T-REKS©: a Contribution to the Environmental Information Management through a Computer-Supported Modular Knowledge Organisation System for the Environment

Abstract

The utilisation of computer technology for the management of environmental issues has gained much importance in the last few years. The first reason is related to the increasing attention for environmental problems shown by governmental and non-governmental institutions, industries, opinion groups, professionals, and by the public. The concepts connected with the principle of sustained development have favoured this evolution through a complex route that led to extend the sustainability principle from global level to local level, down to the problems connected with the changes and growth of urban centres and to the daily choices of single citizens (Aalborg Cha rt). The second reason is related to the fast technological development of informatics and related issues. The increasing power of computers, the growing speed of information networks and the standardization of protocols, have favoured a wide circulation of data and information. This interaction between environmental issues and computer technology has produced good results in various fields: we will mention here only three. First, the contribution to the spreading of both environmental formation and information: the new computer instruments have rapidly changed the teaching methods that have been quickly introduced in the field of the environment, as well as of the occupational environment safety. A good example of this trend is offered by the projects financed by the European Program Leonardo daVinci, of EC DG Education and Culture. Important is also the use of environmental information for implementing measures in land management and planning: administrative practices of management and control have been implemented thanks to these new instruments. An example of this is provided by the Italian GAIA (Environmental Management – Environmental Information) and Aquarium Projects, where innovative models for data banks (from data banks to data warehouses) and the GEMET thesaurus (General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus, ETC/CDS - EEA, 1999) have been introduced for classifying data and metadata. Eventually, we would like to mention the ISTresearch programs of theEU, for the development of instruments to be used in transportation planning for the sustainability of metropolitan areas. In this program, the effort aimed not only at harmonising the information on mobility (traffic) characteristics with environmental problems, but also at achieving a dynamic exchange of information. The common denominator of the aforementioned examples postulates the need and the possibility of using a general conceptual scheme for all these projects: a general reference scheme, developed through a common approach, tailored to the different applications in the different projects. In the course of an international endeavour for the development of a multilingual thesaurus for the environment (GEMET, 1999), seven multilingual terminologies, totalling 50.000 terms, have been analysed and handled. These terminologies differed as regards document origin, source language, context, categorisation, level of control, semantic nuances, compliance to ISO norms, quality, and so on. Thus, a contextual frame was needed, to accommodate in a coherent system all the different expressions. This frame had to be controlled, flexible and ready to be applied to disparate environmental information systems. After a series of trials, T-REKS e , the Thesaurus-based Reference Environmental Knowledge System °, has been developed and applied.