FOREWORD

OBJECTIVES

Figure 1: The REMSSBOT system providing distributed access to local data sources through CDS

The systems further objectives included the better deployment of existing technologies and information, the implementation of integrated environmental management through the CDS, the wide dissemination of publicly available environmental information, and closer cooperation among public administration concerning environmental information.

USER NEEDS

THE REGIONS AND AREAS OF APPLICATION

• In Piemonte, the chosen field of application was a system that could support the management of administrative and technical investigation procedures by providing regulatory information concerning industrial plants, specifically those plants which carry significant risk of accident generated by industrial activities characterised by the storage and/or processing of relevant quantities of hazardous substances. Support was provided for analysis of the plant setting (process cycle and hazardous materials), the plants surroundings both from a territorial and an environmental point of view, the risk analysis, the safety measures and the emergency plans.

• In Attica, the demonstrator targeted a single, unified system, through which it would be possible to access information collected by various authorities concerning air pollution and bathing water quality. Concerning air quality information, the system aims to collect all air pollution measurements and to unify them into a single air pollution picture. Concerning bathing water quality, the system has the objective to register bathing water quality measurements made according to EU directives and present them in a unified and structured way.

• In Scheldt, the objective was to implement a system that supported water managers with environmental information within the region (the Dutch and Flemish part of the River Scheldt catchment area). Specifically this concerned different aspects of water management: documents (projects, investigations, permissions), digitised maps and tables with different parameters, such as the dissolved oxygen concentration, nutrients, the concentration of a selection of heavy metals and the situation of communal and industrial pollution.

THE PARTNERS

In the Netherlands, the Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management (RWS) served as the Scheldt-based partner. Three bodies of the Rijkswaterstaat were involved:

• The Zeeland-based, RWS Regional Department, which, due to geographical location (with responsibility for the River Scheldt), acted as a full partner to the Dutch contractor;
• RIKZ, the National Institute for Coastal Zone Management, which advises and provides data on the sustainable use of estuaries, coast and sea, and protection against flooding by the sea, was involved as an associated partner;
• RIZA, the Institute for Inland Water Management and Waste Water Treatment, which conducts research and provides advice on matters relating to water management and the restoration of water systems, and which also provides recommendations on the issuing of licenses for wastewater emissions.

EDS Netherlands, a Dutch subsidiary of one of the world leaders in the application of Information Technology and a long time supplier of Rijkswaterstaat was involved as an associated partner. The Flemish Environmental Agency (VMM) was also directly involved in the project for the Scheldt region.

ITLD (Information Training Local Development) represented the Greek Attica region. ITLD is a development agency serving Greek local authorities, established in November 1990 by 23 municipal enterprises as a public limited company. Its establishment came as a response to the continually growing needs of local authorities for extensive information, by making the most of local resources, and by becoming actively involved in development projects. Its mission, and the strong representation of the local authorities in ITLD testifies to the high integration of user needs in all the phases of the project. DIENEKIS, which cooperates with many local bodies in the development of innovative projects, was involved as an associated partner of ITLD.

PROJECT ORGANIZATION

Figure 2: REMSSBOT work packages and organisation

TECHNICAL INFORMATION - THE CATALOGUE OF DATA SOURCES

• R-Information offering a description of the available environmental information at a site for which the data provider must be directly contacted;
• R-Product including documents, spreadsheets, flat files, HTML pages, and maps that can be downloaded;
• R-Process including access to data from the regional data providers databases.

While R-Information provides simple information about the source of information, R-Product initiates a URL to an html page on the WorldWideWeb. Textual documents or an image is made available for the user which can be saved or downloaded (depending on the type of R-product). Textual forms of information are documents in a .doc format. Available images can be either simple bitmaps or images of downloadable georeferences as e00 files and can be visualised in an ESRI ArcView environment where the user can edit these images.

In activating the R-Process, the user launches a query directly onto the database of the provider. The nature of the query is to some extent predefined by the provider of the data while the user sets the value of each constraint parameter.

REMSSBOT also defines an underlying layer of services, the E(lementary)-Services, which rely on Object Oriented Technology and in particular CORBA (Common Object Request Brokering Architecture). E-Services are designed to accomplish elementary tasks, such as data retrieval and filtering. More complex tasks are implemented at the R-Service level by executing a series of E-Services. R-Services consist essentially of a list of the executed E-Services.

The REMSSBOT Key Technologies are the following:

• Object Oriented Technology;
• Web Technology;
• CORBA (Common Object Request Brokering Architecture).

The CDS and R-Process functions can be accessed through:

• The REMSSBOT-client program installed on a PC or a Workstation
• A web browser.

The REMSSBOT-server application can access meta-information from the CDS database and execute R-Processes which access data from different Regional Data Providers (through the E-Services). The data provider databases and the CDS database are accessed through CORBA.

Figure 3a highlights how information would be traditionally accessed. Each would access data either in a client/server environment or through a Web browser.

Figure 3a: Traditional means of accessing databases

Figure 3b: The REMSSBOT solution to accessing databases

Figure 4: REMSSBOT architecture

EXPERIENCES IN IMPLEMENTING THE APPLICATION

Having closed the project, and an assessment of the three "pilot sites" completed, the main benefits of the REMSSBOT application at the European market level can be described as follows:

• Better and easier management of environmental information for European institutions in multiple locations. Benefits include:
  • Improved effectiveness of authorities: better and quicker information, more sophisticated information organisation and management, possibility for more efficient decisionmaking;
  • Economic development: money saved from avoiding duplication of existing information through building a centralised data warehouse;
  • Pan-European cooperation: simpler and broader information exchange, better monitoring of the environmental situation in Europe.

• Flexible system architecture and software tools:
  • Useful for several application domains;
  • Independence of other operation systems, platforms and databases types;
  • Ease in upgrading or extending functionality.

• Compatibility and contribution to the current EU needs and activities (especially EEA and ETC/CDS)

TRANSFERABILITY ASPECTS AND EXPLOITATION

REMSSBOT, though the three regional demonstrators in Piemonte, Attica and Scheldt, also proved that the concept of the project can be successfully applied in different application domains and geographical areas (addressing different user needs and requirements), where the exchange of information from several locations is needed.

The REMSSBOT approach in environmental information management has already been appreciated from users at a regional, as well as European level. Some areas for its further exploitation have already been identified:

• The European Environment Agency (EEA) expressed interest in using REMSSBOT to offer access to data between the European Topic Centres (ETCs), the National Focal Points, and Reference Centres (NFPs, NRCs). This comes in light of the fact that the EIONET network has now become operational. REMSSBOT has been in close contact with the ETC/CDS of the EEA, since the project was largely based on the EEA's CDS. At this point, REMSSBOT is considered to be an extension of the EEA Catalogue of Data Sources concept, since besides navigation through the Catalogue and the metadata, it also enhances access to real data (using CDS as the core information element). The REMSSBOT CDS data model has thus been adapted to form the new version of their CDS (version 2), which has been recently developed.

• The National Biodiversity Network in the UK has the REMSSBOT data access concept most suitable and appropriate to their needs, and is in the process of negotiating future cooperation.

• In Italy, the REMSSBOT approach was applied to GAIA, an inter-regional project that started in December 1996, with the aim of developing an Environmental Information Network among six partner Regions, the Ministry of the Environment and the National Agency for Environment Protection. Moreover, local public bodies asked CSI for a follow-up to the project, in order to complete demonstrator development, providing a stable and fully operational service. REMSSBOT is currently under evaluation for application to a further domain;

• The REMSSBOT architectural solution has also been proposed for inclusion in the European Union, INTERREG2 project whose task is to share meteorological data and information between the two partners involved: the Piemonte Region in Italy and the Rhone-Alps Region in France.

• Other examples of likely REMSSBOT application in Europe include:
  • The development of a Decision Support System for Estuary management.
  • Access to remote sensing data using the REMSSBOT architecture.
  • North Sea monitoring using the REMSSBOT System for integrated data access on sediment flow, nutrients, currents, algaeblooms, etc.
  • Improvement in monitoring and accessing databases, and document sharing,
  • Linking of all databases related to oceanographic issues and ensuring available content to all user groups.

• The development of a National Environment Information Network and National CDS in the Netherlands and Greece, expanding the domains, as well as the areas of application.

COST-BENEFIT CONSIDERATIONS

• For authorities:
  • better and quicker provision and retrieval of information;
  • standardisation of the information management through the use of the CDS;
  • improved efficiency of decisionmaking;
• Increased cooperation between different public bodies;
• Wider diffusion of environmental information to the general public;
• Compatibility and contribution to the current EU needs and activities (especially EEA and ETC/CDS);

CONCLUSIONS

Finally, the REMSSBOT approach and technical solution is in fact quite general and can be applied to similar problems of information exchange among data providers in many different application domains, and not just the environmental field.

REFERENCES

Lievens, E. and Gallo, P. (1996), D03.02 Guidelines for System Architecture, REMSSBOT project.

Lefas, C. and Kalpaksidis, K. and Gallo, P. and Viarengo, L. and van Harten, K. and Niesing, H. and Galle M. (1996), D05.02 Final User Needs and Requirements, REMSSBOT project.

Niesing, H. and Viarengo, L. and Bourka A. (1997), REMSSBOT: A key to environmental information, Proceedings of the Conference Europeenne sur les Technologies de l'Information pour l'Environment, Strasbourg.

European Commission - DG XIII, (1996), Telematics Application Programme 1994-1998 - Environment Telematics Project Summaries, European Commission - DG XIII.

ETC/CDS project (1996), First International Workshop on Catalogue of Data Source and Thesaurus - Vienna, November 21, 22 1995, Proceedings, ETC/CDS project.

ETC/CDS project (1996), Data model CDS vers 1.0. March 1996 - Rapport under contract of the European Environment Agency, ETC/CDS project.

ETC/CDS project (1996), Data model CDS 0.5 vers - Under contract of the European Environment Agency, ETC/CDS project.

ETC/CDS project (1996), Third ETC/CDS Workshop on CDS and Thesaurus, Copenhagen, 16 - 17 September 1996, Proceedings, ETC/CDS project.

ETC/CDS project (1996), Definition and Rules vers. 1.0 November 1996, - Rapport under contract of the European Environment Agency, ETC/CDS project.

ETC/CDS project (1996), GEMET General European Multilingual Environ-mental Thesaurus, Vers. 0.3 State 26.03.1997- Rapport under contract of the European Environment Agency, ETC/CDS project.

INTERNET, REMSSBOT web site, http://www.netor.gr/remssbot