Integrated System for Intelligent Regional
Environmental Monitoring & Management:
ISIREMM Project description

8. Background information on partners

ESS, AUSTRIA

Environmental Software & Services GmbH (ESS) was founded in 1995 as a direct continuation of the Advanced Computer Applications (ACA) project of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria. Since 1985, ACA has worked on more than 25 environmental projects in 14 countries.

The primary mission of ESS is to bring the best available scientific knowledge to bear on environmental planning and management problems, using state-of-the-art information technology. ESS designs, develops, and deploys customised environmental information systems, and provides training and continuing support worldwide. The company's include high-performance simulation and optimization models, GIS, and expert systems integrated in a distributed client-server architecture with a multi-media user interface and Internet/Intranet support are our main products for environmental management applications.

In addition to its work for numerous institutional clients world wide, ESS has been participating in a number of research projects in the 4th Framework, notably in the INCO-DC Program with GAIA, an environmental information system based on Agenda 21 for sustainable development (as co- ordinator), in the Environmental Telematics project ECOSIM (as co-ordinator) on Urban Environmental Management, and in the ESPRIT HPCN project SIMTRAP on traffic and air quality management (as partner). ESS is currently participating in the INFO 2000 project AIR-EIA that develops multi-media information resources for the domain of air quality management and environmental impact assessment.

IPNASB, BELARUS

Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus: Investigations in the field of non- linear optics and laser physics are carried out in IP NANB, new laser patterns are developed, laser equipment for various fields of science and industry is designed. One of the main activities is the developing of remote optical methods to control atmosphere, water and underlying surface.

Since 1960 the activities on laser application for environmental monitoring have been carried out. Multiwavelength lidar models have been designed for atmosphere gaseous and aerosol components monitoring. A series of lidars for stratosphere monitoring has been designed and placed in various regions of the former USSR. Later this became the basis for the experimental lidar network Committee for Hydrometerology of the USSR. All these lidars work according to the universal scheme in Minsk, Obninsk (Moscow suburbs), in the Tien-Shan Mountains, Cuba, and Poland. With the help of lidar equipment different regions of our planet, former USSR and the Republic of Belarus have been investigated by the IP NASB.

Scientific projects in the IP are carried out in co-operation with many scientific institutions all over the world, within international scientific and technological programs.

SILOGIC, FRANCE

Silogic (http://www.silogic.fr/) is a French independent software house based in Toulouse (France). Incorporated in early 1989, the company is distinguished by its commitments to high level standards in software quality and methodology. Since 1993, it has been qualified with conformity certificate ISO 9001. Silogic is now staffed with an equivalent of 140 full-time people and recently opened new offices in Paris.

Silogic's main lines of business are three-fold:

1. Scientific and technical software engineering:

   • ground-based systems (spatial data job processes, simulators, data management of remote measurements) ;

   • onboard software (methods, quality assurance and control, development) ;

   • industrial systems (supervision and control, command of industrial processes).

   In that particular domain, the company's main clients are Aerospatiale and the French National Space Agency.

2. Business software engineering: Silogic covers most aspects of business management activities (production, documentation, finance, accountancy, logistics, marketing, etc.) for a wide variety of sectors such as aeronautics, pharmaceutical research, telecom, energy, manufacturing industry, agribusiness and local administrations. The company's involvement ranges from the design, development, administration and maintenance of specific applied software to the assistance in implementing integrated business solutions (ERPs).

3. Information and Communication Technologies: The company's expertise covers most aspects of ICTs, whether multimedia (Kiosks, CD-ROMs) or Internet/Intranet, with a particular emphasis on Geographic Information Systems visualisation.

Silogic is or has been participating in a number of EU-funded ICT projects in the fields of distant working over ATM network (DIANE AC082 under ACTS, http://www.silogic.fr/diane/Default2.htm), professional tourism (Magic Tour ESPRIT 8752 - and Magic Tour Net ESPRIT 961578) and geography teaching and learning (EUROGAME - MM1001 under the Educational Multimedia Task Force, http://eurogame.silogic.fr/). At the national level, Silogic has developed ICT projects in the field of water quality management and water risk assessment (regional water agencies in France), services to citizens (Intranet geographic servers for the Toulouse City Council) and cultural heritage (the Poitiers regional Directorate of the French Ministry for Culture: http://www.culture.fr/poitou-charentes/).

AUT, GREECE

The Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering (LHTEE) belongs to the Energy Section, of the Mechanical Engineering Department of Aristotle University Thessaloniki (AUT), Greece. Having been founded in 1990, the Laboratory has a long record of research and consulting activities, both at national and international level. Most of these activities are related to the protection of the atmospheric environment. Furthermore, LHTEE conducts research and provides consulting services in the areas of environmental management, energy economics and waste management. In all these fields the Laboratory has established bilateral scientific collaborations with several institutions throughout the world and is actively involved in organising scientific events at a national and international scale.

A large part of LHTEE activities is directed towards a better understanding of atmospheric transport phenomena, particularly as regards the description of air pollutant transport and transformation at the local-to-regional scale. Work in this field includes the development and application of air quality models as well as conducting and analysing field experiments. Specific fields include the development of air pollution models, the investigation of urban scale source-receptor relationships, the analysis of physico-chemical mesoscale processes, the study of transboundary air pollutant transport, the simulation of local scale flow and dispersion, the estimation of air pollutant emissions and measurement campaigns. In addition, LHTEE also contributes to formulating systems for integrated quantitative and qualitative analyses of the environment in urban and industrial areas and for retrospective analyses and for environmental planning purposes, in the following thematic categories: Urban air quality studies, prediction of urban air quality trends, air pollution exposure assessments, assessment of environmental policy instruments, smog forecasting, environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies, airport studies and support of air quality legislation. The Laboratory is closely related to EUROTRAC, the main European research programme dealing with atmospheric sciences. Amongst other activities, the Laboratory co-ordinates SATURN, an EUROTRAC-2 subproject which focuses on atmospheric pollution in urban areas. Since 1994, LHTEE has contributed significantly towards the activities of the European Topic Center on Air Quality, which is part of the European Environment Agency.

Another area of LHTEE's activities includes Environmental Telematics. Activities in this field aim at the development and application of WWW-based applications for air quality simulation and management. In addition, up-to-date networking (via http, tele-transmission etc.) is combined with contemporary informatics methodologies in the following thematic areas: Urban environmental management, improved reporting of environmental information, air pollution related environmental impact assessment issues and environmental monitoring telemetry systems.

LHTEE has been involved up to now in about 40 research programmes (in their majority competitive). This involvement includes major state of the art projects regarding the investigation of urban air pollution and multiple case studies like the Auto-Oil study, the Heilbronn experiment, the Athens 2004 Air Quality Study and many others. In addition, LHTEE has participated in two Environmental Telematics projects (ECOSIM, past, IRENIE, ongoing), while co-ordinating the INFO 2000 project AIR-EIA, that develops multi-media information resources for the domain of air quality management and environmental impact assessment (details and many more project area descriptions are available at http://aix.meng.auth.gr).

Last but not least, LHTEE is responsible for eight pre-graduate courses in the Mechanical Engineering Department, while also supervising about ten doctoral candidates in the frame of their post-graduate studies. In all its fields of research the Laboratory has established bilateral scientific collaborations with several institutions throughout the world and is actively involved in organising scientific events at a national and international scale. Finally, LHTEE also participates in academic exchange programmes with various foreign Universities.

SRI, KAZAKHSTAN

The Space Research Institute of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan is the leader in the field of remote sensing and geoinformation technologies. Main directions of scientific research activity of the Institute are connected with the investigations in the field of space monitoring, remote sensing, geoinformation technologies and mathematical modeling of ecosystems. Fundamental and applied results are used in agriculture, ecological monitoring, analysis and control of urban territories.

The Institute participates in several international programs:

• INTAS Project 93-0182. "Atmospheric aerosol in the Asian part of the former Soviet Union (1995-1996)"

• International program of activity with assistance of European Community (TACIS) to 1998- 99 Project "Information System for Environment and Agriculture Monitoring (ISEAM)"

• USAID and USA-ISRAEL CAR PROGRAM - Grant N TA-MOU-97-CA17-956 "Estimation of Seasonal Dynamics of Arid Zone Pasture and Crop Productivity Using AVHRR Data"

• Development of a Database and GIS for the Semipalatinsk Test Site and Its Zone of Influence" jointly with the International Institute foe Applied System Analysis (IIASA, Austria).

The Institute is the co-ordinator of the Scientific Program for Cosmonaut T. Musabaev on board of the "Mir" orbital station ("Natural and resource monitoring"). At the Institute there have been developed following GIS: "Semipalatinsk test site", "Dust storms in the Aral Sea region", "The Caspian Sea", as well as agroresource monitoring system has been developed.

The following international and national projects have been carried out:

• Pilot-project of the system for ecological monitoring of the territory of Kazakhstan (1992)

• Geoinformation system of Almaty ecology with the ISTAR French company of high technologies and French National Space Research Centre (CNES) (1994-1995)

• Atmospheric aerosol in the Asian FSU. INTAS-93-01-0182 grant (1995-1996)

• Development of a mathematical model for air pollution of the cosmodrome "Baikonur" start complex. Science Fund RK (1196-1997)

• Crop monitoring and forecasting information system in Kazakhstan with French SCOT CONSEIL firm (1996-1998)

• Development of a database and GIS for Semipalatinsk test site and its zone of influence with IIASA (1997-1998)

• Information system for environment and agriculture Monitoring (ISEAM). TACIS project 1999-2000)

• The Kala complex experiment on the Mir orbital station board. Scientific program of cosmonaut T.Musabaev (1997-1998).

For the city of Almaty the following projects have been implemented: 3D relief model has been created, digital map of the city was developed, models for air pollution were included into GIS, tract of sounding data transmission to GIS and visualisation programs have been developed. State-of- the-art equipment for receiving and processing in operative regime space images from NOAA, SPOT, LANDSAT, RESOURCES are available at the Institute.

IAO, RUSSIA

The Institute of Atmospheric Optics (IAO) is a research institution of Russian Academy of Sciences dealing with basic and applied problems of light propagation through the atmosphere, spectroscopy of atmospheric and polluting gases, local and remote sounding of different characteristics of the atmosphere and pollutants. Number of commercial and specially designed local and remote (LIDARs) sensors are employed to determine meteorological and optical properties of environment. The data are stored in databases and used in model simulations to provide a support for intelligent environment monitoring.

The Institute participates in number of international, national and regional programs including those aimed to detail study of environment evolution under industrial influence. Description of some results of this activity can be found in "Atmospheric and Oceanic Optics", the journal co-published by the Institute and Optical Society of America. The Institute is the one of the main partners in this project from NIS countries and presents all its facilities needed to accomplish the Project. Institute has considerable experience in monitoring of the pollutants in industrial areas by remote technique and local sensors, remote sensing from aircraft and space. It contributes to international and national programs, such as national program Global Change of Climate and Environment with Projects Development of methods and technical tools for laser remote sensing of atmosphere parameters and pollutants and Development of basic methods for complex monitoring of atmosphere parameters and pollutants in the boundary layer, troposphere and stratosphere, as ARMS subprogram of US Global Climate Change Program and EUROTRAC Program.

The spectroscopic provision is provided by the Project team members in the framework of two projects within the international programs of IASI and ADEOS as well. The project team consists of 22 key researchers, engineers and postgraduate students from five Laboratories, Research group and Research Center. It is assumed that four students will prepare their thesis in areas covered by the Proposal.

ICMMG, RUSSIA

Founded in 1964, the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics (ICM&MG, formerly the Computing Center) of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been engaged in research on computational and applied mathematics in areas such as the modeling of processes in the atmosphere and ocean, environmental protection problems, methods of mathematical modeling in geophysics, geophysical informatics, simulation of informatics systems, telecommunication systems, software for supercomputers.

Design of mathematical models as well as development of numerical methods are the most important scientific fields of ICM&MG for solving interconnected problems of the ecology and climate.

The Laboratory of mathematical modeling of hydrodynamical processes in nature, the participant of the project, primarily deals with the topics. Among the prior results of the laboratory, the following ones might be mentioned: a methodology of numerical modeling of hydrodynamics, transport, and transformation of pollutants in the atmosphere based on the combination of splitting technique and variational principle; methods of direct and inverse modeling applied to monitoring, prognosis, and ecological design; the use of ajoint equations and model sensitivity theory; algorithms of the combined use of models and measured data including the problems of data assimilation, evaluation of model quality, and model parameter identification.

The Laboratory has developed a multifunctional set of models of various time and space scales. The models of hydrodynamics of the atmosphere and water basins, working together with the transport and transformation pollutant models, have been applied to solve the problems of ecological planning and water and air quality of some industrial regions, cities and lakes in Russia (Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Alma-Ata, Ulan-Ude, Baikal, etc).

The Laboratory is participating in a Program of multidisciplinary studies that is carried out by the Institutes of Siberian Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Laboratory is sponsored in the framework of National Programs on Mathematical modeling, Ecology and Climate, Environment Protection, etc.

NRD, RUSSIA

Natural Resources Department of Tomsk Regional Administration (NRD) has been created on the base of Constitution of Tomsk Region and of Tomsk Region Low. About the Scheme of the Executive Power in Tomsk Region and it is a department of the Executive Power of Tomsk Region.

The department has been founded with the aim of realisation of a conception of the stable social-economical development of Tomsk Region, control of the rational usage, restoration and saving of the natural resources of Tomsk Region, determination of basic development directions of the conservation of surroundings, provision of ecological and radiological defence. The Department activity is subjected by Russian Federation Legislation, Decrees by President of Russian Federation and by Russian Federation n Ministry, by Tomsk Region Laws, Tomsk Region Constitution, Solutions of Tomsk Region Parliament, and by Decrees of the Governor of the Tomsk Region.

The NRD provides the state policy in the field of studying, restoring, and using of the natural resources and ecological defence of the Tomsk Region inhabitants. It co-ordinates regional activities of special federal controlling services of the conservation of surroundings, the local powers in the using and saving the natural resources and it provides the state powers and inhabitants of the Tomsk Region with analyses and the information about the storage of the natural resources, their usage, and stance of the environment.