World-Wide-Web-Server of the Austrian Federal Environment Agency
Johannes Mayer, Austrian Federal Environment Agency, Vienna
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The online information services of the Austrian Federal Environment
Agency can be reached via the Internet address (URL):
http://www.ubavie.gv.at/
The site gives access to English and German summaries of the Agency's
publications on all aspects of environmental protection and state of the
environment monitoring. The full text of our publications is usually in German,
if not indicated otherwise by an English publication title. The ordering
information for the publications also contains an on-line order form.
Information notes (UBA-aktuell) and the monthly bulletin UBA-Info report on
current projects and activities of the Agency (in German).
A central part of our web-site is information on the State of the
Environment in Austria (Umweltsituation in Oesterreich). Two highlights of the
data by now available are on-line access to continuously updated data from the
Austrian air quality monitoring stations or groundwater quality data from all
1700 sampling points within Austria; both menu points are explained in German
and English.
A pilot project for advanced telematics application is online access to
Air Quality Data from Austrian Monitoring sites. On a Map of Austria our
virtual visitors can choose an air pollutant (at present available: Ozone,
Sulphur Dioxide or Nitrogen Dioxide) and a time span (last day, last three
days, last week, last month) and then point to a monitoring site for obtaining
a chart with an up-to-date representation of the air quality data requested
(all data are half hour mean values).
This telematics application is based technically on the structure of the
Austrian Ozone Monitoring network, which has been established by the Federal
Environment Agency and the Provincial Authorities to establish a national alert
system for high levels of tropospheric ozone concentrations in the summer
months. Data can be retrieved for all continuously operating air quality
monitoring sites in Austria connected to the network (about 120 sites).
During the summer months (from April to September), reports on the
concentrations of tropospheric ozone (according to the Austrian Ozone Act) and
ozone concentrations maps for Austria are available twice a day.
An example of the environmental registers available on the Agency's
web-server is the Austrian directory of the Community eco-management and audit
scheme (EMAS) according to the EU Council Regulation No. 1836/93 of 29 June
1993. The objective of the scheme is to promote continuous improvements in the
environmental performance of industrial activities by the establishment and
implementation of environmental policies, programmes and management systems by
companies, in relation to their sites. Important elements are the systematic,
objective and periodic evaluation of the performance of such elements and the
provision of information of environmental performance to the public.
Due to the extremely fast development of on-line information sources on
the Internet, adequate navigation tools are of steadily growing importance. Two
pages accessible directly from the Agency's homepage offer a register of links
to Austrian and International Environmental Information Sources.
On European level, the Austrian Federal Environment Agency is taking the
initiative for a World-Wide-Web-project to integrate environmental
information sources in Europe. The basic aims of this project are:
- to establish an integrated overview structure on existing electronic
information sources on the environment in Europe, with direct access (links) to
these sources
- to enlarge and continuously update the content of this structure in order to
develop - as necessary complement to the CDS efforts - an easy-to-use and
efficient navigation tool for searching and connecting to electronic
environmental information sources in Europe
- to promote a policy of systematic integration of electronic Environmental
information sources in Europe, by inducing closer cooperation and active
networking between different initiatives of electronic information on the
environment on both European and national levels
- to encourage and help national environment institutions within the EEA area
to make an active use of the Internet for information on the environment (Note:
within the project, national environment institutions yet without an own
Internet service could be offered at least one free-of-charge, simply designed
www-page, provisionally hosted by the co-ordinating institution and linked from
their entry on their "national page". This would enable all participating
institutions to present themselves on the Internet worldwide with their own
information nearly from the beginning of the project, without any financial
implications or technical problems. That easy access and its presentation to
national decision makers should then encourage national governments to move
forward in the development and acceptance of own information services on the
Internet.)
- assisting, where necessary, national institutions less experienced in the use
of the Internet in researching sources of environmental information within
their own country
- Co-ordination by the Austrian Federal Environment Agency (or another
experienced institution, e.g. ISEP) in co-operation with national contact
partners in national environmental institutions from the European Environment
Agency area and with REC (Budapest)
- application for EU funding contribution will be made in the next call for the
Environment Telematics programme (december 96)
- official start of the project (if accepted for EU funding): mid'97
- Those presentation pages of national government institutions
provisionnally hosted by the co-ordinating institution (see note above) should
be transferred to the national government's services, when their own Internet
services are fully operational. This will assure a continuity in their presence
on the net.
- All national overview pages - the update and linguistic management of which
is much easier if done within the own country - should also be transferred to
national environmental services able to manage them by their own. The
international and thematic pages would remain on the central site of the
network.
- Finally, the management of the www-service itself could either be continued
by the co-ordinating institution or be transferred to the European Environment
Agency or any another European institution. In theory, it would also be
technically possible to have the server be updated at one site and be
"mirrored" to another.
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