This section of the country profile aims to provide an overview of environmental information systems including such entities as monitoring systems, clearinghouses, networks and portals that may operate independently or in an integrated way within the country.  In addition, if any national environmental institutions are members of sub-regional, regional or global systems and networks on environmental matters then a brief description of the initiative and an overview of the involvement by national institutions is also provided.

Monitoring systems

Monitoring systems generally tend to cover thematic areas such as air quality, water quality, conservation and biodiversity, wastes and so on.  A monitoring system collects environmental data on a number of environmental variables using a national or local network of providers using pre-defined sampling points in order to obtain a representative sample of data to describe the parameter or characteristic under examination.  The data collected is normally managed using a database although paper-based systems are still in use in some countries.  The flow of information from a monitoring system typically passes through six major components: sample collection, laboratory analysis, data handling, data analysis, reporting, and information utilization.

Some common examples of monitoring systems include:

Air Quality System to provide air monitoring data such as ambient concentrations of criteria and hazardous air pollutants at monitoring sites, primarily in cities and towns.  Pollutants measured will, typically include Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Dioxide, Lead, Particulate Matter, Ozone and Sulfur Oxides.  Standards are set with specific limits to protect public health and that of "sensitive" groups (children, asthmatics, etc) to exposure to the various pollutants.  An Emission Inventory or database may be compiled to provide estimates of annual emissions of criteria and hazardous air pollutants from all types of sources.

Water Quality Monitoring System to provide water quality measurements on different types of water resources such as drinking water, ground water, and all kinds of surface waters. Parameters of interest would typically include temperature, total dissolved solids, conductivity, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, total suspended solids, turbidity and nutrients.  In the case of drinking water, the national environmental authority will set standards for various contaminants in drinking water and for each of these contaminants, a legal maximum limit is set.  Water that meets these standards is safe to drink and water suppliers may not provide water that does not meet these standards.

Biodiversity Monitoring System  - to provide data and information on:

• The state of habitats
• changes in plant populations and measure the effects of management
• changes in the populations of endangered and protected species,
• the observation of elements with a diagnostic value in assessing the general state of the biota and communities,
• the study of the direct and indirect effects of human-induced changes, and changes of the environment.

Information clearinghouses

The term "clearing-house" comes from the banking fraternity.  It originally referred to a financial establishment where checks and bills are exchanged among member banks so that only the net balances need to be settled in cash. Today, its meaning has been extended to include any agency that brings together seekers and providers of goods, services or information, thus matching demand with supply.

A clearinghouse aims to collect valuable information in a specific field and to make that information available to people and groups working in that field. As a central access point, a clearinghouse serves the needs of users of a specific body of knowledge. One of its functions is to prevent the duplication of effort by those users, by identifying, describing and evaluating information relevant to their knowledge area. Thus in some of its tasks, a clearinghouse is similar to a library, repository, or a warehouse in that it receives, organises and disseminates information.

Each implementation of a clearinghouse is unique:

• A clearinghouse might exist only ' virtually' or online; another may focus only on print resources.
• Its information might be located at external nodes within the clearinghouse structure -- a clearinghouse is always the central node of any such structure.
• In many cases, a clearinghouse also acts as a publishing house for that information.
• Some clearinghouses have been created by national organisations, others by individual researchers, librarians, teachers, specialists.

An environmental information clearinghouse is best defined as a service operated by a single institution, often in collaboration with a network of information providers, to provide information about a specific environmental topic to a user community that has a stakeholder interest in the topic.  The information clearinghouse may answer inquiries, develop and distribute publications, and work closely with professional and other relevant (NGO/scientific) organizations and Government agencies to coordinate resources about the topic.

For example, the Clearinghouse Mechanism for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (http://www.biodiv.org/chm/) aims to support the Convention's thematic and cross-cutting programmes of work by promoting cooperation in six key areas: tools for decision-making, training and capacity-building, research, funding, technology transfer, and the repatriation of information.

Information Networks

The national environmental information network is the principal network to support the SOE reporting process in the country.  It can be assumed that the nodes or members of the national network are primarily information and data providers.  In this capacity, they may also be members of various thematic and regional networks.  Some members may be more focussed on information dissemination to general or specific target groups.  Others may be users of data and information for advocacy work or to influence environmental policy-making.

The concept of a national environmental information network for each country is a fundamental building block of the global information network being developed under UNEP's Environment Watch proposal.

Information-sharing through networking is recognized as a key productivity-enhancing activity in efforts for keeping the environment under review. The rapid developments in information technology are offering increased and new opportunities. Networks are important for vertical and horizontal exchange and distribution of information for assessments, indicators and early warning of environmental problems by countries, international agencies and other stakeholders. In general, the network members share a common objective and tend to collaborate on an in-kind basis to derive mutual benefits form the working relationship. 

Establishing and maintaining effective partnerships and networks to keep the world environmental situation under review underpins the work programme of UNEP and is consistent with UNEPs role as a catalytic organisation by mobilising institutional cooperation at the relevant level.  The multidisciplinary nature of environmental issues and themes coupled with the fragmentation of data and information across different institutional custodians, makes it imperative to have structures in place to harness the best available scientific data to support scientific assessment and early warning, and report on the state of the environment from global down to local level.

On the communications side, the dissemination of policy-relevant assessment findings to policy-makers enables effective policies to be formulated in response to pressing environmental concerns.   In addition, the provision of access to environmental information facilitates sound decision-making at the relevant level by a broad spectrum of stakeholders ranging from governmental officials to the ordinary citizen.

Portals

A web portal is a term, often used interchangeably with gateway, for a World Wide Web site whose purpose is to be a major starting point for users when they connect to the Web. There are general portals and specialized or niche portals. 

Four types of portal can be identified:

1. An anchor site of direct links to web sites - the simplest type of portal is one that presents on the portal homepage a compilation of relevant hotlinks to other relevant sites so that the user can easily link to those sites without having to use an Internet search engine to identify them.  For example, a governmental portal site may act as an anchor site pointing to all the different ministries and other institutional organs involved in central and local government.
2. Integrated web services portal - this type of portal aims to integrate information resources from other databases, information systems, web sites or portals in order to deliver pre-populated resources based on different user profiles.  The UNEP Country Profile Environmental Information System is an example of this type of portal.
3. GIS-driven portal - this is a more specialized portal aim to integrate a wide variety of geo-referenced data and information from disparate sources and make these resources accessible in a layered fashion to the Internet user community using a geographic information system.  All information and data resources have geo-referenced coordinates.  An example of a GIS portal is the "What's in Your Back Yard" site operated by the Environment Agency for England and Wales.
4. Metadata search system across pre-selected websites - the fourth type of portal is one that at its base is a metadata search system used to search across many databases and indexing tools at one time.  The results of the metadata search mimics a portal site depending on how the information retrieved is structured and classified. Customised user interfaces may be an additional feature.  UNEP's Ecomundus initiative is an example of this type of portal or gateway.

A number of countries operate different types of national environmental portals that aim to integrate a wide variety of data and information from disparate institutional sources and make these resources accessible to the Internet user community.  A list of different types of environmental portal is shown below.