Management of distributed and heterogeneous information resources for environmental administrations

Since the mid-eighties, environmental administrations have accumulated an extensive collection of information and knowledge in the form of data, methods, and multimedia documents on a variety of computer systems. In the Environmental Information System (UIS) of Baden-Wurttemberg a service-oriented approach has been chosen to bring this treasure of information and knowledge to users in public administrations, industry, and to the general public. The guiding idea was to identify data, functionalities, and multimedia information that can be used in many different ways and to supply these information resources as self-contained network services. Implementation is based on WWW technology and the utilization of meta-information. To date, a comfortable solution has been found that can be used by decision-makers in government, administration, and industry as well as by scientists and the general public at regional, national, and international levels.