Gerald Schimak

Environmental software systems for emission inventories

Atmospheric emission inventories are important tools for environmental decision making. The need to include transparency and reproducibility in emission calculation also fostered the development of environmental software systems for emission inventories. In general such software systems are organized as databases which contain as much emission related information as is available. For our own concept we introduce a layer of emission information as interim results, which we store as specific tables. While this structure is needed for allowing computations at an acceptable response time, we also use it to differentiate detail levels between a users sphere and an experts sphere. In the users sphere we expect any user to adapt evaluation algorithms without the need to know about limitations in emission calculations. Still also the experts sphere is openly accessible, allowing for full transparency of the calculation procedures. Considering uncertainty of input data and the impossibility to perform full validation, much of the information contained in an inventory will not contribute to improve the results in terms of emissions. Still we value this information as a contribution to an expert system, which may become crucial at a different application of the inventory. Emission inventory systems generally contribute to comparability between data from diverse inputs, especially as they are able to support error-checking procedures, an important task due to the large number of data providers.

Environmental data management and monitoring system UWEDAT

Abstract UWEDAT stands for a new environmental data management and monitoring system based on Windows NT/2000. It is mainly used in the field of ambient air quality monitoring. The kernel of the system is designed and implemented in a modular and flexible way, thus it is possible to customize this information system in a variety of ways. UWEDAT does not only stand for good concepts, it also stands for robustness and a wide range of usages, such as implementations in the glacier areas in Austria or in the wild jungles of Indonesia. The usage of UWEDAT is not restricted to monitoring air quality, UWEDAT systems also play an important role Vienna’s drinking water quality monitoring or for research work within lysimeter sites.

Environmental Software Systems. Infrastructures, Services and Applications

The history of a piece of information is known as “provenance”. From extensive interactions with hydro-and geo-scientists in Australian science agencies we found both widespread demand for provenance and widespread confusion about how to manage it and how to develop requirements for managing it. We take inspiration from the well-known software development Capability Maturity Model to design a Maturity Model for provenance management that we call the PMM. The PMM can be used to assess the state of existing practices within an organisation or project, to benchmark practices and existing tools, to develop requirements for new provenance projects, and to track improvements in provenance management across an organisational unit. We present the PMM and evaluate it through application in a workshop of scientists across three data-intensive science projects. We find that scientists recognise the value of a structured approach to requirements elicitation that ensures that aspects are not overlooked.