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FISHER INFORMATION AS A SUSTAINABILITY METRIC
Citation:
KARUNANITHI, A. AND H. CABEZAS. FISHER INFORMATION AS A SUSTAINABILITY METRIC. Presented at Trans-Atlantic Research and Development Interchange on Sustainability, Estes Park, CO, September 12, 2006.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
World commission on Environment and Development defines sustainability as 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. The concept of Sustainability requires study of complex integrated systems such as environment, economy, ecology, society etc. We have developed a unified theory for sustainability based on Fisher information. We are interested in studying the dynamic order of a system. Our hypothesis is that a system with high dynamic order would in all likelihood be more stable and hence sustainable. Fisher information tracks dynamic order in a system. Hence the Fisher Information can be used to study the sustainability of the system (e.g. ocean) regime and detect regime changes (e.g. interannual, interdecadal changes) inflicted to the system, by both natural (e.g. cyclones) and anthropogenic (e.g. industrial green house emissions) means. This theory is employed to study the North Pacific Ocean regime shifts that have occurred in the last 35 years (interdecadal changes). 65 variables (both environmental and biological time series) collected by Joint Institute for study of atmosphere and oceans (Hare and Mantua, 2000) were used for this purpose. The Fisher Information analysis was able to identify two regime shifts (one in 1977 and other in 1989) that have been established before. In addition we identified that the 1977 shift is more comprehensive and pervasive compared to the 1989 shift. This theory was also employed to study order/stability in social systems. The state failure task force (SFTF) has compiled a comprehensive data set on social variables of different countries. Dynamic order (stability) in these countries was analyzed through Fisher information calculation and it is established that countries in the past 30 years that are historically stable (characterized by low number of social upheavals) tend to have high Fisher information values and the countries which went through a lot of instability and unrest (characterized by high number of social upheavals) had low Fisher information values.