Environmental agencies need more modern approaches to data and technology - a Digital Service for the Planet can help.
New tools and technologies supporting environmental and conservation goals abound, but getting the best out of these potential innovations is not as straightforward as it may seem, especially in the federal government. Despite spending upwards of $100 billion on IT every year, 80% of that will go towards maintaining legacy systems that struggle to deliver all the benefits of modern systems. Federal environmental agencies experience this acutely. For one, water data remains severely fragmented across over 20 federal agencies. Secondly, many programs that monitor the environment or issue permits to improve it are not yet benefiting from automated systems and technologies that can provide actionable information and a better picture of environmental and conservation outcomes.
What’s more is that only about 13% of major government software projects succeed (according to a report from The Standish Group) due to many collaboration, budgeting, procurement, and capacity issues. The U.S. Digital Service (USDS) was created to tackle these issues by providing federal agencies with on-demand access to the technical expertise they need to design, procure, and deploy technology for the public good. However despite the USDS’s many successes throughout its 8-year tenure, programmatic staff within environmental agencies often remain unaware of their services and continue to lag behind technological progress made in other sectors.
In a new memo, published through the Federation of American Scientists’ Day One Project, we lay out our vision for a new Digital Service for the Planet (DSP) that builds on the success of the USDS, but focuses on the unique needs of federal environmental programs.
Here are a few key aspects that distinguish the Digital Service for the Planet from USDS, and what is needed to set it up for success:
Current USDS staff do not have prior experience working on environmental projects and this is a barrier to effective engagement with environmental agencies. Working on data and technology issues within environmental contexts requires specialized skill sets (e.g. geospatial analysis) and fluency in the vast and specific terminologies used in environmental fields (such as water management). A DSP would hire staff that can quickly understand agency needs, and effectively create technological solutions to aid in environmental stewardship.
Environmental agencies often have overlapping and complementary technology needs. A DSP would place interagency collaboration at the core of its mission. Most USDS projects historically focus on a single federal agency, but environmental initiatives—and the data and tech needs they present—almost always involve multiple agencies. Major national challenges, including flood-risk management, harmful algal blooms, and environmental justice, all demand an integrated approach to realize cross-agency benefits. A DSP would support interagency digital infrastructure to ensure that agencies can easily access and share the most up-to-date datasets across programs.
Despite USDS’s eight-year existence, many staff members at environmental agencies know little about USDS services, or other pockets of innovation within the government that could support their technology modernization efforts. It’s time to reverse that trend. We have already started outreach and engagement with staff at environmental agencies to understand the most urgent technology needs, and, where appropriate, build awareness of existing resources, such as USDS and the Technology Modernization Fund. However, these efforts have also highlighted all the places where a DSP is necessary. Once created, we would actively help raise awareness about DSP services at environmental agencies to ensure that the DSP is fully utilized and beneficial to agency staff.
USDS has shown that a relatively small and flexible team can have a profound and lasting effect on how agencies operate, save taxpayer money, and encourage new ways of thinking about long standing problems. By investing a small amount now, the nation has an opportunity to ensure that better use of technology and data will yield improved environmental and conservation results for generations to come.
If this resonates with you, get in touch! We’d love to hear use cases that could benefit from a DSP, bolster existing or burgeoning modernization efforts in federal environmental agencies, and partner on actions to bring a DSP to fruition. Contact Reed (reed@policyinnovation.org) with any questions, or to get involved.