7.

8 ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTH The understanding of environmental concerns and issues related to human health has exploded during the last few years due to the sudden growth of Information Technology. The computer age has turned the world around due to the incredible rapidity with which IT spreads knowledge. IT can do several tasks extremely rapidly, accurately and spread the information through the worlds networks of millions of computer systems. A few examples of the use of computer technology that aid environmental studies include software such as using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). GIS is a tool to map landuse patterns and document change by studying digitized toposheets and/or satellite imagery. Once this is done, an expert can ask a variety of questions which the software can answer by producing maps which helps in landuse planning.

CASE STUDY Karnatakas GIS scheme, Bhoomi, has revolutionized the way farmers access their land records. Farmers can now get a copy of the records of rights, tenancy and crops from a computerized information kiosk without harassment and bribes. Karnataka has computerized 20 million records of land ownership of 6.7 million farmers in the State.

The Internet with its thousands of websites has made it extremely simple to get the appropriate environmental information for any study or en247 vironmental management planning. This not only assists scientists and students but is a powerful tool to help increase public awareness about environmental issues. Specialised software can analyse data for epidemiological studies, population dynamics and a variety of key environmental concerns. The relationship between the environment and health has been established due to the growing utilisation of computer technology. This looks at infection rates, morbidity or mortality(

diseased state: the presence of illness or diseases.

study of causes: the philosophical investigation of causes and origins 2. medical specialty: the branch of medicine that investigates the causes and origins of disease 3. cause of disease: the set of factors that contributes to the occurrence of a disease

As knowledge expands, computers will become increasingly efficient. They will be faster, have greater memories and even perhaps begin to think for themselves. ) and the etiology (causative factors) of a disease (

GIS is a rapidly growing technological field that incorporates graphical features with tabular data in order to assess real-world problems. What is now the GIS field began around 1960, with the discovery that map could be programmed using simple code and then stored in a computer allowing for future modification when necessary. This was a welcome change from the era of hand cartography when maps had to be painstakingly created by hand; even small changes could require the creation of a new map. The earliest version of a GIS was known as computer cartography and involved simple line work to represent land features. From that evolved the concept of overlaying different mapped features on top of each other to determine patterns and causes of spatial phenomenon.

The capabilities of GIS are a far cry from the simple beginnings of computer cartography. At the simplest level, GIS can be thought of as a high-tech equivalent of a map. However, not only can paper maps be produced far quicker and more efficiently, the storage of data in an easily accessible digital format enables complex analysis and modeling not previously possible. The reach of GIS expands into all disciplines and has been used for such widely ranged problems as prioritizing sensitive species habitat to determining optimal real estate locations for new businesses. The key word to this technology is Geography - this usually means that the data (or at least some proportion of the data) is spatial, in other words, data that is in some way referenced to locations on the earth. Coupled with this data is usually tabular data known as attribute data. A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information in order to solve complex planning and management problems. A simple definition is that GIS is a computer system which can hold and use data in describing places on the earths surface. A GIS can be divided into five components: People, Data, Hardware, Software, and Procedures. People are the vital component of GIS. They are the ones who actually make the GIS work. They are responsible for maintenance of the geographic database and provide technical support. People also need to be educated to make decisions on what type of system to use. People associated with a GIS can be categorized into: viewers, general users, and GIS specialists. Viewers are the public at large whose only need is to browse a geographic database for referential material. General Users are people who use GIS to conducting business, performing professional services, and making decisions. GIS specialists are responsible for the maintenance of the geographic database and the provision of technical support to the other two classes of users. Procedures include how the data will be retrieved, input into the system, stored, managed, transformed, analyzed, and finally presented in a final output. Hardware consists of the technical equipment needed to run a GIS including a computer system with enough power to run the software, enough memory to store large amounts of data, and input and output devices such as scanners, digitizers, GPS data loggers, media disks, and printers. Software packages must be capable of data input, storage, management, transformation, analysis, and output, but the appearance, methods, resources, and ease of use of the various systems may be very different. Todays software packages are capable of allowing both graphical and descriptive data to be stored in a single database, known as the object-relational model.

Perhaps the most time consuming and costly aspect of initiating a GIS is creating a database. There are several things to consider before acquiring geographic data. It is crucial to check the quality of the data before obtaining it. Errors in the data set can add many unpleasant and costly hours to implementing a GIS and the results and conclusions of the GIS analysis most likely will be wrong. Geographic information system technology can be used for scientific investigations, resource management, asset management, archaeology, environmental impact assessment, urban planning, cartography, criminology, geographic history, marketing, logistics, Prospectivity Mapping, and other purposes. For example, GIS might allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response times in the event of a natural disaster, GIS might be used to find wetlands that need protection from

pollution, or GIS can be used by a company to site a new business location to take advantage of a previously under-served market. Common practical applications include mapping out environmental layers to characterize a site and predict site potential. GIS helps in routing of roads, transmission lines, pipelines, sewer, and network analysis. It maps and manages urban infrastructure including base maps, tax, cubs, water supply, drainage, electricity, telephone, and gas. Another application is spatially examining socio and economic indicators of the population and their use in planning and growth management. There are literally thousands of applications of GIS because no project is ever started without first asking where. Locally, our GIS providers offer the usual things you would expect from a Geographic Information System, such as Raster-Vector Conversion Map Digitizing and Satellite Image Processing, but they also offer such services as 3D Solid Modelling Architectural Walk Throughs. This just means that your 2D drawing can be turned into a 3D model. As a 3D model, the user can now view the drawing from all angles (zoom in, rotate, etc.). Being able to show your clients your proposed idea like that would most certainly make for an impressive presentation. In the business world, GIS is being used to manage mobile resources (logistics), manage customer relationships, analyze markets, study consumers spending patterns, and look for the optimal places for business ventures, to name a few. As has been said time and time again, competition, especially now with the worldwide economic crisis, is getting more and more fierce, and therefore, businesses need every advantage they can manage to get their hands on to survive and flourish. The image below shows how GIS can be used to find the best possible locations for a particular business. The results from that, with further analysis and consideration by the management, could yield very relevant data that may considerably influence how well an enterprise turns out. GIS is already being used for the National Transmission Corporation, TRANSCO (which takes care of NAPOCORs electrical transmission), for a few districts here in the Philippines. GIS will give them digitized mapping for their energy assets. Through a certain application called Transmission Asset Management Information System (TAMIS), TRANSCO will be able to display, query, and analyze digital maps for data such as best route to a facility, obstacles along a transmission route, land ownership where transmission lines pass, topography, aerial imagery, fault locator, and so on. In choosing to utilize GIS, TRANSCO will have access to digital maps of their assets- their offices, warehouses, substations, communication relay stations, transmission lines, towers, control centers, communication facilities, and fiber-optic cables, as well as thematic maps showing administrative boundaries, public infrastructure, road networks, river and water bodies, vegetation cover, land use, land classification, tenurial rights, soils and geology, protected areas and indigenous peoples sites, hazard areas, and some demographic data. Access to this data elevated TRANSCOs status; it made it more in tune with world standards, which is of course imperative for any enterprise, government operated or otherwise. Furthermore, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) GIS unit serves to acquire spatial data for agencies like DENR. This is used for classification and management of land use, along with a combined, detailed, and illustrative presentation of bio-physical and socio-economic data- definitely a significant help. With the earths dwindling natural resources, this is valuable as we now need to utilize, to the best of our ability, every bit of land that we have. In addition, the Philippine government should rely on GIS much more than they currently do. It has been suggested by a few local experts that one of the things the government could use GIS for is traffic

accident management. With traffic here in Metro Manila constantly getting a little bit worse, and since we always want to reduce the number of occurring road accidents that result to injuries and deaths, this grows increasingly valuable. The figure below shows one of the proposed systems in traffic accident management. In the proposed system, several isolated sites will be connected to a Wide Area Network, which will gather and store all the data that will be submitted by the isolated sites. The data gathered from the system will be programmed through an interface program. The main server can, with all this data, present the user/s with a map showing where accidents most often occur, and present reports regarding all the areas covered. Based on the economic preview as the world has triggered a business slump and slowdown due to financial crisis, the worrying effect in the Philippines would push us to rethink on how to find a way to do business smarter using in-house resources. And through investing and using GIS would help resolve many business organizations to overcome operational challenges and deliver improved profitability. All business investors in the Philippines like retailers, insurers, realtors, asset managers and others are seeking to understand markets better than ever before and through GIS, this technology will assists in many ways like optimizing business openings and closings, segmenting customer data and managing fleets. Since GIS can visualize, manage and analyze any business assets like employees, customers, and facilities because it has a place in the world or within the country to put at. One interesting institution who is using GIS is Economic and Social Research Institute(ESRI), a software development and services company providing Geographic Information System (GIS) software and geodatabase management applications, where two government institutions in the Philippines the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority(NAMRIA) and Sugar Regulatory Administration(SRA) are a member. The headquarters of ESRI is in Redlands, California. ESRI had developed a project life cycle implementing a GIS technology to assist and start up a complex project. Because using a GIS is like building a house where you need a solid foundation and quality materials in the construction and details to make it sure is stands and to consider who will you hire to do the job. Inter-relating it to what business project we wanted to start up now especially during this time of crisis where we are very cautious that it will survive as what we wanted to propel it. And through using GIS, step by step we are keen and meticulous on how to start right and generating a good profit in the end. That during requirements analysis, you will perform a rigorous requirements-gathering process, which involves business process analysis and high-level use case identification. From the business processes and use cases, we derive detailed requirements that are documented for each use case and reviewed separately by quality assurance staff to ensure they can be tested later and are quantifiable. This results in better, more clearly defined requirements, which are then outlined in a specification document that you can then use as the blueprint for the design. Using a set of GIS software functions, The design team uses specialized software that lets them to build a comprehensive design document directly from the requirements specification that will guide the developers throughout the development process. Also, Geodata System and Mapping Solutions in the Philippines is using the GIS which enable them to capture, manipulate and visualize all forms of geographically reference information for mapping and analyzing things that exist and events that happen. GIS gave them the spatial data that will location of real world objects, events and answers that derived by

comparing layers of data. Thus using GIS will give you the benefits of increasing your efficiency, manage your resources, time and money well at high level of accuracy.

Data regarding Loss of land, decline or creation of natural resources (global change) Natural disasters like earthquake ,,floods,,,eruption, environmental changes Natural and anthropogenic dynamics underlying ecosystem change

Rapid population growth was accompanied by an increase in various infectious diseases and nutritional deficiency (mas mdaling nag ispread)

Diseases which becomes threat in human prosperity and health

Naeencounter ung mga disease causing organisms Development of internet facilities, world wide web , through satellites,nkakapagprovide ngmga up to date informations sa ibat ibang environmental fields, dhil dto mas nagigging aware yung mga tao

Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and Governmnet of India(GOI) have created an Environment Information System (ENVIS) kung saan IT is use for computers computer based modelling wherein napepredict at naanalyze nto yung mga environmental scenarios IT can be use for audio, visual and data communications for medical consultations, diagnosis ,treatment, nursing and medical education, testing of DNA, creating DNA database and genetic information about population, IT helps in spreading awareness about epidemic and communicable diseases with the help of Remote sensing and GIS, there is an identification of several infested areas which are prone to some diseases like malaria based upon mapping of such areas.

Technology has played a key role in the development of human society. Modern technologies such as information technology,have changed the human lifestyle. Development of sophisticated instruments like computers, satellites, telecommunication instruments etc have resulted in total revolution in almost all spheres of life. The important role of information technology in environment and human health are as follows 1. Remote Sensing. Remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) has proved to be very effective tool in environment management. Now,the ongoing changes in the environment can be assessed easily through satellites by remote sensing techniques. The occurrence of a number of natural calamities like droughts, floods, volcanic erruptions etc., can also be predicted well in advance. Such assessments help the environmentalists and planners to take ameliorative measure to minimise the effects of these extreme natural events. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India has created an information system called Environmental Information System (ENVIS) with its headquarters in Delhi. It provides a network database in environmental issues like pollution control, renewable energy,desertification,biodiversity etc. 2. Database. Database is the collection of inter-related data on various subjects in computerized form which can be retreived whenever required. Now the data regarding birth and death rates, immunisation and sanitation programmes can be maintained more accurately than before in computers at health centers. Database is also available about the diseases like malaria, fluorosis, AIDS etc. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India has taken up the task of compiling a database on various environmental issues like wildlife, forests cover, wasteland etc. 3. Human health. Information technology also plays a key role in human health. It helps the doctors to monitor the health of people of that area. The information regarding outbreak of epidemic diseases from remote areas can be sent more quickly to the district administration to take corrective measures. Now, patients can seek help of a super specialist doctor placed at far off distance. Many hospitals now, take on-line help of experts to provide better treatment and services to their patients. This has become possible only because of advancement of IT in the recent times.

4. Online Information. It provides vast quantum of information on diffrent subjects including human health and environment.