Environmental Monitoring

Environmental teams collect enormous amounts of data. But who actually owns it?

It sounds like a simple question. In practice, the answer often depends on which data you are talking about.

Laboratory results may arrive by email. Field observations may be maintained in spreadsheets. Monitoring data may come directly from instruments or external systems. Licence limits and monitoring requirements may be stored somewhere else again.

Then, when it is time to prepare a compliance report, somebody has to bring all of that information together and determine which data is correct.

At DB Gurus, we regularly see environmental information spread across spreadsheets, laboratory reports, emails, shared drives and different systems. The problem is not necessarily that any one of those systems is wrong. The problem is establishing which information is authoritative, who is responsible for it and whether you can trace what happened to it.

That is where environmental data governance becomes important.

What Is Environmental Data Governance?

Environmental data governance is about establishing clear responsibility and control over environmental information throughout its lifecycle.

It should help answer questions such as:

• Where did this monitoring result come from?
• Which system contains the authoritative value?
• Who is responsible for validating it?
• Who is allowed to change it?
• If it was changed, can we see what changed, when and by whom?
• How does the result flow into environmental reporting?
• How long does the underlying information need to be retained?

Good data governance therefore involves more than having policies and procedures.

The systems holding environmental information also need to support those policies through appropriate validation, access controls, traceability and reporting.

The Real Problem: What Is Your Single Source of Truth?

Environmental data rarely remains in one place.

Consider a laboratory result.

The original result might exist in the laboratory’s system. A copy may arrive as an emailed spreadsheet or CSV file. It could then be imported into an environmental database and subsequently copied into another spreadsheet used to prepare a report.

Which one is the official result?

More importantly, if the figure appearing in a regulatory report is questioned six months later, can you trace it back through that process?

A well-designed environmental data environment creates an authoritative source of information and controls how data enters it, how it is validated, who can change it and how those changes are recorded.

This becomes particularly important when operating across multiple sites, systems and monitoring programmes.

Consider a Simple Monitoring Result

Imagine that a laboratory sends through a monitoring result that exceeds a site’s trigger level.

How quickly can your organisation answer these questions?

• Where did the result come from?
• Which monitoring location and parameter does it relate to?
• Has the result been validated?
• What limit or trigger applies?
• Has the appropriate person been notified?
• Who reviewed the result?
• Has anybody subsequently changed it?
• What was the original value?
• Will it appear in the appropriate environmental reporting?

If answering those questions requires opening several spreadsheets, searching through emails or asking the person who normally prepares the report, there may be a data governance problem.

And that creates more than extra administration.

What Happens When Environmental Data Isn’t Properly Governed?

Conflicting Versions of the Truth

When environmental information is copied between spreadsheets and systems, it can become difficult to determine which version is current.

The problem becomes particularly serious when a correction is made in one place but not another.

Limited Auditability

If historical information can be changed without recording the previous value, organisations may struggle to establish what information existed at a particular point in time.

A well-designed database can provide traceability through the data lifecycle, rather than relying on people to reconstruct the history afterwards.

Key-Person Dependency

Environmental reporting processes often evolve over many years.

One or two people may understand which spreadsheet to use, where information comes from, which formulas need updating and what needs to happen before a report can be produced.

That knowledge becomes an operational risk when the person responsible is unavailable or leaves the organisation.

Manual Validation

Environmental professionals should not need to spend valuable time repeatedly checking whether data has been copied correctly between systems.

Validation rules can instead be incorporated into the data process so that missing, anomalous or invalid information can be identified earlier.

Limited Visibility Across Sites

The problem becomes larger as organisations add sites, monitoring locations and reporting requirements.

Management may have environmental information for every site but still struggle to obtain a consolidated view of what is happening across the organisation.

Governance Without the Right Technology Is Difficult

A governance document might say that only authorised employees are permitted to modify approved environmental data.

But what actually stops somebody else changing it?

A procedure might require every correction to be documented.

But does the system automatically record the change, or does someone need to remember to document it?

This is where environmental data governance and database design intersect.

Depending on the organisation’s requirements, the underlying data environment may need to support:

• role-based access;
• data validation;
• controlled changes;
• audit trails;
• automated alerting;
• consistent reporting;
• data integrations; and
• cross-site visibility.

Five Questions to Test Your Environmental Data Governance

A useful starting point is to see whether your organisation can confidently answer five questions.

1. Where Is the Authoritative Copy of Each Environmental Result?

If the result exists in several systems, there should be a clear understanding of which system holds the official record.

2. Can You Identify Who Entered or Changed a Value?

For important environmental information, you should be able to determine what changed and maintain appropriate traceability.

3. Is Incoming Data Validated Before It Reaches Reporting?

Errors are much easier to address close to the point of entry than when somebody discovers them while preparing a report.

4. Could Somebody Else Reproduce the Reporting Process?

If preparing an environmental report depends heavily on one person’s knowledge of spreadsheets, folders and manual processes, there is a key-person dependency.

5. Can You Trace a Reported Number Back to Its Source?

When someone questions a figure, you should not have to reconstruct its history from spreadsheets and emails.

If any of those questions are difficult to answer, it may be worth looking at how environmental information is governed across your organisation.

What Does Good Environmental Data Governance Look Like?

There isn’t one governance model that will suit every organisation.

But good environmental data governance generally starts with something very practical: understanding how information moves through the business.

• Where does it originate?
• Where is it stored?
• What validation occurs?
• Who is responsible for it?
• Who is permitted to change it?
• Where does the information go next?
• How does it eventually become part of a report or management decision?

Once that flow is understood, technology can reinforce the process rather than forcing environmental teams to work around it.

The objective is not simply to create another database.

It is to create a reliable environmental information environment that reduces uncertainty about where information came from, which version is correct and what has happened to it.

Where DB Gurus Fits

At DB Gurus, we approach environmental data governance as both a data and business-process problem.

We look at where environmental information originates, how it moves between systems, how it is validated, who needs access to it and how it ultimately becomes useful information for environmental teams, management and reporting.

That might mean improving an existing database, replacing spreadsheet-based processes, integrating laboratory or other data sources, or implementing a dedicated environmental data solution.

For organisations looking for a dedicated monitoring solution, the DB Gurus Environmental Tracking System (ETS) provides a centralised approach to environmental data management, including monitoring data, warning and exceedance limits, alerts and auditability.

The important question, however, isn’t necessarily:

“Do we need a new environmental system?”

A better place to start is:

“Can we trust our environmental data, and can we prove why we trust it?”

If the answer isn’t an immediate yes, there may be an opportunity to strengthen the way your environmental data is managed.

Ready to Take a Closer Look at Your Environmental Data?

If environmental information is spread across spreadsheets, laboratory files, emails and multiple systems, you don’t necessarily need to replace everything.

The first step is understanding where the risks and gaps actually are.

Talk to DB Gurus about your current environmental data workflow. We can help you identify where better database design, integration, automation or environmental data management could reduce manual effort and improve confidence in your information.