Trends in Policy Relevant European Environmental Information Systems

The paper presents the evolution of European environmental reporting and how it has transformed information systems. It connects systemic changes in policy assessments whilst acknowledging that information systems themselves have evolved both from a knowledge and a technology perspective. It starts out by setting the policy context where a review of the current legislation related to environmental monitoring and reporting goes hand in hand with initiatives to promote open and distributed data access. The knowledge management model of EEA has been developed over almost two decades and is the background against which an evolution related to the way environmental data is been reported and generated and indicators are been developed has to be seen. This evolution is triggered by a growing need to support systemic thinking and integrative projects involving a growing set of stakeholders. To support these new demands our ways to manage environmental data needs to change. We receive more volumes of often less homogeneous data in more frequent intervals. We need to combine data from very different sources – environmental data based on legislation; data from research and big earth observation programs; data from citizens and industry. This data is structured or unstructured. While we continue investing in streamlining the data management aspects of reporting, we have to step-wise engage in new approaches like big data analytics. With these newly emerging data flows we also need to revise our information technology infrastructure by introducing more modularity and new tools.