A comparison of the open environmental data diffusion in Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. Some preliminary results from the Baguala project for methodological discussion

PIERRE GAUTREAU, HEINRICH HASENACK, LOUCA LERCH, GABRIELA MERLINSKY, MATTHIEU NOUCHER, MARTA SEVERO

Porto Alegre

Seminario; SHARING ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION: ISSUES OF OPEN ENVIRONMENTAL DATA IN LATIN AMERICA; 2012

The ideas developed here constitute some intermediary results of the Baguala project (Utilization of open environmental data in Latin America and France), which aims at understanding how the Internet changes the ways Society represents and manage its environment, through the supply of information and data online. We will focus in this short presentation on some analysis of an inventory of websites that give information or data about the environment in Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. The main issue to be discussed here is if we can characterize at a national level the structure of the ?environmental web?, and with which methods. Who has the initiative to share online data: institutions, individuals, etc.? What are the main problems and questions addressed by the authors of the sites which compose this ?environmental web?? Can we detect groups amongst this ensemble of websites, specialized in a thematic? This perspective will allow us to understand the main patterns of the utilization of the web for environmental purpose, that mean the strategies adopted by some social actors to play a role in the environmental debate or management through the creation of a website. This analysis will be here developed in an aggregated manner, comparing the structures of three environmental webs, the Argentinean, the Bolivian and the Brazilian. Studying these three very different countries allows examining how social, geographical and technological factors affect the mains utilizations of the Internet for environmental purpose.