News Updates: News on product releases, proposals and projects, major events in these projects, new clients and installations, reports and publications, meetings and conferences: what you can (mostly) not find on Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BBC and CNN.

Collaboration with China:   ESS GmbH has signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Representation Agreement with SinoCAN INTELLITECH Ltd. in Bejing, P.R.China on environmental information and decision support systems development, representation of ESS GmbH in China, and SinoCAN's participation in the EUREKA project E!3266 WEBAIR   with new case studies and application in China. SinoCAN is a joint-venture-entity between China and Canada, which is working on air quality models software products such as AERMOD, CALPUFF or AUSTAL and also provides system solutions for environmental management systems to the local governments (provincial and county levels) and environmental consulting insitutions in China.

E! 3266 WEBAIR KOREA:   welcomes the Center for Atmoshperic and Environment Modeling at SNU The Korean case study (Seoul, Gyeonggi, Korean peninsula, and large scale, long-range transport for continental particulates modeling) of the EUREKA project WEBAIR has a new development partner for the Korean case study: the Center for Atmoshperic and Environment Modeling at Seoul National University.

COR: Computer Operated River System   In collaboration with RUBICON Systems, Australia, a world-leading company in irrigation and water technology, ESS is preparing POC, a "Proof Of Concept" implementation of its web-based WaterWare management information system for NSW State Water Corporation, and the Murrumbidgee basin and its irrigation systems. The emphasis is on real-time operational control of water allocations. This is based on a cascade of operational weather forecasts with rainfall-runoff, reservoir management, and irrigation water demand modeling and a dynamic water budget model with embedded economic valuation. The non-linear multi-criteria optimization strategy around the models of the WaterWare system is designed to maximize "net benefits" across the basin - including environmental water use and water quality criteria beyond economic efficiency - for win-win solutions in a participatory approach.

Dust Management:   In collaboration with several partners on Cyprus and in Greece, (Department of Labor Inspection, Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance; ATLANTIS Cyprus; Cyprus University of Technology; Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki) ESS is preparing for a project "Particulates monitoring, modelling, management" under the LIFE+ programme for the analysis, simulation and management of particulates with emphasis on fine dust (PM2.5) for the Republic of Cyprus, aiming at developing an optimized dust management plan, building on components of the AirWare system and the WEBAIR EUREKA E! 3266 project. The project is scheduled to start in September 2010.

Middle East:   ESS has signed a memorandum of understanding with FOCUS-ME in Dubai, specializing in monitoring, measurement and telemetry systems, for cooperation in the Middle East and Iran. Planned cooperation spans a broad range of environmental topics and DSS applications such as hydrometeorological forecasts and integrated water resources and irrigation management, forecasting and management of floods and droughts, forest fires, dust/particulates (PM10/PM2.5) forecasting, early warning, and exposure estimates, coastal water quality, etc. FOCUS-ME and ESS will closely collaborate with PARAYE in Tehran.

CourseWare: Within the framework of the AT:net broadband initiative and funded by the Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology, we explore technology enhanced training and (distance) learning, based on the precursor eConsulting project. The CourseWare project, scheduled over a two year period, will concentrate on technical training, on-the job-learning using 3/4G SmartPhones as well as the Internet to support coninuing as well as academic education and life-long learning. The main technological topic is the merging oc concepts of Artificial Intelligence (mainly rule based expert systems) with mobile communication for "smart" learning dialogues anywhere, anytime. The primary application domain is related to environmental management, technological risk, and occupational health and safety.

In September 2009, offices for ESS Chile have been opened in Santiago de Chile, Avenida Santa Maria 2810, Piso 3 (T: +56 (2) 632 9577 F: +56 (2) 434 1800) to assist Latin American Clients from the Mining, Energy and Forestry/Cellulose sectors, among others. Through ESS Chile, ESS environmental information and decision support systems solutions and locally based support are available now for primarily Latin American Clients, see also: www.ess-chile.cl

E! 3266 WEBAIR   New project partner from Peru. The EUREKA project WEBAIR keeps growing: the latest "third country" partner from Peru is the Comite de Gestion de la Iniciativa de Aire Limpio para Lima y Callao which represents 13 major institutions including national ministries in its efforts to manage air quality in the metropolitan area of Lima and and the Pacific seaport of Callao, together home to about 8.5 million people or a third of the Peruvian population. An aging fleet of vehicles on its roads, and poor fuel quality (high sulphur content) are responsible from an improving, yet still poor, urban air quality.

E! 3266 WEBAIR   New project partners from Bahrain, and Tyrol, Austria. The EUREKA project WEBAIR keeps growing: the latest "third country" partner is Quality Systemtechnik , Bahrain, a Subsidiary of UNIVERSAL HOLDING GROUP Inc. Quality Systemtechnik is an SME that specializies in environmental technology such as desalination and water purification, and is branching out into environmental planning, management and information systems. They will support a case study of Bahrain, including one of the worlds largets Aluminim smelters in Alba. WEBAIR also welcomes an Austrian partner, Miklautz-Gärtner ZT architecture unlimited OG, architects city and regional planners that cover the topic of low energy buildings; their major activity will include work on the emission control and energy efficiency optimization in WEBAIR, as well as regional case studies along the Inn valley North-South European transportation corridor and the interactions between domestic and traffic generated emissions urban structures and air quality.

WaterWare R6.1   for Cyprus University of Technology The latest fully web-based release of WaterWare, R6.1 beta (base system), has been installed on a local server of the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) in Limassol (Lemesos), under an academic license for university research projects and teaching applications. The initial emphasis is on irrigation water management in the Paphos-Mandria irrigation district and the integration of remote sensing (satellite imagery) data.   A development version of the system is also mirrored at ESS.

OPTAIR:  is now supported in its second year by the Austrian Research Foundation FFG and the Province of Lower Austria. Major new work packages in E! 3266 WEBAIR   include use of the 3D photochemical model CAMx for the multi-criteria emission control optimization, and parallel stochatic extension of the model forecasts. In a closely related two-year project: eConsulting   supported by the Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology, we explore the on-line SaaS (Software as a Service) aspects of the WEBAIR system as a web-based on-line solution, application services, but also public information system. The basic air quality models are extended towards a more comprehensive support system for industrial environmental management, following concepts of EMAS and ISO14001, with an initial pilot in the United Arab Emirates.

E! 3266 WEBAIR   Malaysia joins as "third country" partner ! The EUREKA project WEBAIR keeps growing: the latest "third country" partner is MMASTEC ENGINEERING SDN BHD, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. MMASTEC Engineering is an SME specializies in ICT, networking, and applications, and will support a case study of Kuala Lumpur and environs, including the government garden city of Putrajaya. Specific topics beyond Megacity concerns include widespread biomass burning in the region and the resulting haze, but also the validation of wet deposition modeling in a monsoon climate.

SEA-EAS   In collaboration with the Universities of Split and Zadar, Croatia, ESS is implementing a web-based environmental information system for the EU funded project: "Environmental Areas of Value and Archaeological Sites" covering topics around biodiversity, from otter (lutra lutra) distribution to marine habitats on the Dalmatian coast and its islands.

E! 3266 WEBAIR KOREA:   Anyang University joins as development partner The Korean case study (Seoul, Gyeonggi, Korean peninsula, coordinated in Korea by BioTel) of the EUREKA project WEBAIR has new development partnerfor the second project year: Anyang University. Joint development will include interfacing an additional air quality model Models-3/Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ, operated by Anyang university), model intercomparison, and a distributed implementation and customization.

AirWare   for the Greater Tehran Area ESS has won an international tender to supply AirWare to the AQCC (Air Quality Control Company, Tehran). The contract involves the installation of the real-time AirWare air quality assessment an management system for the Theran Metropolitan Area. The system will be based on the latest client-server release of AirWare, R5.3 including stochastic ozoneforecasts and multi-criteria source control optimization. The project includes the supply of the software system, installation, user training, maintenance and continuing support of the system for an initial two years. AQCC has also joined the EUREKA project E! 3266 WEBAIR as a third country partner.

E! 3266 WEBAIR   has another third country partner from The United Arab Emirates ELARD, Earth Link & and Advanced Resource Development, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates brings the WEBAIR consortium to 18 countries; thr group will develip applications in the Gulf region, with emphasis on dust, VOC fugitive emissions from the oil industry and ozone formation under the local climate of high temperatures and intense solar radiation, as well as accidental release scenarios from large chemical installations.

Within the Nile Basin Initiative's   World Bank sponsored project on Needs Assessment and Conceptual Design of a DSS for the Nile Basin, ESS is conducting a series of eleven national and sub-regional awareness and training workshops on DSS for Integrated Water Resources Management. The workshops are being held in Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, with a series of lectures and hands-on exercises using the WaterWare system, optimization and multi-criteria DSS tools as demonstration examples.

OPTAIR:  supported by the Austrian Research Foundation FFG and the Province of Lower Austria, ESS has started a major new work package in E! 3266 WEBAIR   on multi-criteria emission control optimization.   The three year RTD project will deal with methods of numerical techno-economic optimization for very large, distributed, dynamic, non-linear (non-differentiable) systems, using nested, hierarchical and cascading impact models, cluster computing, machine learning and adaptive heuristics and genetic algorithms as some of its methods and approaches. The test cases will be drawn from the ongoing WEBAIR case studies.

E! 3266 WEBAIR   yet another partner active: Croatia ! In collaboration with the WEBAIR partner OIKON d.o.o. Institute of Applied Ecology, supported by the Croatian Ministry of the Environment and with active participation of the end user, the EUREKA project WEBAIR is adding another new case study for the industrial City of Sisak in central Croatia.

E! 3266 WEBAIR   new case study for Seoul started ! The EUREKA project WEBAIR has added a new on-line application for South Korea, centered around the MegaCity region of Metropolitan Seoul. The implementation combines daily meteorological forecasts with MM5, driving nested grid daily and hourly model runs with CAMx and AERMOD, and PBM.

NBI DSS   a new World Bank sponsored project for the Nile Basin. In a consortium with partners from Austria, the UK, Egypt, Ethiopia and Tanzania, ESS works on a consulting project to define user requirements and design of a Nile Basin DSS. Particular tasks include a series of awareness workshops on DSS for Integrated Water Resources Management, using the WaterWare system, optimization and multi-criteria DSS tools as demonstration examples.

E! 3266 WEBAIR   has yet another "third country" partner ! The EUREKA project WEBAIR keeps growing: the latest "third country" partner is CESIMO, the Center for Environmental Simulation and Modelling at the Universidad de Los Andes in Venezuela, a partner in the INCO project GAIA. The new partner will work primarily on the high-altitude case study of Merida (Santiago de los Caballeros de Merida at 1,600 m), close to the Pico Bolivar with 4,981m), a challenging test case for the wind field modelling !

E! 3266 WEBAIR   welcomes two new "third country" partners. The EUREKA project WEBAIR keeps growing: "new third country" partners include BioTel Co. Ltd from Korea, and Airshed Pty Ltd. from South Africa. The new partners will work primarily on ozone (Korea) and domestic emisions, dust entrainment, and public health impacts (South Africa), each with at least one major case study application as a test bed for the integration of new developments.

AirWare   for the Republic of Cyprus In collaboration with ATLANTIS Consulting Cyprus Ltd. based in Nicosia, also a partner in our E! 3266 WEBAIR project, ESS has won an international tender to supply an air quality dispersion modelling system for Cyprus for The Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance, Department of Labour Inspection, Republic of Cyprus. The system is based on the latest web-based client-server release of AirWare, R5.2.1. The project includes the supply of a turn-key system, installation, user training, maintenance and continuing support of the system for an initial two years. Visit the latest release demos now installed in Cyprus

WaterWare   for the Yangtze, P.R.China ESS has started a new project with the Changjiang Water Resources Commission, Yangtze River Scientific Research Institute, Wuhan, to adapt and configure the WaterWare for the Yangtze river basin, to study both quantity and quality issues. A first turn-key system with the web based   WaterWare R 5.0   has been shipped to China in early June 2005.

OPTIMA: a new INCO-MPC project A new project on optimisation for water resources management has started with September 2004. ESS coordinates the three year project with a ten country consortium including Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Lebanon, Palaestine, Tunisia, and Morocco. Project meetings were held in October 2004 in Malta, and in April 2005 in Izmir, Turkey, in October 2005 in Morocco, and in May 2006 in Gumpoldskirchen, Austria.

RiskWare for RIVM, The Netherlands Release 1.0 of CENVIS, an adaptation of the RiskWare management information system for technological risk assessment and management for the Netherlands has been shipped to RIVM/CEV as a turn-key system implemented on a multi-processor Linux server in October 2004. CENVIS R 1.0 links to the latest data bases for installations and hazardous chemicals available at the center for external safety at RIVM, incorporates new and up-to-date GIS data, and supports import and georeferenced display of SAFETI and PHAST risk model results.

WaterWare   for the Kelantan, Malaysia In collaboration with LANDASAN Teknologi SDN. BHD.   ESS is providing extended support for the WaterWare system to NAHRIM (National Hydraulic Research Institute of Malaysia) in Kula Lumpur, now under the new Ministry for Natural Resources. The support includes a complete mirror installation with automatic remote updates, and a new, parallel and compatible web-based ASP version of the system.

E!3266 WEBAIR: A new EUREKA project: As a follow-up project to E!1388 AIDAIR, under the EUROENVIRON umbrella, E!3266 WEBAIR has recieved the EUREKA status "A" in June 2004. ESS is funded, in part by the Austrian FFG and the province of Lower Austria. The project includes partners from Austria, Portugal, Finland, Morocco, and Lithuania with Cyprus, Poland, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey and Italy ready to join. The new project will address real-time monitoring and modelling issues of urban and industrial air quality management. A first pilot case will simulate a thermal power plant on Cyprus (already started under E!1388), the Helsinki region including real-time forecasts, and industrial and urban areas of and around Gdanks in Poland.

Dynamic Pollen Forecasts For the fourth year in a row now, ESS is suplying a dynamic on-line forecasting system for cedar pollen in Kanto, Japan. The system is run with 48 hour meteorological forecasts every 12 hours, and updated every hour with new observations becoming available on-line. A spatially distributed pollen emission model, a dynamic 3D dispersion model describing transport and deposition of the pollen grains and hourly data assimilation are cacaded under the control of a rule-based real-time expert system. Results are directly published on the web: http://www.kafun-info.jp/

AirWare Gdansk Exploiting results of the SUTRA project, an on-line version of the AirWare set of models and data management tools is being implemented for the three city area of Gdansk, Soboth and Gdynia in Poland; the project is part of the new E!3266 WEBAIR proposal. The on-line system includes historical as well as real-time hourly meteorological and air quality monitoring data, air quality models for regular, hourly runs (including data assimilation strategies), regular forecasts (48 hour horizon), and tools for scenario analysis.

SMART: INCO-MED project A new three-year INCO (Mediterranean) project with partners in Italy, France, Portugal, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia, was started in September 2002. SMART:   Sustainable Management od Scarce Resources in the Coastal Zone deals with issues of water resources management in five case studies of coastal regions around the Mediterranean. With the fith project meeting held in Hammamet, Tunisia, in September 2004, the project has entered the second half of its planned duration, leading to the follow-up project OPTIMA, that extends the basic ideas towards optimisation.

Most of the documentation and user manuals of ESS systems and projects as well as several interactive demos and some ASP examples are available on-line. Many ESS projects and their results are also described and published in the international scientific literature.
Selected reports and abstracts are also available on-line.