The internet could provide an early warning system for environmental damage, imitating an online watchdog that gives alerts about outbreaks of diseases. An automated trawl of blogs, videos, online news and other sources could yield bits of information to fill in a bigger picture of problems such as global warming, pollution, deforestation or over-fishing.

“We are facing huge environment challenges…but we don’t have god monitoring systems.”……(by Victor Galaz of Stockholm University who was lead author of the study with colleagues in Britain the United States and Sweden.)

Speaking to Reuters, Galaz said “With the internet there are pretty good ways to get that information. Nobody has exploited get that really. Better environmental information could help Governments to act”.

Online statistics about a surge in fish prices in an Asian port, for instance, might hint at wider problems of over – fishing. Or a blog about an insect pest out break in a Nordic forest might fir a pattern tied to global warming.

Some online environmental monitoring networks already exist, such as birdwatchers recording sightings. Many species are shifting their ranges in what may be a sign of climate change.

The aim of trawling the internet would be to “enlist the services of observers who don’t know they are observers,” said Tim Daw of the University of East Anglia in England, who was among the authors.

“Coral reefs, which may die if sea temperature rise could be an example where scatters observations in Australia, Hawaii or the Caribbean might help, put together a bigger puzzle,” he told Reuters. “Scuba divers, either recreational or professional, often put reports in blogs or other communications, he said”.

One problem would be to filter out unreliable source to avoid an information junkyard. Compiling information might perhaps be done by United Nations (UN) agency.