The Full Picture

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Linking GEOSS and

European environmental monitoring

Markus Erhard and Tim Haigh, European Environment Agency;

Bo Normander, National Environmental Research Institute

he demand from all parts of society for environmental

information is increasing. Public rights regarding access to

environmental information and public participation are

granted by the Aarhus Convention.

Equally, pressure groups,

experts, and interested citizens are demanding accurate infor-

mation with clear and relevant messages. Commercial users are

interested in running business applications based on environ-

mental data. Policy makers demand that the information is

reliable, easy to understand and relevant, while also being as

up-to-date as possible.

Key challenges that must be addressed to respond to these needs

include data quality, harmonization, sufficient geographical cover-

age, timeliness, data accessibility and integration of data from

multiple sources.

A second set of challenges relates to making the data available

together with tools that allow users to undertake the task they need

to (e.g. experts to do their own analyses), and to communicate them

in ways which the public can readily understand and use as a basis

for their own actions. New technologies often summarized under

the term ‘Web 2.0’ are fostering availability and access to information

across sectors and societies.

A look at two examples of new approaches to address some of

these challenges, linked to GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas ‘human

health’ and ‘water’, will provide a view of the movement toward a

Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS); a concept aligned

with GEOSS principles.

European environmental data flows and assessment

Data and information frommonitoring and other activities in member

countries is channelled to support assessments on the state and trends

in the environment across Europe. Many of these data flows are

handled by the European Environment Agency (EEA)

and its network

of member and participating countries. The network is known as the

European Environment Information and Observation Network

(EIONET).

It involves 38 countries and more than 300 institutes.

Many data flows are established by legislative reporting require-

ments and provide data and information where there are

environmental policies in place, including globally legally binding

commitments. Others are more voluntary initiatives, in particular

for areas where data flows are not regulated by European policies.

The data flows cover a wide range of environmental themes such

as air and water quality, biodiversity and land use. The EEA makes

use of them to help the EU and member countries to make informed

decisions about improving the environment, integrat-

ing environmental aspects into economic policies and

moving toward sustainability.

Reporting and technical progress

Providing up-to-date information is one of the main chal-

lenges for reporting on the state of the environment.

The production cycle of international reports on the state

of the environment usually takes several years. Thus the

demand for timely data is not easily met in the normal

production cycle of comprehensive, hard-copy reports.

International reporting requires inputs from many coun-

tries and authorities and undergoes time consuming data

and text validation procedures. The average time lag of

the underlying data in a number of international State of

Environment (SOE) reports by EEA and OECD has been

shown to be as much as three-to-four years.

Many efforts have been put into improving the timeli-

ness of environmental information, including the use of

indicators, harmonization of data and improvements to

data flows

. Integration of data from different sources

faces numerous technical and organizational challenges.

However, integration of datasets leads to significant bene-

fits in terms of increasing understanding of trends and

the ability to communicate complex environmental

issues.

Data accessibility is a key constraint that determines

the quality of information for decision making. GEOSS

fosters awareness of good practice in data accessibility,

and this in itself can ease the data access burden, thus

facilitating examples such as the projects described below.

The fast progress of the Internet and other communi-

cation technologies provide new opportunities to deliver

timely and relevant environmental information to the

general public. It takes less time to add information to

a website than it does to publish a hard-copy report, and

a website can be updated continuously. The advent of

flexible, widely accessible Internet standards has facili-

tated a great potential for data exchange.

For this

reason, more and more web-based online information

systems are being developed. Two examples – one for

integrated assessments on water-related issues, and one

for near-real-time air quality monitoring, are described

below.

GEOSS C

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ISSEMINATION

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