Die Umweltprobenbank des Bundes im Web

Abstract

The German Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB) is a monitoring instrument of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. The ESB is managed by the Federal Environment Agency and operated by contracted research institutes and university groups with special competencies in the particular fields. The complete set of data resulting from the routine work of the ESB on environmental and human specimens is compiled, edited and administered in the ESB Information System (ESB IS). Data and information of the ESB IS can be accessed via the public ESB website (http://www.umweltprobenbank.de). The main task of this website is to inform the interested public as well as the scientific community about its goals, topics, and especially about the results of the ESB routine operation and its retrospective analyses of pollution trends. In order to improve its usability and to extend the retrieval functions the concept of the web site was revised in 2009 by the Federal Environment Agency. A new user guidance concept was developed around a set of interlinked fact sheets describing each parameter such as sampling area, source (specimen), and substance.