Sustainable HCI Under Water: Opportunities for Research with Oceans, Coastal Communities, and Marine Systems

Document Title

Sustainable HCI Under Water: Opportunities for Research with Oceans, Coastal Communities, and Marine Systems

Document Information

• Subject Area: Applications and research opportunities of Sustainable Human-Computer Interaction (SHCI) in oceans and coastal communities
• Keywords: Sustainable Human-Computer Interaction (SHCI), sustainable interaction design, marine systems, coastal communities, SDG 14, environmental sustainability, climate change, ocean conservation, human-nature relationships

Research Background and Issues

• Issues and Challenges:

  • Oceans play a critical role in sustaining human well-being, yet the sustainable HCI community has paid relatively little attention to ocean-related issues.
  • Existing research often focuses on energy, air pollution, and resource consumption, with limited contributions to marine systems.
  • Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) identifies “Life Below Water” as a global challenge, but the HCI community faces difficulties addressing these complex, multidimensional issues.

• Significance:

  • Approximately 40% of the global population lives within 100 kilometers of coastlines, facing threats such as climate change and coastal inundation.
  • The ocean economy contributes $1.5 trillion to the global economy and is projected to reach $3 trillion by 2030.
  • Covering 70% of the Earth's surface and containing 95% of its habitable space, oceans are critical for global biodiversity.

• Research Motivation:

  • Current SDG 14 research primarily focuses on interdisciplinary issues such as food sources from the ocean, coastal cultures and communities, marine conservation, and climate change.
  • This paper proposes to establish a methodological and thematic foundation for new work on ocean-related issues by reviewing SHCI literature.

Solutions

• Methods and Solutions:

  • Employ a scoping review methodology to analyze relevant literature in the ACM Digital Library.
  • Synthesize SHCI methods, tools, and research themes related to SDG 14 through literature analysis.
  • Define the current state, methodological combinations, and future opportunities for marine systems research in SHCI.

• Innovations:

  • Proposes an SDG 14-centered analytical framework, systematically reviewing SHCI explorations in the marine domain and identifying research gaps for the first time.
  • Integrates perspectives on technical design, cultural context, and social justice to address complex interactions between social and natural systems.

• Implementation Steps:

  1. Define the search scope: Filter relevant literature based on SDG 14-related keywords (e.g., “ocean,” “marine”) and core SHCI terms.
  2. Literature screening: Select 16 core papers based on thematic relevance and research methods (e.g., design research, case studies, user studies).
  3. Induction and coding: Analyze the content of the literature, extract recurring research themes and methodological characteristics, and summarize future research opportunities.

Research Findings

• Specific Research Findings:

  1. Literature Distribution and Thematic Induction:
     • The collected studies were published between 2010 and 2022, primarily covering four themes: marine food resources, climate change impacts, marine conservation, and oceanic culture and social contexts.
     • Research methods include ethnography, case studies, design research, and literature reviews.
  2. Key Research Themes:
     • Sustainability as a “solvable problem”: Some studies focus on finding solutions through technology and design; others emphasize exploring the complexity behind the issues.
     • Sustainability as a contextualized practice: Highlights the importance of social, cultural, and ecological contexts in research.
     • Economic systems and market benefits: Some studies attempt to adjust market behaviors, while others critique existing capitalist systems and suggest alternative economic models.
     • Diverse roles of technology: Includes providing data to support decision-making, fostering reflection on nature, and supporting social movements.
     • Social justice: Addresses issues of economic and power inequalities, though the overall discussion depth is limited.

• Comparison with Existing Solutions:

  • Compared to traditional SHCI research, this study emphasizes oceans and coastal communities, presenting broader and more urgent demands for technological interaction, sociocultural considerations, and ecological collaboration.

• Experimental and Evaluation Results:

  • Identified 16 SHCI studies related to SDG 14, revealing that literature on marine conservation is relatively scarce but has provided meaningful early explorations.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:

    • Research is primarily concentrated in North America and Europe, neglecting the Global South, local knowledge, and non-English literature.
    • Related studies outside the field (e.g., marine social sciences) are insufficiently included.
    • Dependence on the SDG framework overlooks its inherent limitations, such as the colonial logic of “development” and technocentric biases.

  • Future Directions:

    1. Expanding Research Communities:
       • Conduct ethnographic studies of urbanized marine systems, integrating environmental justice and decolonial design.
       • Broaden global research perspectives, including regions in Asia, Africa, and small island nations.
    2. Bridging Technology and Contextual Research:
       • Combine technological design with ethnographic studies to refine the application of technology in specific communities.
    3. Rethinking Economic Systems:
       • Design technological tools to support alternative economic models, particularly for small-scale fisheries and aquaculture.
    4. Strengthening Interdisciplinary Collaboration:
       • Collaborate with marine biology, social sciences, and policymakers to develop multimodal technological narratives.
    5. Methodological Reflections:
       • Reevaluate how the SHCI community defines sustainability and promote diverse global knowledge sharing.

The above content summarizes the scientific issues, research methods, and future development prospects discussed in the document, systematically synthesizing its key points.