TEMSIS
Transnational
Environmental Management
Support
and Information
System
Keywords:Air and water quality,
management support information system,
Info-kiosks, cross-border cooperationTransnational Environmental Management Support
and Information System
Application site: Saarbrücken, De; Ville de Sarreguemines Dept. Moselle, F
Internet: http://www-temsis.dfki.uni-sb.de
Context
The Saar-Moselle region at the German-French
border and the cities of Saarbruecken and
Sarreguemines have a common industrial history.
An industrial past has left these regions with a
number of serious environmental problems; the
communities on both sides of the border have been
meeting for a number of years to discuss their
common problems and development. Any decisions
concerning new industrial development will have
environmental impacts as well as social impacts on
the region as a whole without regard to the national
frontier. To prepare the decision of local authorities,
usually an environmental impact statement will be
necessary, and citizens have to be informed about
the various projects and their impacts.
A close co-operation already existed between the German and French communities before the project, but this was up to now informal. In 1997 the transnational association "Zukunft SaarMoselle Avenir" has been established to strengthen the co-operation within the transnational authorities and build a legal basis for further co-operation. The TEMSIS demonstrator builds the communication platform for future common policy.
The problem within the transnational 'TEMSIS' region is that the local authorities need a lot of efforts to acquire the necessary environmental information in order to make environmental assessments. Interviews with the transnational expert user group have identified many data sources but they cannot be used easily because of the following reasons:
- Information is distributed to local and regional authorities and organisations
- Environmental information is based on different measurement methods and therefore they are not comparable
- Environmental information is not available for all the cities and communities of the region concerned
- Environmental information is provided in the framework of the data suppliers and not compared with other regions
- The access to information requires great efforts and, in most cases, official requests and co-ordination with the respective responsible authority
- Environmental information is in most cases not up to date because of economic constraints
- No formal transnational regulations or procedures exist.
An integrated information- and telecooperation-platform is proposed by the TEMSIS project to meet the above mentioned needs. This platform enables the expert user group to strengthen the co-operation by building an expert network (intranet) and a public network (internet) with free access to environmental information and on a multilingual frame.
By applying such communication platforms the following objectives are realised:
- comparative analysis of environmental data by harmonising the transnational data sources and easy access to this information
- co-operative planning to improve decision making
- public environmental information presentation to make decisions transparent and fulfil the EU guideline (1990)
A kiosk concept with three different levels (A, P and I) and a central information service that integrates the distributed environmental data sources has been created. The administrative version (A-Kiosk) is used by experts in the environmental authorities. The 'Navigator', common component to all the kiosk types, allows users to manage information retrieval and presentation in an integrated way. Powerful local applications like GIS or graphical applications are managed by the participating planning or environmental departments. Telecooperation is supported by a central Multipoint Control Unit for conferences up to four persons.
A second type of kiosk (Public, P-Kiosk) is accessible at the city halls. Except for the Telecooperation functionality, the same data are available with the same presentation tools to reach the highest transparency of environmental information. The P-Kiosk uses the local graphical presentation tool called SICAD SD – lite, started from the WEB browser. The second type of public kiosks based on Internet (I-Kiosk), (ie. based on new technology),use special GIS libraries presented by standard HTML functions. The functionality of the system was enhanced by a much demanded discussion forum to allow communication among citizens, authorities and elected politicians.
Another major result was the preparation of a glossary in two languages (FR and D) including all information necessary to understand the trasnational presentation of the data sources such as air and water quality data, socio-economic data, master plans, etc. The characteristics of such a data base are: transparent access to air quality data collected by a separated French and German network in a comparable structure, fast access to time series taken from a relational data base, and automatic update of actual data.
Technical characteristics
The system is based on standard hard and software
components with the following details:
The server
- Sun Sparc station with Unix operating system
- Web server (Apache)
- Oracle data base with SQL and ODBC interface
- Remote Access Server (RAS) based on ISDN to build the intranet for distributed administrations
- SICAD internet Map Server.
- Standard PC with WIN 95 or NT
- Low cost Multimedia Kit Siemens 'Iview' (Video, Audio, ISDN Board) including Group Win software
- Navigator 1 or 2 (Seibersdorf)
- EXCEL
- SICAD SD for geo data presentation (SNI) including interfaces
- FORMULA extension, Database Management tool (Seibersdorf).
- Standard PC with WIN 95 or NT
- Fast V.34 Modem or ISDN for high performance
- Internet Service provider; Internet Browser, e.g.
- Netscape or MS Internet Explorer Navigator 2 if used locally, otherwise loaded from the web pages
- SICAD SD-lite .
- Standard PC with WIN 95 or NT
- Fast V.34 Modem or ISDN for high performance Internet Service provider;
- Internet Browser, e.g. Netscape or MS Internet Explorer.
- Video and Audio communication over standard H.320 (videotelephony) protocols between the experts and audio to external persons
- Data retrieval using ISDN connection to a Remote Access Server (RAS) with TCP/IP to build an intranet of experts
- Cooperative working using 'application sharing', 'Shared Whiteboard' component and integrated standard data transfer methods (euro file transfer, Fax,e-mail).
The TEMSIS project can be relevant outside of its current scope of implementation. The system is of generic use in data modelling for communication platforms. It can be transferred into other languages and uses, supported by the technical group of the TEMSIS project. Specific to each use are the data sources and the client's central server component, both of which can be easily installed. The public version only needs a Web browser with functionalities which are integrated into future browsers.
Other potential user groups outside of those currently involved in the project could be the environmental ministries and any industry which needs information about planning activities. Additionally, there is a large potential market in the EU and CEE communities for using Info Kiosks to distribute information to their citizens. Enterprises can also utilise the info-kiosks to increase the image of green companies by publishing their results and reaching a wide sector of the public.
The potential customer will need to be able to fund the central components of the system, e.g. support for the server installation, establishment of the measurement network, integration of the telecommunication platform. The Kiosk applications are available on a CD-ROM together with the description of the products necessary to run the system. Technical support (remote maintenance) to the customer (technical group) can be done if the tele-cooperation system is installed.
There are costs for transferring the application, because special components and adaptations of the system are required to run it at the new user site, for example the video confe rencing tool with integrated ISDN board , SICAD-SD (PC-GIS System), and other products.
Do you have a comment, reaction or opinion regarding what you've read? If so, please leave it at the online discussion board!
The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe
