On the 10th of October 1997, the third meeting of the ENWAP EG was held place in Brussels, gathering 14 ENWAP Experts on the theme of telematics applications for water pollution management in Eastern, Central and Western Europe.
VITUKI (Mr. G. Pinter, Budapest) presented the warning system for pollution accidents on the Danube river basin: the Danube AEWS, one of the high priority actions of the Environmental Programme for the Danube River Basin. Even though the Danube AEWS programme is almost running on external support from the EU countries, the application of this transnational project involving i.e. partners from common river basins/watershed, is leading to a successful management of common environmental resources and interests for the Danube riparian countries. Carrying on such an activity in a sustainable way will be a crucial point for future years when the Danube riparian countries should be self-supporting for common environmental interests.
Water is largely a shared resource (several EU countries receive more than 50% of their supply from other countries) and a wide variety of actors are involved in its management. Their decisions frequently have transregional and transnational impacts and must therefore be co-ordinated in an integrated management of water resources. Availability of reliable datasets on water resources and of decision support systems for water management are becoming indispensable tools for integrated water/environmental management issues for those countries -mostly Southern Mediterranean ones- where water has progressively become an important economic good.
The Portuguese Water Resource Information System -SNIRH- (Prof. J. Ribeiro da Costa , New University of Lisbon) is an example of an integrated environmental information system able to process, validate and manage hydrological information on water use in Portugal, which is of value to different users such as administrators, researchers, and private consultants. A description of user typology and their characteristics for SNIRH was analysed and a system has been proposed to provide a more objective interpretation of different perception/preference characteristics of users. The results of this analysis will be included in the Expert Group working document on the description of a typology of potential users.
From the side of the TAP-EN projects, WATERNET (Mr. A. Billington-CITI) presented a detailed analysis on water suppliers requirements. The project aims to design solutions for monitoring stations in river basin for the protection of the drinking water intakes, to minimize and monitor point sources and to monitor general water quality . Thus the project is developing a toolset of functionalities able to verify data quality, to clarify the meaning of data, to merge on-line and off-line analysis, to provide a management support system and to produce clear and objective reports.
The need to have telematics networks to enable national and European level administrations to transfer information in a number of critical areas such as environment, statistics, health, agriculture, etc. has resulted in the EIONET (European Environment Information and Observation Network) initiative of the European Environment Agency of Copenhagen. Mr. J. Maes pointed out the main purpose of this telematic network i.e. to support integrated analysis of the state of the environment and reporting on EU 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 activities. EIONET does not only provide the telematic network to the EU countries but also to CEE countries where 11 National Focal Points of PHARE countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) has joined the network for telematics services on dissemination and pooling of environmental information.
ECOSIM, EFFECT, EMMA, E-MAIL, REMSSBOT, TEMSIS, WATERNET and ENVIROCITY have been identified as major TAP-EN projects which address applications in the ENWAP domains. These projects will provide end-products and services relevant to other user communities, both in European and in CEE countries.
Demonstration projects focusing on urban air quality and management are developed by EMMA, EFFECT and ECOSIM. Water pollution and management issues are dealt with by WATERNET and REMSSBOT. A group of projects are dedicated to both air and water pollution issues ( ENVIROCITY, ECOSIM, E-MAIL and TEMSIS). A special characteristic of these projects - as well as for all the TAP-EN projects - is the strong user involvement at each phase of development.
The EMMA project (Environmental Monitoring in Metropolitan Areas) focuses on setting up an environmental monitoring and forecasting information and warning system in metropolitan areas. It addresses particularly urban pollution control, provides a system for forecasting pollution levels in 24 and 48 hour , and information for the general public. The project has developed global air quality indicators, established a user reference group involving representatives from various administrations.
The EFFECT project aims to set up an environmental forecasting and management system for predicting poor local air quality in real time and then to introduce effective traffic demand management measures to reduce air pollution levels . The EFFECT system facilitates the integration of air quality models with real-time information of traffic flows, information from local air quality sensors and meteorological sensors, generating the forecast of pollution 'hot-spots'. Therefore, the traffic demand management system will enable interactive management of traffic conditions and optimization of road network operation, based on environmental criteria. The core of the EFFECT environmental management system is an on-line connection between the Air Quality Monitoring and Measurement System with a graphical user interface.
The ECOSIM project is developing and validating a demonstrator for an integrated environmental monitoring and modelling system, to support decisions on environmental planning in urban and industrial areas. The ECOSIM system is implemented in a client-server architecture with high-performance computing (HPC) where necessary , to run sophisticated models allowing the forecast of ozone levels, calculated from road traffic emissions. ECOSIM addresses not only air pollution but also ground and surface water, and coastal water pollution. The project defines several scenarios and uses them for its demonstration purposes , e.g.: the influence of traffic control measures on regional ozone concentration based on on-line traffic emission data; the influence of sea breeze on regional ozone concentration; the interactions between pollution in ground water, surface and coastal water.
The REMSSBOT project is focusing on the improvement of Environmental Information Services at the level of the ecosystem. The physical and the administrative area related to an ecosystem and its environmental problems may vary from municipalities up to several countries. The innovative design of the REMSSBOT system is to have access to each others' data, on an independent base while maintaining the control of their own data. This concept results in several connected databases which are physically separated, but appear as one. Thus, the objective is to share environmental information, not to build a centralize data warehouse, by keeping the data at their original location. This is accomplished through the use of a Catalogue of Data Sources (CDS) as the main information element of the system, with a number of gateways to the existing databases. The CDS will conform to the guidelines of the European Environment Agency (EEA) Catalogue of Data Sources (ETC/CDS). The CDS describes what Information is available at what location and provides IT systems with the automated procedures to access the actual information. Several demonstrators will be implemented, at the site of the participating administrations.
The ENVIROCITY project focuses on the accessibility of the environmental information to the public. It is based on an existing Geographical Information System (GIS), database query technologies and the Internet -WWW.Emphasis is given to the standardisation of meta-data, to improve the access for any user to existing data, to meta-data and information sources on planning, reporting and decision making, for the general public. The information sources include air, climate, soil, surface and ground water datasets, socio-economic and biotic data.
The TEMSIS project addresses environmental information to the general public. via active info-kiosks. It will inform people on the daily change of air and water quality in their local environment. Environmental information is disseminated at focal points such as city halls, or private homes via access to the Internet. In addition, local authorities will inform the citizens about the potential environmental effects of new planned industries and of the impact of changing transport infrastructures.
The E-MAIL project is developing a management system architecture for information delivery. Different sources and types of environmental information often require processing in the form of manipulation, synthesis or interpretation before they can be used as the basis for a well-informed decision. The E-MAIL Software Catalogue includes software tools which will provide facilities to draw together environmental information from different sources; to classify environmental information into designated and meaningful subjects; and to set up procedures for further manipulation of information. The Software Catalogue tools require an Environmental Work Station (or EWS), a powerful personal computer particularly designed and equipped for this purpose.
More information on the TAP-EN projects is provided, when available, on the following WEB sites:
EFFECT: http:\\www.TOL.hol.gr/business/effect, and: http:\\park.westnet.se/lufnet
ECOSIM http:\\www.ess.co.uk/ECOSIM
E-MAIL http:\\www.albanet.co.uk/e-mail.html
EMMA http:\\www.mdx.ac.uk/emma
REMSSBOT http:\\www.netor.gr/remssbot/
TEMSIS http:\\www-temsis.dfki.uni-sb.de
ENVIROCITY http:\\www.envirocity.com