Konferenzbeitrag
Environmental Information via the Internet: the Baltic Environmental Information Dissemination System
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Datum
2000
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Metropolis
Zusammenfassung
The on-going economic development of EU countries and of the countries in the C&E European region has lead to a significant use of a great deal of natural resources as well as to noticeable environmental problems. The lack of a wide-spread environmental awareness on the part of those acting in various sectors (industry, public administration, users) sometimes inhibit the implementation of legislation already in existence as well as the introduction of new technologies.
According to the European-wide survey titled ESIS (European Survey on the Information Society), which has produced an inventory of the projects currently carried out in the field of information society have been produced, the sectors with the fewest projects are transport and the environment. There is therefore an urgent need to undertake initiatives in the transport and environment field where environmental information may be used intelligently. The word "intelligent" here refers to the sensible use of the large amount of environmental information available at sources such as the German Federal Environmental Agency in Berlin and the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen.
There are various organisations today which act as suppliers of environmental information in the Baltic Sea Region. However, few, if any, are providers concerned with the various ways in which the information is being used by various groups and audiences. This state of affairs makes it necessary to enhance the current mechanisms and approaches, so as to enable the wide range of environmental information available today, to be more widely used. It is equally important to exploit the educational potential of such information be exploited, so as not only to inform, but also to educate various groups and the general public on matters concerned with the environment and provide information to planners and politicians as a basis for decisions.
The Baltic Environmental Information Dissemination System (BEIDS) has been initiated to address this important need. BEIDS, an initiative of the Department of Environment of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, co-funded by the European Commission through the Interreg IIC programme, acts as a focal point for the circulation of intelligent information on energy, transport and sustainable development issues, among a sample of six Baltic countries: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden (EU) and Lithuania and Poland (non-EU), contributing to networking and exchange expertise and supplement, complementing efforts towards transregional co-operation in sustainable spatial planning based on Baltic 21. This paper presents the BEIDS project and describes its role in a mechanism which supports efforts to promote environmental protection in the Baltic Sea Region by using environmental informatics for the dissemination of environmental information.