Environmental Risk Management – At a Glance
The World Bank’s new Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) was launched on Oct 1, 2018.
China has the most number of large dams globally ( 23,841 according to the ICOLD).
One billion people (15% of the world’s population) experience some form of disability and this is more prevalent in developing countries. About 110-190 million people experience significant disabilities (source: The World Bank ).
The World Bank has introduced an Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) since October 1, 2018 which comprises ten Environmental and Social Standards (ESS).
What is environmental risk? - the following video explains how humans have understood risk in their changing environments through history.
The World Bank launched a Sovereign ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Data Portal in October 2019. The portal is designed to help investors better align ESG analysis with key sustainable development policy indicators and analysis, while also increasing data transparency and support private sector investments in emerging markets and developing countries. The platform provides individual country dashboards for a selection of ESG indicators. Various other indicators can be selected with regional and global aggregates for reference through an interactive data explorer .
During preparation of investments, due diligence by financiers and regulatory agencies requires an appropriate assessment of environmental, social, and other risks. As part of the mitigation and management measures, there is also a need for regular reporting on various aspects to facilitate adaptive management. All this requires a reliance on integrating inputs from a range of sources, stakeholder consultations, and appropriate analytics to facilitate insights and decisions at various levels.
Technology can play a significant role in this process, with inputs from earth observation (satellites and drones), in-situ sensors/cameras and structured and unstructured “crowdsourcing” using online portals/apps/sms/social media, etc. as well as modeled information (increasingly facilitated by machine learning/AI). These inputs could be from free sources as well as paid subscription services and both are becoming extremely powerful as harmonized, inter-operable systems get used and more data and analytics are placed in the public-domain.
These could take the form of dashboard to allow users to develop integrated visualizations of appropriate analytics to facilitate environmental risk management (e.g. visually comparing high-resolution satellite imagery of different dates to see the status of construction sites, borrow pits, resettlement, etc. or exploring water use elements in a watershed context). Interactive reports could further add descriptive elements and flow to a narrative and still provide interactive access to appropriate interactive maps, charts, and other graphics as well as videos (e.g. of various stakeholders). Communication technologies could be used to better interact with stakeholders virtually when travel is restricted and to improve efficiency in some cases.
There are also a range of more cutting-edge options that could become more mainstreamed to manage environmental risks. For example, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is allowing the creation of 3D (or 4D with 3D models explorable over time) to understand visually what is the current status of any construction using inputs from a range of different sources.
Construction sites could also become very different from what they are today – with advances in 3D printing (even of buildings and bridges), robotic exoskeletons for humans doing heavy lifting, drones and robots, automated vehicles and equipment, embedded and external sensors, virtual reality interfaces for modern construction information systems such as BIM or digital twins.
So not only with technology help support remote preparation and supervision of projects overall, including on managing environmental risks, they will also create completely new sets of issues that will become important to rethink environmental risks and their management.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the need for using tools of remote preparation and supervision.