Interactive Environmental Software: Integration, Simulation and Visualization

Environmental planning and management require comprehensive and interdisciplinary information as the scientific and technical information basis for what are, ultimately, political decisions. The volume and complexity of this information, uncertainty in the data and the understanding of processes, as well as the often very large number of alternatives to be considered require specific data processing tools.Electronic data processing and in particular, the simulation and analysis of environmental problems and possible measures of environmental management require the development and implementation of the required data and numerical models, but also of appropriate user interfaces.The user interface allows interactive control of the software, the graphical display and visualization of results, and the integration of models and data bases, multiple models, or expert systems components. It also facilitates customization of the system for specific institutional applications.Important components are graphical and symbolic user interaction, the graphical display of results that are dynamic or spatially distributed, the integration of geographical information systems as a source of data, but also as a tool for further analysis, and the use of AI components that allow efficient systems behavior and easy, error-free use of the software.The role of integrated systems is not only to model selected aspects of the environment, but to offer a broader view of the overall problems, and to provide tools and methods of analysis that distill the most critical features of decision-oriented information bases and explicit decision support.Using a number of practical examples from application domains such as air quality, ground and surface water, hazardous chemicals, technological risk and environmental impact assessment, a number of interactive and integrated information and decision support systems, implemented in a number of countries for environmental planning and management, are described and discussed together with the architecture of their implementation and the basic approach.