Data Management in International Monitoring Programs Joint Workshop of the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat (CWSS)
EU Life-project DEMOWAD	Copenhagen 18th/19th February 1998

Remssbot

H. Niesing

Access towards different environmental data sources through an integrated environmental management system.

Abstract

The physical and administrative areas related to environmental topics may vary from a part of a region up to several countries, especially in watersystems.

Managing these areas, accessing the information available about these areas, can result in difficulties. This can cost a significant amount of time or it is unknown what information is available at the neighbouring administration.

Challenging these problems, Remssbot, (Regional Environmental Management Support System Based on Telematics) benefits from access to different information sources. Remssbot is a co-operation project among the regions Piemonte (Italy), Attica (Greece) and Scheldt (Netherlands and Flanders).

Remssbot aims to improve environmental information services at the level of the water system, taking benefit of an innovative design.

The innovative aspects of the Remssbot system are the techniques used which allows the administrations and environmental managers to have access to each others data on an independent base while maintaining control over their own data. The data provider also determines what access should be given to a certain user. This concept results in several connected databases which are physically separated, but appear as one.

During the project a so-called demonstrator has been developed, this demonstrator is a tool which shows the functioning of the system with limited contents and applications which are not yet completely operational.

The developed "demonstrator" is a tool which is build up on roughly two elements, the Catalogue of Data Sources (CDS) which provides the metadata search and the telematical extensions to provide the actual information (weather documents, measured parameters etc) to the user.

Use of Remssbot in the Scheldt region.

The high number of habitants, the high degree of industrialisation and the agricultural use of a big part of the area resulted in a considerable pressure on the river ecosystem. The ecological problems in the Scheldt basin are partly due to the enclosure of wetlands for agricultural use and more recently for a wider variety of industrial and port related, urban, safety and recreational purposes. As a result, unfortunately the river Scheldt is still one of the most polluted river systems in Western Europe.

The project in the Scheldt region concerns the needs of the water managers within the region to have access to the right information on the right moment. The main activities of the participating administrations are related to the water quality and the ecological functioning of the river Scheldt.

Project objectives :

• Developing an environmental management support system which can be used for a wide variety of environmental topics and management levels.
• Facilitate the search for and access to specific environmental data by several well developed navigation systems.
• Increasing the quantity of environmental information and velocity of availability.
• Wider dissemination of all kind of publicly available environmental information concerning the water system using the internet access.
• Using the Catalogue of Data Sources in the data communication between regions and countries will stimulate the standardisation of terms used for a certain object, activity or location within a system. This is essential in using one European standard thesaurus for environmental subjects. The Remssbot project supports the EEA bringing this multilingual and hierarchical thesaurus into the daily practice of environmental managers.
• Stimulating integrated water management development which places the river basin as the central entity within policy plans, instead of geographical determined boundaries, such as land frontiers.
• Sharing experiences, knowledge and measured data on water management topics between administrations and their water managers concerned with an ecosystem. This can result in closer co-operation and understanding of public administrations concerning environmental information.

Actual situation in the Scheldt basin on water management and information sharing

• Each administration has his own database
• Few knowledge about activities of the different department in the catchment area
• Few use of each others information (policy, research monitoring etc.)
• No compatibility to share the information
• No creation of a central database, due to financial and managing problems.
• Differences in measuring, units used, co-ordinates etc.
• International Commission for the protection of the river Scheldt started to make policy.

Main points of Remssbot Functionality

• Knowledge of "what" is "where"
• Knowledge of "who" does "what"
• User can search in the metadata from a remote data "provider"
• User can access (and download) the environmental information from a remote "provider"
• At the "provider" database site no changes are occurring
• The complete control for data owner is guaranteed
• User cannot change anything until the information is downloaded
• Easy query making and saving and recalling possibilities
• Easy broadening to more data "providers"
• The accessed information is offered in an easy way
• For the use no manual is needed containing more as 2 pages
• Creation of 1 "virtual" database for the user
• Stimulate European standardisation process in environmental management

Discussion statements:

1.	The data provider should not adapt his information (databases) for the external user, in order to make co-operation as easy as possible and reduces the costs. Secondly this will guarantee an optimal updating of the information. The data provider will do this for the users of the information at the provider’s site itself.
2.	The same can be said for the metadata, because the knowledge and interest to do so is present at the data provider site. This will result in different spread information sources and metadata bases.
3.	The interface and use of the system should be completely self explaining, so for the use no manual is needed at all or not containing more as 2 pages.
4.	Users have to be confronted with the raw information of the connected administration in order to start talking about standardising methods, units, co-ordinates etc. First between the bordering countries, later on an European level.