تحلیل گذار چندبخشی در توسعه و بهره‌برداری از فناوری سنجش‌ازدور برپایه چشم‌انداز چندسطحی

Background and Purpose: Remote Sensing Technology plays an influential role in environmental protection—and consequently in sustainable development—by enabling the monitoring of natural landscape.The development of technology and its implementation at the regime layer require collaboration between the environmental sector, upstream imagery producer sector and other technology users in adjacent sectors—such as agriculture.

Such collaboration entails the providing complementary data (including Ground Level Measurements), establishing processing platforms and data-exchange infrastructures, formulating security and legal regulations, and facilitating the exchange of imagery. The field of Transition Studies is one of the theoretical approaches employed to understand the Contributing factors, challenges, and dynamics of such transformations and interactions. Most studies conducted to date have examined the development and deployment of a technology within a single sector. In practice, however, especially during the diffusion phase of technology, complex and multidimensional interactions take place among organizations both within and across sectors. Comprehending the complexities of multi-sectoral sustainability transitions, together with identifying the influential factors, associated challenges, and suitable policy instruments for accelerating such transitions, represents an active area of research and defines the objectives of the present study.

Methods: This research adopts a qualitative methodology and utilize an abductive approach, or inference to the best explanation, to explore the influencing factors, challenges, and policy solutions. Accordingly, a case study strategy focusing on remote sensing technology in environmental protection has been selected. The conceptual framework of the research is grounded in the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) framework and is complemented by two well-established models to enhance the explanatory power of interactions within the technology value chain, as well as interactions with upstream and adjacent sectors.

The primary method of data collection is based on in-depth interviews with twelve key actors involved in remote sensing technology, which are supplemented by selected strategic documents from the upstream communications sector. In line with the research approach, the interviews were in-depth and unstructured. The interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis with the assistance of MAXQDA software.

Findings and Discussion: The identified challenges have been categorized into seven groups: technological, policy and regulations, changes in the overall system architecture, increasing interactions between systems, supply factors, demand factors, cultural-psychological and infrastructure factors. The proposed policy instruments are also categorized into four groups: related to supply side of innovation, demand side of innovation, formation of systematic relations, and infrastructure and regulation. The most frequently encountered challenges were related to data and image, which can be categorized into three groups: procurement, development of processing and exchange infrastructure, and data governance. The simultaneous occurrence of challenges in data governance, the absence of a responsible technology owner, and the weak role of intermediary actors has created significant obstacles to inter-sectoral and inter-organizational collaboration.

Conclusion: The conceptual framework of the research has enhanced the ability to identify factors and interpret interactions with other sectors. The most significant of these factors are, in relation to the landscape level, the role of international organizations in technology development alongside the intensification of data governance challenges; in relation to the upstream segment of the technology value chain, the development of SAR, satellite constellation and low-cost launch technologies; and, in relation to adjacent sectors, advancements in GIS technology. The design of policies to accelerate this transition should consider the differing logic of government intervention in the environmental sector compared to adjacent sectors, and policy dynamics should correspond to the gradual increase of forces arising from the dual imperatives of participatory governance and sensors synergy. Moreover, if a state-owned enterprise policy instrument is implemented using a combination of data-governance-enhancing tools and intermediary-actor-empowering tools—such as networking and training of interdisciplinary specialists—better outcomes in inter-system collaboration can be achieved.