The concept of security is evolving into a view that embraces interlocking elements of military security, economic security, humanitarian security and environmental security. It is argued that the environment can now be considered a security issue because of the increasingly unsustainable features of modern development. The concept of environmental security is becoming accepted as the capability to protect social systems (communities) and their natural environments from threats of:

Environmental security should focus on protecting social systems that tie a community’s quality of life to their environmental assets. Sustainability and environmental security will then be mutually reinforcing as sustainable development will allow communities to pursue growth to improve their quality of life, whilst environmental security will safeguard whatever environmental assets a community exploits to maintain and promote quality of life.

Most threat assessments rely on risk based methodologies to predict the probability of a hazard and the consequences of impact. However risk based approaches often lack adequate statistical data on the probability of hazards, making their prediction difficult or even impossible. Current risk based approaches to environmental security are considered to fail in their ability to protect communities from natural or technological disasters. For example the viability of risk based methodologies has been challenged by the fact that attributing probabilities to extreme weather has been complicated by climate change (the future will not be the same as the past).

As impacts of hazards are often unique to the locations at which they occur, and given that we are unlikely to be able to predict the probability of a disaster occurring, vulnerability assessments are proposed as being fundamental to protecting communities through policy on environmental security. Developing an understanding of vulnerability within communities may be one of the few routes to achieving genuine environmental security (i.e. indicators on vulnerability and resilience to disaster risk).

The implementation of emerging policy on environmental security will need to identify key data sets that are required to protect communities. Implementation will include the selection of suitable geographical information technologies to manage and disseminate information to stakeholders. Knowledge derived from information on a community’s vulnerability and resilience to disaster is expected to drive decision support systems through early warning and the spatial analysis of potential losses they may face. Vulnerability mapping is likely to be based on the adoption of remote sensing, web based technologies and e-science.

The key to strengthening environmental security is believed to be the development of a community’s capacity to prevent, mitigate, respond and recover from disaster risk and major accidents, negligence or crimes (natural and technological disasters or environmental crimes) that undermine a community’s viability. This requires a greater exchange of information and education between policy makers, security forces, civil defense, regulators, industry and genuine civil stakeholders. Exploitation of current surveillance technology and information fusion techniques could potentially empower communities to manage disaster risk through decision support, information exchange and community engagement. The presumption is that communities hold knowledge as social capital that should be exploited during each stage of the disaster cycle. Opportunities to capture this social capital within decision support systems should be encouraged through research, industry and the development of prototype systems. The development of prototype systems should include an assessment of whether it is feasible to capture and fuse information describing social capital with information on infrastructure and hazards.

Geo-information technology is one type of environmental technology that is increasingly being applied to environmental management, disaster management and emergency response; as such it is an appropriate technology to promote environmental security. In order to create a Common Operating Picture of potential threats information systems will require geospatial information infrastructures, capable of warehousing a range of EO imagery from space borne, airborne and ground sensors. Such infrastructures will not only be required to store and disseminate information but to fuse social, economic and environmental information (both spatial and non spatial) to achieve a complete picture of the level of risk associated with a local threat (e.g. flooding, mud slide, oil spill).

If EO and remote sensing are to be fully exploited in protecting communities against disaster risk a thorough examination of the information available from a range of EO data is required. Firstly indicators need to be developed that describe the social, economic and environmental assets (quality of life capital) and infrastructure at risk within a community. Secondly indicators need to be developed from EO data to describe the vulnerability and resilience of each asset to disaster risk. This would allow a mosaic of assets to be built that describes the communities overall resilience to hazards (e.g. coastal flooding, mud slides or the threat of oil spill from major accidents). Finally coastal surveillance and information dissemination infrastructures need to be commissioned for the routine surveillance of threats.