Evaluating the Impact of AI, Machine Learning, and IoT-Based Smart Environmental Monitoring Systems on Ecological Harmony: A Daoist Perspective

Abstract

Rapidly increasing levels of pollution, variation in climate, consumption of resources and a total disregard for the natural ecological balance have become issues of ever-increasing global concern. Monitoring the environment traditionally has a number of limitations such as a small number of observation points, delayed acquisition of data and the inability to make predictions. This is why Intelligent Environmental Technologies and Smart Eco-Systems have become the cornerstone of efficient ecological management and monitoring on an eco-systemic scale, on the basis of large amounts of information that are acquired in real time and subsequently analyzed by Intelligent Information Processing Systems. A large number of monitoring observation points are equipped with sensors of various types (local and remote) that can continuously monitor environmental parameters (air, water, soil) and transfer them for subsequent analysis in Information Processing Systems. Large amounts of environmental information that are continuously acquired are processed using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) methods for the purposes of Eco-System monitoring, prediction and the early detection of any disruptions and possible dangers to the Eco-System. This study evaluates the potential of the AI/ML and IoT technologies for environmental monitoring in terms of their contribution to the ecological balance. By conceptual analysis and from system’s perspective, this study investigates possible integration between current intelligent environmental technologies and the Daoist philosophical point of view. The expected results from the application of AI and IoT-based environmental monitoring systems to enhance the efficiency of current approaches to environmental monitoring, to improve the accuracy of predictions, and to identify possible ecological disturbances prior to them having a negative impact on the environment. In combination with Daoist principles of natural flow, balance, and non-interference, smart environmental monitoring systems also have the potential to support a more sustainable and also more ethical form of environmental management, which supports and maintains ecological harmony. Thus, by using these advanced technologies in an appropriate manner, ecological balance can be supported in line with Daoist concepts of equilibrium and natural order.