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BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT

P. Bozo

Abstract

In this presentation you will get a brief overview about experiences about the development of National Environmental Information System in Hungary. Regular collection of environmental data in Hungary goes back to the early eighties, parallel with establishment of administrative structure for environment management. Different environmental media was managed by different administrative bodies resulting in a lot of confusions and delays both in administrative procedures and reporting the state of environment. After the change in the political and economical structure in Hungary in 1990, we faced the following problems: legal regulation for data collection was outdated, there were several databases, but in different form, both from technical and organizational point of view. Our solution was based on three pillars to overcome these difficulties. Firstly, according to new Environmental Protection Act in 1995, we introduced new regulations for environmental data collection, secondly we set up a National Environmental Information Center and thirdly we elaborated a unique identification system. As most of the environmental data connected to a geographical location we chose GIS for proper managing our environmental data. The elaborated identification system helped us to build up a nationwide GIS based Environmental Information System. The System was developed in modules, step by step, but the different modules could be linked to each other very easily due to our unique ID system. The system consists of two parts: one for administrative professionals and one for general public. The presentation is a sum up of the lessons learned from the nearly tenyear- long development procedure.

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