User Requirements and Prototyping for Forest and Climate Change Information Systems

Abstract

This paper reports on Human Factors activities carried out in the development of two environmental information systems being developed as projects within the EC IST programme. The FOREMMS project is concerned with providing status information and predictions about forest status and health across Europe. The EUROCLIM project is to provide information about changes in the Artic region (e.g. glaciers, snow cover, sea ice) to form a historical database and to feed into a model to help predict climate change in Europe. User information and presentation requirements of scientific users were defined for both systems. It is also intended that both systems will provide information to public users to make them aware about environmental issues and trends in an objective way. This paper discusses the processes involved in making these systems effective for the end-users.