The Revival of Environmental Monitoring within New Scientific and Operational Paradigms

Abstract

The science of environmental monitoring is suffering from two major phenomena: exponential growth in the ability to obtain large amounts of data, and the way we communicate them. Today we are looking to develop methods to unify theoretical experiments with simulations taking into consideration the tera-bites of information that are being generated as a result of the development in wireless telecommunications, and then analyze them in real time and communicate them to relevant audiences relatively short after. In this sense, one of the most interesting emerging systems applied to environmental monitoring is what are called wireless sensor networks (WSN). Here they are presented, and some of their uses, advantages and challenges are explained.