Using Environmental Information Efficiently: Sharing Data and Knowledge from Heterogeneous Sources

Environmental information systems have gained more importance both in the public administration and industry since the beginning of 1990. For example, in the public administration every state in the Federal Republic of Germany has developed a type of environmental information system. National and European legislation demanding far reaching transparency in the state of the environment encouraged this development. In industry on the other hand, environmental information systems are used for costand product-specific recording of waste flows. These are used to point out weak points within the companies’ processes.