SEIS a megosztott környezeti információs rendszerek programja

Mai postánkból: az EUROGI szerdai vezetőségi ülésén a skandináv képviselő ismertetést ad a SEIS elnevezésű megosztott környezeti információs rendszerek programjáról. Előzetesként az alábbi összefoglalót küldte meg:
SEIS - Shared Environmental Information Systems
Timely, relevant and reliable information on the environment is absolutely necessary for decision-makers to respond to the environmental problems of our time. But this is not enough. Our citizens are also entitled to know about the quality of the air and water where they live or if floods, droughts and pollution are risking their property and livelihood. We must thus improve the way we collect, analyse and communicate information on our environment. (Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas)
According to the 6th Environment Action Programme access to environmental information on states, drivers, pressures and trends are essential for as well policy development as whether these policies are effective. Besides it is essential that this information is easily accessible for the public in order to support empowering the citizens. A huge amount of environmental information is continuously being collected by the public authorities in the EU Member States. However, due to a long range of obstacles this information is neither available in a timely manner or in a format useful for the end users – being the decision-makers or the general public.
On 1 February 2008 the European Commission adopted a Communication Towards a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) aiming at improving and streamlining the European systems for collecting, analysing and reporting environmental information. The expected benefits are numerous:
SEIS will simplify the reporting and accessing of environmental information through an efficient electronic system and abandon the traditional paper based reporting. SEIS will take advantage of recent advances in information and communication technology enabling real-time data to be available for decision-makers. SEIS will empower the European citizens by providing them useful information on the environment in their native language. SEIS will strongly support the development of intelligent eServices like eEnvironment and eEurope. SEIS will contribute strongly to international programmes for collecting and managing environmental information like GEOSS and Earth Watch. SEIS will benefit from the European Statistics System to perform integrated analysis in the context of the DPSIR framework. SEIS will be fully coherent with the Lisbon Strategy on growth and employment by assisting the selection of cost-effective strategies SEIS will be based on the INSPIRE Directive on spatial data infrastructure as well as the Aarhus Directive on public access to environmental information. SEIS will gradually shift from a centralised reporting system towards a more distributed system-of-systems based on access and interoperability.
WISE - the Water Information for Europe (http://water.europa.eu) and Ozone Web (http://eea.europa.eu/maps/ozone/map/) are both prototypes for the the upcoming SEIS.
EEA, PEER and AGILE organised a SEIS Workshop in Wallingford January 2009 (http://www.ceh.ac.uk/SEIS/PEER-EEA-AGILEworkshop.html)
The Czech EU Presidency organises a Conference Towards eEnvironment in Prague March 2009 on SEIS and eReporting (http://www.e-envi2009.org/).
A legislative proposal is due to be presented by the European Commission by June 2009.