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Community Environmental Management Tools: A Gap Analysis
Citation:
Grissom, G., B. Dyson, A. Brookes, AND A. Hall. Community Environmental Management Tools: A Gap Analysis. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-18/249, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
In recognition of significant advances in information technology, this report outlines processes, resources, and opportunities for cooperative federalism and citizen engagement in the development and deployment of digital applications supporting community and state environmental management needs.
Description:
This report provides an assessment of the current coverage of community environmental management needs for decision making by existing software tools. The gap analysis provides an assessment of 1) what software tools EPA has either developed or catalogued from others, 2) how those tools address common management concerns raised by communities, 3) where gaps exist between available tools and community priorities, and 4) what scientific or technical support is needed from states, communities, and other Agency partners now and going forward. The Registry of EPA Applications, Models and Data Warehouses (READ), a public repository of both EPA-developed tools and external tools screened for relevance, was cross-checked with management action needs sourced in part by stakeholder charrettes held across a diverse set of U.S. communities. The gap analysis results show that over half the identified management actions are unaddressed, even superficially, by the existing suite of tools. A categorization method for grouping management actions was devised based on the Sustainability Tools for Assessing and Rating Communities (STAR) Communities objectives framework. The grouping showed clear disparities between management (or STAR Objective) categories, both in terms of the number of relevant actions and the applicability of tools toward those management actions. The results are contextualized by presenting several avenues for tool co-production between private citizens and government alongside guidance for building and maintaining effective tools that respond to user needs. This report covers a period from March 2017 to May 2018 and work was completed as of July 2018.