The UDK Web Editor – A Collaborative Tool to Support the Implementation of the EC Directive on Public Access to Environmental Information (2003/4/EC)

Abstract

The European Directive on Public Access to Environmental Information (2003/4/EC) requires EU Member States to actively disseminate environmental information to the public. On the European Level there is no guidance or implementation regulation for a harmonized implementation available for this. The result is a strong variation of the state of implementation within EU Member States and across Europe. As a consequence, there is a high risk for Member States and Regional Authorities for becoming the subject of lawsuits based on non-compliance with the directive. In response, the Ministry of Environment of the State of Lower Saxony (MELS) has produced an organizational and technical model to supply relevant environmental information on time and in an up-to-date status. The main strategy is to keep tab on every peace of environmental information in the MELS business division, complying with the mandatory core of information as specified in the directive’s article 7. This information is catalogued in the State’s environmental information catalogue system and assigned an expiration date. An Editing System has been developed on the basis of the collaboration platform MERMIG, enabling the maintenance of the catalogue through the use of as standard web browser. Furthermore, the system keeps tab on the information objects and notifies the object’s author to review the information object after the expiration date has passed. In this way the State of Lower Saxony complies with the proactive tenor of the directive and ensures to have at any time control on the environmental information available. On a second level, MELS works on making all environmental information available through the ministries internet portal.

Strong consideration has been given to interoperability aspects. The technical solution presented here is fully Open Source based and completely Web based. It uses State of the Art tools and technologies in a distributed architecture.