Podcast: the potential of data to drive sustainability and care for the environment

In this episode we talk about the environment, focusing on the role that data plays in the ecological transition. Can open data help drive sustainability and protect the planet? We found out with our two guests:

• Francisco José Martínez García, conservation director of the natural parks of the south of Alicante.
• José Norberto Mazón, professor of computer languages and systems at the University of Alicante.

Listen here the full episode (in spanish)

Summary of the interview

1. You are both passionate about the use of data for society, how did you discover the potential of open data for environmental management?

Francisco José Martínez: For my part, I can tell you that when I arrived at the public administration, at the Generalitat Valenciana, the Generalitat launched a viewer called Visor Gva, which is open, which gives a lot of information on images, metadata, data in various fields... And the truth is that it made it much easier for me - and continues to make it easier - for me to work on the resolution of files and the work of a civil servant. Later, another database was also incorporated, which is the Biodiversity Data Bank, which offers data in grids of one kilometer by one kilometer. And finally, already applied to the natural spaces and wetlands that I direct, water quality data, all of them are open and can be the object of generating applied research by all researchers.

Jose Norberto Mazón: In my case, it was precisely with Francisco as director. He directs three natural parks that are wetlands in the south of Alicante and about one of them, in which we had special interest, which is the Natural Park of Laguna de la Mata and Torrevieja, Francisco told us about his experience -all this experience that he has just commented on-. We at the University of Alicante have been working for some time on data management, open data, data interoperability, etc., and we saw the opportunity to make a perspective of data management, data generation and reuse of data from the territory, from the Natural Park itself. Together with other entities such as Proyecto Mastral, Faunatura, AGAMED, and also colleagues from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, we saw the possibility of studying these useful data, focusing above all on the concept of high-value data, which the European Union was betting on them: data that has the potential to generate socio-economic or environmental benefits, benefit all users and contribute to making a European society based on the data economy. And well, we set out there to see how we could collaborate, especially to discover the potential of data at the territory level.

2. Through a strategy called the Green Deal, the European Union aims to become the world's first competitive and resource-efficient economy, achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. What concrete measures are most urgent to achieve this and how can data help to achieve these goals?

Francisco José Martínez: The European Union has several lines, several projects such as the LIFE project, focused on endangered species, the ERDF funds to restore habitats... Here in Laguna de la Mata and Torrevieja, we  have improved terrestrial habitats with these ERDF funds and it is precisely about these habitats being better CO2 capturers and generating more native plant communities, eliminating invasive species. Then we also have the regulation, at the regulatory level, on nature restoration, which has been in force since 2024, and which requires us to restore up to 30% of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems. I must also say that the Biodiversity Foundation, under the Ministry, generates quite a few projects related, for example, to the generation of climate shelters in urban areas. In other words, there are a series of projects and a lot of funding in everything that has to do with renaturalization, habitat improvement and species conservation.

Jose Norberto Mazón: I would also focus, to complement what Francis has said, on all data management, the importance given to data management at the level of the European Green Deal, specifically with data sharing projects, to make data more interoperable. In other words, in the end, all those actors that generate data can be useful through their combination and generate much more value in what are called data spaces and especially in the data space of the European Green Deal. Recently, in addition, they have just finished some initial projects. For example, to highlight a couple of them, the USAGE project (Urban Data Spaces for Green dEal), which I am going to comment on with two specific pilots that they have developed very interestingly. One on how everything that has to do with data to mitigate climate change has to be introduced into urban management in the city of Ferrara, in Italy. And another pilot on data governance and how it has to be done to comply with the FAIR principles, in this case in Zaragoza, with a concept of climate islands that is also very interesting. And then there is another project, AD4GD (All Data for Green Deal) that has also carried out pilots in relation to this interoperability of data. In this case, in the Berlin Lake Network. Berlin has about 300 lakes that have to monitor the quality of the water, the quantity of water, etc. and it has been done through sensorization. The management of biological corridors in Catalonia, too, with data on how species move and how it is necessary to manage these biological corridors. And they have also done some air quality initiatives with citizen science. These projects have already been completed, but there is a super interesting project at the European level that is going to launch this large data space of the European Pact, which is the SAGE (Sustainable Green Europe Data Space) project, which is developing ten use cases that encompass this entire great area of the European Green Deal. Specifically, to highlight one that is very pertinent, because it is aligned with what are the natural parks, the wetlands of the south of Alicante and that Francisco directs, is that of the commitments between nature and ecosystem services. That is, how nature must be protected, how we have to conserve, but we also have to allow these socio-economic activities in a sustainable way. This data space will integrate remote sensing, models based on artificial intelligence, data, etc.

3. Would you like to add any other projects at this local or regional level?

Francisco José Martínez: Yes, of course. Well, the one we have done with Norberto, his team and several teams, several departments of the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Alicante, and it is the digital twin. Research has been carried out for the generation of a digital twin in the Natural Park of Las Lagunas, here in Torrevieja. And the truth is that it has been an applied research, a lot of data has been generated from sensors, also from direct observations or from image and sound recorders. A good record of information has been made at the level of noise, climate, meteorological data to be able to carry out good management and that it is an invaluable help for the management of those of us who have to make decisions day by day. Other data that have also been carried out in this project here has been the collection of data of a social nature, tourist use, people's feelings (whether they agree with what they see in the natural space or not). In other words, we have improved our knowledge of this natural space thanks to this digital twin and that is information that neither our viewer nor the Biodiversity Data Bank can provide us.

Jose Norberto Mazón: Francisco was talking, for example, about the knowledge of people, about the influx of people from certain areas of the natural park. And also to know what they feel, what the people who visit it think, because if it is not through surveys that are very cumbersome, etcetera is complicated. We have put at the service of discovering that knowledge, this digital twin with a multitude of that sensorization and with data that in the end are also interoperable and that allow us to know the territory very well. Obviously, the fact that it is territorial does not mean that it is not scalable. What we are doing with the digital twin project, the ChanTwin project, what we are doing is that it can be dumped or extrapolated to any other natural area, because the problems that we have had in the end we are going to find in any natural area, such as connectivity problems, interoperability problems of data that come from sensors,  etc. We have sensors of many types, influx of people, water quality, temperatures and climatic variables, pollution, etc. and in the end also with all the guarantees of data privacy. I have to say this, which is very important because we always try to ensure that this data collection, of course, guarantees people's privacy. We can know the concerns of the people who visit the park and also, for example, the origin of those people. And this is very interesting information at the level of park management, because in this way, for example, Francisco can make more informed decisions to better manage the park. But, the people who visit the park come from a specific municipality, with a city council that, for example, has a Department of the Environment or has a Department of Tourism. And this information can be very interesting to highlight certain aspects, for example, environmental, biodiversity, or socio-economic activity.

Francisco José Martínez: Data are fundamental in the management of the natural environment of a wetland, a mountain, a forest, a pasture... in general of all natural spaces. Note that only with the follow-up and monitoring of certain environmental parameters do we serve to explain events that can happen, for example, a fish mortality. Without having had the history of the dissolved oxygen temperature data, it is very difficult to know if it is because of that or because of a pollutant. For example, the temperature of water, which is related to dissolved oxygen: the higher the temperature, the less dissolved oxygen. And without oxygen, it turns out that they appear in spring and summer – okay, whatever the ambient temperatures are, it moves to the water, to the lagoons, to the wetlands – a disease appears that is botulism and there have already been two years that more than a thousand animals have died every year. The way to control it is by anticipating that these temperatures are going to reach a specific one, that from there the oxygen almost disappears from the waters and gives us time to plan the work teams that are removing the corpses, which is the fundamental action to avoid it. Another, for example, is the monthly census of waterfowl, which are observed in person, which are recorded, which we also have recorders that record sounds. With that we can know the dynamics when species come in migration and with that we can also manage water. Another example can be that of the temperature of the lagoon here in La Mata, which we are monitoring with the digital twin, because we know that when it reaches almost thirty degrees, the main food of the birds disappears, which is brine shrimp, because they cannot live in those extreme temperatures with that salinity. but we can bring in sea water, which despite the fact that it has been very hot these last springs and summers, is always cooler and we can refresh and extend the life of this species that is precisely synchronized with the reproduction of birds. So we can manage the water thanks to the monitoring and thanks to the data we have on the temperatures of the waters.

Jose Norberto Mazón: Look at the importance of these examples that Francisco mentioned, which are paradigmatic, and also the importance of the use of data. I would simply add a question that in the end these data, the effort is to make them all open and that they comply with those FAIR principles, that is, that they are interoperable, because as we have heard Francis have commented, they are data from many sources, each with different characteristics, collected in different ways, etc. You're talking to us about sensor data, but also other data that is collected in another way. And then also that they allow us in some way to start co-creation processes of tools that use this data at various levels. Of course, at the level of management of the natural park itself to make informed decisions, but also at the level of citizenship, even at the level of other types of professionals. As Francisco said, in the parks, in these wetlands, economic activities are carried out and therefore also being able to co-create tools with these actors or with the university research staff themselves is very interesting. And here it is always a matter of encouraging third parties, both natural and legal, for example, companies or startups, entrepreneurs, etc. that they make various applications and value-added services with that data: that they design easy-to-use tools for decision-making, for example, or any other type of tool. This would be very interesting, because it would also give us an entrepreneurial ecosystem around that data. And what this would also do is make society itself more involved from this open data, from the reuse of open data, in environmental care and environmental awareness.

4. An important aspect of this transition is that it must be "fair and leave no one behind". What role can data play in ensuring that equity?

Francisco José Martínez: In our case, we have been carrying out citizen science actions with the Environmental Education and Dissemination technicians. We are collecting data with people who sign up for these activities. We do two activities a month and, for example, we have carried out censuses of bats of different species - because one sees bats and does not distinguish the species, sometimes not even seeing them - on night routes, to detect and record them. We have also done photo trapping activities to detect mammals that are very difficult to see. With this we get children, families, people in general to know a fauna that they do not know exists when they are walking in the mountains. And I believe that we reach a lot of people and that we are disseminating it to as many people, as many sectors as possible.

Jose Norberto Mazón: And from that data, in fact, look at all the amount of data that Francis is talking about. From there, and promoting that line that Francisco follows as director of the Natural Parks of the south of Alicante, what we ask ourselves is: can we go one step further using technology? And we have made video games that make it possible to have more awareness among those target groups that may otherwise be very difficult to reach. For example, teenagers, who must be instilled in some way that behavior, that importance of natural parks as well. And we think that video games can be a very interesting channel. And how have we done it? Basing these video games on data, on data that come from what Francisco has commented on and also from the data of the digital twin itself. That is, data we have on the water surface, noise levels... We include all this data in video games. They are dynamic video games that allow us to have a better awareness of what the natural park is and of the environmental values and conservation of biodiversity.

5. You've been talking to us for a while about all the data you use, which in the end comes from various sources. Can we summarize the type of data you use in your day-to-day life and what are the challenges you encounter when integrating it into specific projects?

Francisco José Martínez: The data are spatial, they are images with their metadata, censuses of birds, mammals, the different taxonomic groups, fauna, flora... We also carry out inventories of protected flora in danger of extinction. Fundamental meteorological data that, by the way, are also very important when it comes to the issue of civil protection. Look at all the disasters that there are with cold drops or cut-off lows. Very important data such as water quality, physical and chemical data, height of the water sheet that helps us to know evaporation, evaporation curves and thus manage water inputs and of course, social data for public use. Because public use is very important in natural spaces. It is a way of opening up to citizens, to people so that they can know their natural resources and know them, value them and thus protect them. As for the difficulty, it is true that there is a series of data, especially when research is carried out, which we cannot access. They are in repositories for technicians who are in the administration or even for consultants who are difficult to access. I think Norberto can explain this better: how this could be integrated into platforms, by sectors, by groups...

Jose Norberto Mazón: In fact, it is a core issue for us. In the end there is a lot of open data, as Francis has explained throughout this little time that we have been talking, but it is true that they are very dispersed because they are also generated to meet various objectives. In the end, the main objective of open data is that it is reused, that is, that it is used for purposes other than those for which it was initially granted. But what we find is that in the end there are many proposals that are, as we would say, top-down (very top down). But really, where the problem lies is in the territory, from below, in all the actors involved in the territory, which apart from a lot of data is generated in the territory itself. In other words, it is true that there is data, for example, satellite data with remote sensing, which is generated by the satellites themselves and then reused by us, but then the data that comes from sensors or the data that comes from citizen science, etc., are generated in the territory itself. And we find that many times, in the end of that data, for example, if there are researchers who do a job in a specific natural park, then obviously that research team publishes its articles and data in open (because by the law of science they have to publish them in open in repositories). But of course, that is very research-oriented. So, the other types of actors, for example, the management of the park, the managers of a local entity or even the citizens themselves, are perhaps not aware that this data is available and do not even have mechanisms to consult it and obtain value from it. The greatest difficulty, in fact, is this, in that the data generated from the territory is reused from the territory. It is very easy to reuse them from the territory to solve these problems as well. And that difficulty is what we are trying to tackle with these projects that we have underway, at the moment with the creation of a data lake, a data architecture that allows us to manage all that heterogeneity of the data and do it from the territory. But of course, here what we really have to do is try to do it in a federated way, with that philosophy of open data at the federated level and also with a plus as well, because it is true that the casuistry within the territory is very large. There are a multitude of actors, because we are talking about open data, but there may also be actors who say "I want to share certain data, but not certain other data yet, because I may lose a certain competitiveness, but I would not mind being able to share it in three months' time". In other words, it is also necessary to have control over a certain type of data and that open data coexists with another type of data that can be shared. Maybe not so broadly, but in a way, let's say, providing great value. We are looking at this possibility with a new project that we are creating: a space for environmental data, biodiversity in these three natural parks in the south of the province of Alicante, and we are working on that project: Heleade.

If you want to know more about these projects, we invite you to visit their websites:

• Web de ChanTwin
• Youtube list with videos about ChanTwin
• Web de Heleade