Application of Virtual Worlds to Environmental Security

Abstract

Virtual worlds are online replicas of real-world environments, often geospatially accurate and globally complete. In many cases, they combine not only the physical environment, but also the human-oriented environment through virtual representations of people called avatars. Governments, businesses, and consumers are all users of this emerging technology, focused on applications such as social networking, engineering collaboration, education, enterprise management, and more. Virtual worlds hold tremendous promise for environmental security applications. They can be used to catalog, analyze, and visualize the environment as it exists today, as it once existed, or as it may exist in the future. They can also provide simulations of environmental security scenarios that are too dangerous, impractical, or unethical to either create or experience in the real world.