I. Presentations and Discussion

Mr. N. Hodges and Mr. W. Boch (chairpersons) opened the meeting. A revised agenda was proposed. Minutes of the previous meeting were approved without modification.

Mr. G. Pinter, VITUKI, presented the Danube Accident Emergency Warning System. The establishment of the Danube AEWS is one of the high priority actions of the Environmental Programme for the Danube River Basin. This Programme aims to promote the co-operation and efforts of the Danube riparian countries in developing measures to overcome environmental problems of the region, using integrated environmental management practice. The implementation of the Danube AEWS is one of the regional bases of this activity, and is supported by 11 Governments of the Danube countries with the financial support of the European Union's Phare Programme.

Prof. J. Ribeiro da Costa, New University of Lisbon, presented ÒRequirements and priorities identified in telematics applications for water pollution aspects in PortugalÓ. The Portuguese Water Resource Information System (SNIRH available on WEB : www.inag.pt/snirh) is a particular example of an environment telematics application rather useful for different users e.g. administrators, researchers, etc. The SNIRH prototype started in 1989 and the current version in 1994.The SNIRH is an integrated system able to process, validate and manage hydrological information and water use.

The main system components are its database (meteorological , hydrological data and surface water quality) time series framework, client tools. Its data is available for free on the Internet.

According to the user typology proposed in the working document, sa.tapenur2.doc/v.1.2, the user characteristics for SNIRH was analysed and a table has been proposed to provide a more objective interpretation of the different perception/preference characteristics. The results of this analysis will be included in the up-dated version of the above mentioned working document.

Mr. D. Lyklema, TNO-Prague, presented his view on the User requirements for Environment Telematics products in Central Europe. National incomes are very different in the Central European countries, which may greatly influence the development of telematics issues. The new age of privatisation in almost all the economic sectors may speed up the need for a more advanced telematics structure. Conflict of interests exist between economic and environmental issues. Thus in Central Europe, environment telematics issues should provide a clear economic meaning to the users. Successful stories such as the Danube AEWS programme are operated mostly with external support from the EU countries. Nevertheless the approach of promoting transitional projects involving i.e. partners from common river basins/watersheds, is leading to the more successful management of common environmental resources. The success of the DANIS database is to be attributed to the service - free of charge - which provides where and how to get further information. The services and maintenance of Environment Telematics applications should team up with other telematics applications such as Telemedicine, Telelearning where people can immediately profit from such facilities.

Mr. A. Billington, WATERNET, presented a detailed analysis of user requirements in the WATERNET, TAP-EN, project from the point of view of water suppliers. The major objectives of the project are: the protection of the drinking water intakes, to minimise and to monitor point sources, and monitoring general water quality. General and tailored requirements from the French water suppliers (Conseil General des Hauts de Seine; Eaux de la Banlieue de Paris, the drinking water supplier located in the western part of Paris and Lyonnaise des Eaux, Region Parisienne Ouest) and from the Spanish bodies (Grupo Aguas de Barcelona, the supplier of water to Barcelona and its surroundings and which operates the drinking water treatment plant, Sant Joan Despi and all monitoring stations on the Llobregat river), established out in a set of functionalities by WATERNET.

The Waternet end-products will consist in a toolset of functionalities able to verify data quality, to clarify the meaning of the data, to merge on-line and off-line analysis, to provide a management decision support system and to produce clear and objective reports.

In the afternoon, the meeting started with a presentation on the EIONET (Electronic Reference Centre for Environmental Information) by Mr. J. Maes from the European Environment Agency. The main purposes of such telemetrics network can be summarised as: to support the integrated analysis of the state of the environment and reporting Directives, to co-ordinate projects, to connect suppliers and customers of data, to allow public access to documents and databases, to be a co-ordination fulcrum for international and national initiatives. To permit many services, EIONET exists as an Intranet (eionet.eu.int), Extranet and a public Internet. EIONET entered in to phase 1 of its operation on June 1997. Services now available: include e-mail, browsing and discussion forms.

A provisional information on four new TAP-EN projects related to ENWAP topics (approved under the last 4FP call, for projects on 15 April 1997) was given by Mr. J. J. Lauture. These projects include: TELFLEUR, RIPARIUS, DETERMINE, IRENIE.

Mrs. S. Azzali, ANIMATE, presented modifications to the working document (sa.tapenur1.doc/v.1.3) after collected inputs from the discussion of the last EG meeting and after some feedback from the Expert Group members and TAP projects. It was requested of participants to contribute more substantially to the working documents in order to delineate some structure and contents for the description of Best Practices.

Mr. W. Boch started the discussion pointing out that time is ripe to generate the momentum to engage a clear working strategy and to delineate the network of experts behind each single ENWAP expert. Therefore, the experts were requested to contribute with opinions and a scheme was proposed to facilitate such contributions.

Objective: TAP-EN dissemination of Best Practices and end-products

• Do they attract the interest of new users?
• Are the approaches applicable/transferable in both EU & CEE?
• Answers to the following questions should be provided:
• WHAT (end-products/service)?
• HOW (transfer)?
• To WHOM?

ENWAP is surely able to point out who are the ÒKey playersÓ, what are their requirements and what are their constraints in applying TAP-EN Ôend productsÕ. Each expert should consider what actions are best to facilitate such an analysis within the ENWAP group, and each expert was asked to establish a list of specific actions which he is committed to implement before the next meeting. The list of actions below and associated deadlines has been established and agreed:

Actions	Who	When
Copies of all presentations to the meeting to be made available in electronic format by authors.Absentees to read.	Speakers, except for Ribeiro da Costa	end October
All the EG members will propose a clear working strategy such as: * How to describe Best Practices (structure) when applying TAP-EN projects and other related projects in other contexts * To indicate own lists of other users to be involved in the description of Best Practices * A mechanism for delivery of Best Practices	All	8th November
The EG members will propose a lists of participants for the two day EG meeting to be held in Szentendre in March 1998. Specific names and commitments for each candidate speaker to be invited	All	25 November
REC to confirm availability of its conference room for 2-3 March 1998	REC	ASAP

II. Distributed Documents/Materials

1. The working documents (sa.tapenur2.doc/v.1.3);
2. Copies of the overheads used for each presentation;
3. 1st ENWAP Newsletter;
4. List of the New TAP-EN projects.

III. Schedule for Meetings, 1997

4th meeting : 5th December in Brussels;
5th meeting: 2-3 March, 1998 in Budapest.

V. Proposed agenda items for the 4th ENWAP-EG meeting

• Consolidation of the analysis of Best Practice in relation with the TAP projects and/or with other related projects;
• PHARE presentation (Ben Griepink @DG1, Fax: +(32-2) 296-804);
• ADEME presentation;
• TEMSIS presentation;
• IRENIE presentation.

ANNEX 1 - Agenda