19^th International CODATA Conference
Category: Environmental Informatics

Informatics Applications for Sustainable Development: Environmental Communication in Europe

Werner Pillmann (pillmann@isep.at)
ISEP, International Society for Environmental Protection, Austria

Environmental Informatics is the discipline where telecommunication technology and environmental information processing are merged with scientific research, business management and applications in administration. "Enviromatics" supports the integration of all methods to acquire and manage spatially and temporally referenced data about the natural and man-made environment. In this presentation, the role of Environmatics and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is emphasized as a vehicle for generating and distributing environmental information worldwide. Annual conferences of the GI Technical Committee 4.6 "Informatics for Environmental Protection" discuss the state of the art of computer applications in this field.

Progress in the perception of "the environment" was achieved by identifying environmental pollution and disasters, by environmental research and scientific findings, and by green movement, environmental legislation and administrative responses. Enviromatics integrates environmental topics with applications e.g. databases, information systems, geographic information systems (GIS), modeling and simulation, environmental statistics, measurement networks, remote sensing, image processing, indicators, reporting and Web applications.

The communication of environmental information in industry, administration and the public pave the way to environmental knowledge. Innovative learning platforms, capacity building, participation and social learning supported by Enviromatics and ICT accelerates essentially this process and the linkage to social and economic information supports the discussion about sustainable development.

An in-depth overview in this area can be found in the Proceedings of TC 4.6 within the conference series EnviroInfo on http://www.iai.fzk.de/Fachgruppe/GI/literatur.html and a sample of full papers (1998-200) on http://enviroinfo.isep.at/Past_Contributions.htm.