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- KonferenzbeitragA Future Sensor Web for the Environment in Europe(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Schade, Sven; Craglia, MaxWe have to understand better the complex interactions between global environmental change and the impacts on and of humanity, and assess the risk we are facing, how to mitigate them, and how to adapt to the changes we cannot manage. The global scientific community faces the challenge of delivering the necessary information and knowledge to society and policy makers. Europe has an important role to play in this global effort, and many initiatives are under way to improve the retrieval, access and sharing of relevant data and information. Nevertheless, there is also an increasing awareness that some of the data currently collected about the environment and its social impacts fall short of the requirements. In this paper we advocate the sensor web as a core contributor to address this challenge and improve the quality and timeliness of data about our environment. Widening the notion of a sensor beyond physical devices to include environmental models and user contributed contend, we promote central sensor web concepts. We give an overview of recent research areas and the state of play, before detailing how sensor services can encapsulate physical, virtual, and citizen based senses about our environment. We outline how an overarching event based architecture may facilitate these senses for situation awareness. The paper concludes with a discussion of recent and future developments that are required to establish a Future Sensor Web for the environment in Europe.
- KonferenzbeitragA Glance on ICT Programmes and Projects in the Field of Sustainable Development in Portugal(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Ribeiro, Alexandra B.; Fonseca, AlexandraSustainable development is nowadays a major issue of most governmental agendas creating the need to define strategies to tackle this issue. A National Strategy for Sustainable Development was defined in Portugal in 2007, identifying the development objectives and the necessary measures and actions to assure the adequate balance among the economic, the social and the environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Four strategic domains were established: (1) to guaranty a balanced territorial development; (2) to improve environmental quality; (3) to produce sustainable consumption; (4) towards a solidarity society for knowledge. This last domain focuses on the strengthening of professional capabilities towards Portuguese population competitiveness, the development of education, information and participation, the access to justice and the responsibility for sustainable development, as well as the support to a wide cooperation context for Portugal. Accordingly, a Technological Plan was established as a governmental priority in the implementation of its public policies, as an action agenda for all the Portuguese society, which aims at mobilizing enterprises, families and institutions for surpassing the modernization challenges the country has been facing during the last years. In this context Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) were considered a major step forward and several initiatives involving ICT are under development in different domains that aim to contribute to cope with the sustainable development challenge. This paper intends to provide a glance of the research situation in the field of ICT for sustainable development in Portugal. Major issues concerning the use of ICT for sustainable development in Portugal are presented focusing on the government initiatives and on the existing research programmes and projects. Examples of undergoing initiatives in different areas are presented aiming to illustrate the use of ICT for sustainable development in Portugal. Two research units are highlighted, the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research and the Portuguese Geographic Institute as examples of Portuguese institutions working for sustainability and on the use of ICT to relevant areas for sustainable development. Finally a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for the future is performed.
- KonferenzbeitragA Meta-Model for Water Quantity and Water Quality(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Gnauck, Albrecht; Pillmann, WernerThe management of water resources requires simulation models for different time horizons and spatial scales as well as different types of information systems as GIS or Water Information Systems. Mathematical models integrate former experiences and theoretical knowledge about a system with actual information gained by natural processes and man-induced activities. Because of the great variety and complexity of processes considered for water management and their natural or anthropogenic origins different structural dynamic models have to be combined. The questions that must be answered for water management options are how much water is available, for what purposes it will be used, who are the actors and stakeholders, and what kind of consequences follow from distinguished management options for the public, agriculture and industry, and what kind of environmental (or ecological) responses result from anthropogenic activities. For this reason, and to make different subsystems comparable, a Meta-Model is used. In the paper, an overview is given on the methodology how to construct a water quantity and quality meta-model as a tool to manage water systems, and as a base for decision making.
- KonferenzbeitragA new validation approach to assess the quality of modeled agricultural biomass potentials using BETHY/DLR(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Tum, Markus; Niklaus, Markus; Günther, Kurt P.; Kappas, Martin WernerA new validation approach is presented to assess the quality of modeled agricultural biomass potentials with statistical data on high resolution. First investigations in Germany and Austria show coefficients of determination (r²) of up to 0.79 on district level. Our modeled net primary productivity is computed with the dynamic biomass model BETHY/DLR. Primarily the photosynthetic rate of vegetation types is computed with time steps of one hour and currently with a spatial resolution of about 1km x 1km. Included models compute the water balance and radiative energy transfer between atmosphere, vegetation and soil. The model is driven by meteorological data provided by the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), remote sensing data derived through SPOTVEGETATION and soil type information by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The model output (gross primary productivity (GPP)) is calculated daily. Net primary productivity (NPP) is determined by subtracting the cumulative plant maintenance respiration from GPP. In order to validate the modeled NPP, data of crop yield estimations derived from national statistics are used to calculate above ground biomass by using conversion factors about corn to straw relations. Furthermore conversion factors about shoot to root relations are used to determine total biomass. Finally the carbon content of dry matter is estimated. With this method coefficients of determination (r²) of up to 0.67 combined with a slope of 0.83 are found for Germany. For Austrian NUTS-3 units slightly higher coefficients of determination are found (0.74) combined with a slope of 1.08. The results show that modelling NPP using the process model BETHY/DLR and remote sensing data and meteorological data as input delivers reliable estimates of above ground biomass when common agricultural conversion factors are taking into account.
- KonferenzbeitragA pooling based load shift strategy for household appliances(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Lünsdorf, Ontje; Sonnenschein, MichaelAn increasing utilization of renewable energy sources like wind or sunlight demands for balancing energy to overcome (potentially unforeseen) fluctuations in the power production. Instead of adapting the power supply, as it is currently done, it is also possible to control the power demand. As household appliances account for a large fraction of the overall load and are a major contributor to the daily load peaks, we investigate how a pool of household appliances can be used for load shifting. The outlined strategy has the potential to integrate different appliance types into demand side management measures. A pooling algorithm is used to group appliances into virtual devices which can fulfil given stochastic constraints. Due to permanent reorganization of virtual devices, the system is able to adapt itself to long-term changes. Demand side management measures like these may be used for example to compensate errors in wind power prognosis, or to smooth the startup-ramps of conventional power plants generating balance energy.
- KonferenzbeitragAbout the Sense of Useless Software(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Möller, AndreasComponents of environmental management information systems like material flow analysis should be fundamental modules of enterprise resource planning systems. Though environmental management information systems are in development since more than 15 years, this is still not the case. This contribution tries to understand why this is the case. Starting point is another class of successful software solutions: Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging and other Web 2.0 applications. Based on Habermas’ concept of lifeworld, this kind of software supports processes in the lifeworld of humans. We can call this kind of software “lifeworld software” whereas environmental management information systems are rather a subclass of “systems software”. Especially regarding environment protection and sustainable development, processes in the lifeworld of humans play an important role. Sustainability stands for a bundle of concepts that do not longer allow “business as usual” in organizations. However, the social subsystems have developed their own action orientations (like profit maximization) and systemic mechanisms. Software systems, which follow the ideas and concepts of sustainable development, are not compatible with these orientations and mechanisms. This is a considerable problem of environmental management information systems. They deal with important challenges in companies and value chains but until now they don’t play an important role in companies because. The same can be said about eco-controlling, sustainable supply chain management etc. One important conclusion of Habermas’ theory of communicative action is that generalized action orientations and systemic mechanisms are results of communication processes. Communication is required to rethink traditional conventions and to find out new orientations. Web-2.0 applications support these processes. So, lifeworld support systems can complement the management information system approaches. Communication processes in the lifeworld allow modifying and changing structures and mechanisms. These processes cannot be planned but effective communication can be supported. Corporate sustainable development can be divided into two phases: (1) a transition phase (here communication support is required) and (2) a new “business as usual” phase (here new management information systems are required).
- KonferenzbeitragAn Incentives-Based Analysis Of Pollution Prevention Regulation in The United States(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Clune, William HenryPollution prevention stands at the forefront of industry's potentiality and practice of ecological responsibility. Yet, business and industry have not always lived up to this potential on their own, and there is still an important role for governments to play in establishing regulatory baselines. This paper explores some of the key relationships between good corporate practices and efficient governance to help conceive of ways for the two to work together more effectively. An examination of industry’s incentives and barriers to voluntarily undertake pollution prevention projects is the first step in the analysis of optimal or preferable regulatory forms. The regulatory regimes considered in this study are then categorized as either more intrusive (less voluntary) or less intrusive (more voluntary). A theoretical framework is created in the form of a taxonomy that relates several possible incentive states to preferred regulatory regimes (no regulation, less intrusive, or more intrusive). This type of structure for classifying and using information is an important, functional step in bringing social, cultural, and organizational considerations within the fields of information technology and informatics.
- KonferenzbeitragAn Information Portal for the Research in Nature Reserves: The UNESCO MaB Biosphere Reserve Bliesgau(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Fischer-Stabel, Peter; Mattern, Michael; Schäfer, KerstinBiosphere reserves have three main objectives: conserving biological and cultural diversity; providing models of land management and experimental sites for sustainable development, and serving as sites for research, environmental monitoring, education and training. In order to ensure a longterm and a central and efficient access to the literature and data on such a nature reserve for all scientists from the respective institutions, a research information portal was established. Based on a user requirements analysis, a client-server architecture using open source components was set up. Core modules are a metadata-management component and a map service. Beside the own data, the system is interfacing external data sources (e.g. semantic network service, PortalU-SL, geoportal-SL) using standardized protocols to optimize the information retrieval. The goal is to avoid expensive, redundant data acquisition as well as time-consuming information retrieval for the individual research teams. Furthermore, research becomes more transparent, thus allowing better use of possible synergy effects.
- KonferenzbeitragAn Information Search and Filtering Engine for Sustainable Consumption Portal(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Lukács, Gergely; Cseh, MarcellIn this paper, the key elements of a Web portal for sustainable consumption are introduced. The pieces of information – news, background articles, and advertisements – are ranked according to two criteria: Their potential to reduce the users’ ecological footprint and their costs. In order to be able to do this, the control engine of the Web portal uses three sources of information: (1) a personal profile prepared by the user with the help of a personal ecological footprint calculator, part of the portal; (2) an ontology on sustainable consumption; (3) a database on ecological footprint reduction measures, containing the potential of the measure as well as its costs. With the Web portal, a so called “integrated lifestyle package” of information and information services is built, providing the necessary width of coverage for widespread use.
- KonferenzbeitragAn urban health risk analysis for Berlin: exploration and integration of spatio-temporal Information on the urban environment(Integration of Environmental Information in Europe, 2010) Lakes, Tobia; Leser, Ulf; Senf, CorneliusUrban areas provide the living space for the majority of the world population. Well-being and health within urban areas is influenced by environmental and socioeconomic variables. To analyze the potential health risk in cities one has to integrate multi-dimensional and multi-scale information describing socioeconomic, environmental and healthrelated attributes. The aim of this paper is to study the urban health risk for different parts of the city of Berlin using a data-driven analysis approach. We focus on the detection and exploration of correlations between environmental, socioeconomic and health-related attributes in Berlin. We showcase the further study of selected correlations, including the biophysical and socioeconomic burden of certain diseases, and their visual exploration using advanced geovisualization.