Information systems for environmental quality and risk assessment
Principal investigator
Application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has been recognized worldwide through environmental monitoring and risk management in the case of natural hazards, industrial accidents and dangerous influence of energy and traffic systems (Environmental Informatics). Of special interest are ICT-based in-situ measurement systems and Monitoring of the Environment based on networking of sensors and communication systems. Strategic research directions in Croatia include long-term investigations such as: 2.Environmental protection and economic development and 5.ICT as well as short-term investigation on 1.Environment and particular Security of Transport-Influence on Environment. Our research is interdisciplinary and belongs to these strategic directions. The main goals of our project concern development of specialized information systems (IS), Web applications for temporal and spatial presentations and services necessary to provide the efficient management of complex data and processes in investigations of the water quality, natural and anthropogenic pollution sources, the risk assessment and particularly the influence of river traffic on the waterways. The emphasis in our research will be placed at remote control of equipment and measurement devices as well at automatic reporting about its status or in cases of alarms. This project will give support to integrated environmental management as well as to the surveillance of waterways and fairways according to national regulations and EU standards or recommendations. In such a way the significant contribution will be made to achieve national strategic goals for sustainable development and to enable appropriate decision making in environmental protection issues, particularly those which concern water ecosystems, natural and anthropogenic sources of pollution and waterway and fairway surveillance. The verification of results obtained could be accomplished through the analysis of published scientific results and its concrete applications, cooperation with other EU projects (i.e. INTEREG IIIB, FP6, FP7) and participation in international bodies and expert groups. By developing Information and communication systems for environmental quality and risk assessment the efficient information management will be enabled and the timely decision making will be improved at different levels of research projects (national and international) and for different user groups (researchers, Croatian governmental bodies).