches and tools to help develop policies that address the complexities inherent in these problems. Here a policy informatics tool, developed iteratively with the feedback of ocean and coastal domain experts, is presented. The tool relies on two user inputs: a conceptually modelled ecosystem and a compilation of policy documents that covers a given jurisdiction of interest. With these inputs the user can explore what ecosystem components and linkages are potentially acknowledged in policy and which are not. The linkage acknowledgement is based on a co-occurrence of key terms. When viewing highly complex ecosystems (or other systems), the tool offers an efficient way to systematically identify potential gaps in policy and where relevant policies do exist that could be leveraged to cover emerging environmental issues. While the tool is simple in its design, the development with the potential user-community (policy makers, government staff, and ecosystem scientists) demonstrates the usefulness even in such a modest form and the desire for creative, but transparent and accessible, policy analytic tools.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Abbreviations

MINOE:

Management Identification for the Needs of Ocean Ecosystems

EBM:

Ecosystem-based management

DFO:

Department of Fisheries and Oceans

DPSIR:

Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response

ICES:

International Council for Exploration of the Sea

References

  • Ban NC, Maxwell SM, Dunn DC et al (2014) Better integration of sectoral planning and management approaches for the interlinked ecology of the open oceans. Mar Policy 49:127–136. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2013.11.024

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bergsten A, Galafassi D, Bodin O (2014) The problem of spatial fit in social-ecological systems: detecting mismatches between ecological connectivity and land management in an urban region. Ecol Soc 19(4):6

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biermann F et al (2009) The fragmentation of global governance architectures: a framework for analysis. Glob Environ Polit 9(4):14–40. Available via http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/glep.2009.9.4.14#.VuckA_krKUk. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Bodin Ö, Tengö M (2012) Disentangling intangible social–ecological systems. Glob Environ Chang 22:430–439. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.01.005

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boehlert B et al (2015) Climate change impacts and greenhouse gas mitigation effects on U.S. water quality. J Adv Model Earth Syst 7(3):1326–1338. Available via http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/2014MS000400

  • Borgström S, Bodin Ö, Sandström A, Crona B (2015) Developing an analytical framework for assessing progress toward eco-system-based management. Ambio 44:357–369. doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0655-7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell JB, Wynne RH (2011) Introduction to remote sensing, 5th edn. Guilford Publications, Inc., New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (2014) Ecosystem approach sourcebook. Available via https://www.cbd.int/ecosystem/sourcebook/default.shtml. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Cook C (2014) Governing jurisdictional fragmentation: tracing patterns of water governance in Ontario, Canada. Geoforum 56:192–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cookey PE, Rotchanatch D, Ratanachai C (2017) Text mining analysis of institutional fit of Lake Basin water governance. Ecol Indic 72:640–658

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cormier R et al (2013) Marine and coastal ecosystem-based risk management handbook. ICES Cooperative Research Report No. 317, Copenhagen, Denmark. Available via http://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication Reports/Cooperative Research Report (CRR)/crr317/CRR317 Marine and coastal ecosystem based risk management handbook.pdf. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Cortner HJ et al (1998) Institutions matter: the need to address the institutional challenges of ecosystem management. Landscape and Urban Planning, pp 159–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Council of Europe (2000) European Landscape Convention, ETS No. 176

    Google Scholar 

  • Crowder L et al (2006) Resolving mismatches in U.S. ocean governance. Science 313(5787):617–618. Available via http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;313/5787/617. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Dawes SS, Janssen M (2013) Policy informatics: addressing complex problems with rich data, computational tools, and stakeholder engagement. In: Proceedings of the 14th annual international conference on digital government research, pp 251–253. doi:10.1145/2479724.2479759

  • Doremus H (2009) CALFED and the quest for optimal institutional fragmentation. Environ Sci Pol 12(6):729–732

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edberg SJ, Evans DL, Graf JE et al (2016) Studying earth in the new millennium: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s contributions to earth science and applications space agencies. IEEE Geosci Remote Sens Mag 4:26–39. doi:10.1109/MGRS.2016.2525678

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ekstrom JA, Crona BI (2017) Institutional misfit and environmental change: a systems approach to address ocean acidification. Sci Total Environ 576:599–608. Available via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.114. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Ekstrom JA, Young OR (2009) Evaluating functional fit between a set of institutions and an ecosystem. Ecol Soc 14(2):16. Available via http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art16/. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Ekstrom JA, Lau GT, Cheng JCP, Spiteri DJ, Law KH (2010) Gauging agency involvement in environmental management using text analysis of laws and regulations. I/S J Law Policy Inf Soc 6:189–210

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekstrom JA et al (2011) Application of the MINOE regulatory analysis framework: case studies. In: Proceedings of the 12th annual international conference on digital government research. Universitiy of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

    Google Scholar 

  • Farman JC, Gardiner BG, Shanklin JD (1985) Large losses of total ozone in Antarctica reveal seasonal ClOx/NOx interaction. Nature 315(6016):207–210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fidelman P, Ekstrom JA (2012) Mapping seascapes of international environmental arrangements in the Coral Triangle. Mar Policy 36(5):993–1004. Available via http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X12000139. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Fischer J, Gardner T, Bennett E, Balvanera P, Biggs R et al (2015) Advancing sustainability through mainstreaming a social-ecological systems perspective. Curr Opin Envir Sust 14:144–149. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2015.06.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fogarty MJ, Rose K (2014) The art of ecosystem-based fishery management. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 71:479–490. doi:10.1139/cjfas-2013-0203

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Folke C, Pritchard L, Berkes F, Colding J, Svedin U (2007) The problem of fit between ecosystems and institutions: ten years later. Ecol Soc 12:30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galster G et al (2001) Wrestling sprawl to the ground: defining and measuring an elusive concept. Hous Policy Debate 12(4):681–717. Available via http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511482.2001.9521426. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Halpern BS et al (2012) An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean. Nature 488(7413):615–620. Available via http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22895186. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Halpern BS et al (2015) Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world’s ocean. Nat Commun 6:7615

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Imperial MT, Hennessey TM (1996) An ecosystem-based approach to managing estuaries: an assessment of the national estuary program. Coast Manag 24:115–139

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs S, Van Daele T, Staes J, Schneiders A (2015) “The Matrix Reloaded”: a re-view of expert knowledge use for mapping ecosystem services. Ecol Model 295:21–30. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.08.024

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Janssen M, Wimmer MA (2015) Introduction to policy-making in the digital age. In: Policy practice and digital science. Springer, Cham, pp 1–14

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Juda L (2003) Obstacles to ecosystem-based management. In: UNESCO, Paris, pp 67–71

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerr JT, Ostrovsky M (2003) From space to species: ecological applications for remote sensing. Trends Ecol Evol 18:299–305. doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(03)00071-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim RE (2013) The emergent network structure of the multilateral environmental agreement system. Glob Environ Chang 23:980–991. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.07.006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lau GT, Law KH, Wiederhold G (2005) Analyzing government regulations using structural and domain information. Computer 38(12):70–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lau GT, Law KH, Wiederhold G (2006) A relatedness analysis of government regulations using domain knowledge and structural organization. Inf Retr 9(6):657–680

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Law KH (2006) A distributed information management framework (REGNET) for environmental laws and regulations. In: Proceedings of the 2006 national conference on digital government research - dg.o ‘06. ACM Press, New York, p 423. Available via http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1146598.1146730. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Law KH (2014) REGNET: regulatory information management, compliance and analysis. Govern Inf Q 31:S37–S48. Available via http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740624X14000549. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Law KH, Taduri S, Lau GT, Kesan JP (2015) An ontology-based approach for retrieving information from disparate sectors in government: the patent system as an exemplar. In: 48th annual Hawaii international conference on system sciences, Kauai, HI, pp 2096–2105. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2015.252

  • Leal-Arcas R, Filis A (2013) The fragmented governance of the global energy economy: a legal-institutional analysis. J World Energy Law Bus 6(4):348–405

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levin PS, Williams GD, Rehr A, Norman KC, Harvey CJ (2015) Developing conservation targets in social-ecological systems. Ecol Soc 20(4):6. doi:10.5751/ES-07866-200406

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McGinnis MD, Ostrom E (2014) Social-ecological system framework: initial changes and continuing challenges. Ecol Soc 19(2):30. doi:10.5751/ES-06387-190230

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McLeod KL et al (2005) Scientific consensus statement on marine ecosystem-based management. Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea. Available via http://compassonline.org/?q=EBM. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Monnahan CC, Branch TA, Punt AE (2015) Do ship strikes threaten the recovery of endangered eastern North Pacific blue whales? Mar Mamm Sci 31:279–297. doi:10.1111/mms.12157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newton J et al (2000) A conceptual model for environmental monitoring of a marine system developed for the Puget Sound ambient monitoring program (PSAMP). Available via http://www.monitor2manage.com.au/userdata/downloads/p_/Puget%20Sound%20Environment%20monitoring%20model.pdf. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Olsen SB et al (2006) A handbook on governance and socioeconomics of large marine ecosystems. Coastal Resources Center: University of Rhode Island. Available via http://www.iwlearn.net/abt_iwlearn/pns/learning/lme-gov-handbook.pdf. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Pew Oceans Commission (Pew) (2003) America’s living oceans: charting a course for sea change. Available via http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2003/06/02/americas-living-oceans-charting-a-course-for-sea-change. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Piñon Carlarne C (2008) Good climate governance: only a fragmented system of international law away? Law Policy 30(4):450–480. doi10.1111/j.1467-9930.2008.00289.x

  • Raakjaer J, van Leeuwen J, van Tatenhove J, Hadjimichael M (2014) Ecosystem-based marine management in European regional seas calls for nested governance structures and coordination—a policy brief. Mar Policy 50:373–381. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2014.03.007

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Redfern J, McKenna M, Moore T et al (2013) Assessing the risk of ships striking large whales in marine spatial planning. Conserv Biol 27:292–302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg AA, McLeod K (2005) Implementing ecosystem-based approaches for its management. Ocean Coast Manage 44:729–756

    Google Scholar 

  • de Sherbinin A, Kline K, Raustiala K (2002) Remote sensing data: valuable support for environmental treaties. Environ Sci Policy Sustain Dev 44:20–31. doi:10.1080/00139150209605589

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sutinen JG et al (2000) A framework for monitoring and assessing socioeconomics and governance of large marine ecosystems. NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-158. Northeast Fisheries Science Center

    Google Scholar 

  • Treml EA, Halpin PN (2012) Marine population connectivity identifies ecological neighbors for conservation planning in the Coral Triangle. Conserv Lett 5(6):441–449. doi10.1111/j.1755-263X.2012.00260.x

  • Treml EA, Fidelman, PJ, Kininmonth S, Ekstrom, JA, Bodin O (2015) Analyzing the (mis)fit between the institutional and ecological networks of the Indo-West Pacific. Glob Environ Change 31:263–271. Available via http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937801500014X

  • US Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP) (2004) An ocean blueprint for the 21st century final report of the U.S. Commission on ocean policy. Available via http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/oceancommission/documents/full_color_rpt/welcome.html. Accessed 5 Nov 2016

  • Vatn A, Vedeld P (2012) Fit, interplay, and scale: a diagnosis. Ecol Soc 17:12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Visbeck M, Kronfeld-Goharani U, Neumann B et al (2014) Securing blue wealth: the need for a special sustainable development goal for the ocean and coasts. Mar Policy 48:184–191. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2014.03.005

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young OR (1996) Institutional linkages in international society: polar perspectives. Glob Gov 2:1–24

    Google Scholar 

  • Young OR (2002) The institutional dimensions of environmental change: fit, interplay, and scale. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Our thanks to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (Ecosystem-Based Management Tools Initiative Fund), California Sea Grant and the California Ocean Protection Council for supporting this research. The authors would also like to acknowledge partial support by the National Science Foundation grant IIS-0811460 and the Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Special thanks to Hannah Torres of University of South Florida for assistance in preparing the 2013 federal policy dataset. Any opinion expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the National Science Foundation or their collaborators.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Julia A. Ekstrom

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering Informatics Group, Stanford University, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA, 94305-4020, USA

    Gloria T. Lau & Kincho H. Law

Authors
  1. Julia A. Ekstrom
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gloria T. Lau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kincho H. Law
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julia A. Ekstrom .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Technology in Government & Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York, USA

    J Ramon Gil-Garcia

  2. Center for Technology in Government & Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York, USA

    Theresa A. Pardo

  3. Center for Technology in Government & Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York, USA

    Luis F. Luna-Reyes

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Ekstrom, J.A., Lau, G.T., Law, K.H. (2018). Policy Analytics Tool to Identify Gaps in Environmental Governance. In: Gil-Garcia, J., Pardo, T., Luna-Reyes, L. (eds) Policy Analytics, Modelling, and Informatics. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61762-6_13

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation