Dynamical modeling for data collection and reporting: a system view of DPSIR

Abstract

DPSIR has been credited since its beginning as being founded upon the system theory, even if such foundation has not fully been exploited and remains as a generic context to the DPSIR framework. While DPSIR in itself has been widely accepted by the community entrusted with the data collection and reporting in Europe, two groups of difficulties are detected: the application of DPSIR to specific domains of the environment sometimes is not straightforward as expected, as if some concepts (e.g. the definition of the components and of the relationships between components) appear sometime to be a bit fuzzy; a certain number of “dialects” (i.e. domain specific versions of DPSIR) are being used (e.g. referring to the interactions between natural systems and the human health), possibly in order to overcome the difficulties exposed above but potentially creating conceptual barriers between different domains. A huge effort is being currently devoted in Europe towards an extended interoperability of the information: INSPIRE, SEIS and GMES are setting the stage. In such new context, the harmonization of the knowledge plays an important role. The data collection and reporting activities are requested to generate results that can be shared without potential ambiguities. Therefore, it appears to be of interest the exploitation of the formal approach and tools provided by the system theory in order to refine the concepts underlying the DPSIR framework. A better insight of such concepts is useful to improve the data collection and reporting activities carried out according to DPSIR. On such basis, the technique of the block diagrams (that is a consolidated tool to describe the dynamical systems) has been applied to the components referred by DPSIR and referenced by the sector literature. The resulting block diagram provides a suitable model of the vision underlying DPSIR, i.e. the vision of the environment that implicitly is assumed when the DPSIR framework steers the data collection and reporting activities. Formally, such model describes a system based upon feedback loops. A mathematical expression of the model is possible, in terms of vectors and matrices; more advanced treatments (e.g. in order to assess the system stability under stresses or shocks) can also be foreseen. The analysis of the modeled loops suggests that more effort should be devoted to refine some aspects of DPSIR, related inter alia to the Drivers and to the relationship between Responses and Impacts. As a result of such refinement of the DPSIR, the collection of pertaining data could be better finalized; moreover, the data quality could be improved, specifically with reference to the joint processing of data coming from different sources.