Ogolnopolska Konferencja z cykluInstrumenty Zarz^dzania Ochrona^ Srodowiska

Erich Weihs1

Piotr

WEB SERVICES: INFOOS FOR SUPPORTING THEPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION WITH REGARD TO

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT (EIA) INPOLAND WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE EU DIRECTIVE

AND AARHUS CONVENTION

AbstractWithin the framework of the "PHARE Country Programme for the

Poland of 2000" (EU 2000), a Web-based information and communicationsystem INFOOS, for the administrative documentation of environmentalimpact assessment procedure, was developed. The project was designed toassist Poland in meeting EU requirements for EIA (Environmental ImpactAssessment) and SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment), prior toPoland's entry into the EU- The prototype was completed in the year of 2002and already subjected to an ini t ia l field test involving more than 200 usersfrom public administration. The procedure was designed and developed onthe basis of existing Polish administrative specifications as laid down in theTwinning Covenant "Strengthen Environmental Impact Assessment".The INFOOS system's primary functions are:

the centralised collection and management of the information required inthe performance of an EU-compliant EIA/SEA, and

- the facilitation of communication between all parties involved in anEIA/SEA (government officials, developers, the general public...)

There has been realized an XML solution based on open-sourcesoftware with a native database and interfaces with existing applications. The.solution includes several functions necessary for administration, such as arespective security concept and the possibility to reconstruct every processstep (history log).

1 Baycrisches Slaats minister! urn fiir Landcsentwicklung und Umwcltfragen, D81929Muniche-mail: crich.weihs@sl.mlu.bayern.de• Laboratory oi'GIS and RS, Department of Forest Ecology, Faculty of Forestry,Agricultural University of Cracow, Cracow, Poland, e-mail: dwezyk@cyf-kr.edu.pi

Weihs Erich, Wqzyk Piotr

Another focus of the paper is the discussion that led to the introduction ofa native XML database.To meet these requirements, 4 system Web-modules were developed:- a Reporting module (XML-based database) that helps to manage

EIA/SEA data in a standardised way;- an Assistance module that guides officials in the decision-making

process;- an Archive module thai stores the various documents, laws, guidelines,

etc. of relevance, and allows them to be searched- a INFOOS-Cafe - communication module that includes a: chat room,

a newsletter, a discussion forum and a list of relevant e-mail addresses.

1. The monitoring of the permit procedure of the PolishEnvironmental Impact Assessment

The procedural steps for checking whether and how anenvironmental impact assessment is to be performed witha participation of the public are collected in Poland by means of so-called "Information Cards" (Publicznie dost^pny wykaz danycho dokumentach zawieraja^cych informacje o srodowisku i jegoochronie). In a decree of the Polish Minister for the Environment onthe Publicly Accessible Registers according to Art. 19 Subsec. 8 of theAct on Environmental Protection , there are defined content and formof the information. The register comprises 5 information sheets - the"Cards" - containing the data that wi l l allow for finding and makingavailable the documents referred to in procedures3. The regulationmeets the provisions of the directive 90/313/EEC on free access toinformation on the environment and the Aarhus Convention witchconsists of three pillars, each of which grants different rights:the first pillar gives the public the right of access to environmentalinformation;the second pillar gives the public the right to participate in decision-making processes, andthe third pillar ensures access to justice for the public.

'" D/.U. Nr62. po/. 627 iwiih changes,*:4 At the time of bui lding prototype (Dz.U. Nr 15,poz. 164 from 20.02.2001)* Meanwhile, the scope of the information required for the maintenance of thepubl ic ly accessible register has been extended at the 17 June 2003 (new 9 Forms ofthe 'Information Cards A-J" - D/.U'. Nr 1 10. po/,. 10581 in comparison with the scopepresented here. The intended alteration will not have any effect on the technologypresented here wi thin the meaning of the information technology presented.

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2. The Information Offer

2.1. The Portal Page

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Figure I: The Portal Page

The process can be found in the internet via a portal page fromwhere, according to Fig. 1, one can get to various general information,one to a chat-room and last but not least to the below-describedmonitoring of the ETA process by means of a functionally structuredcall of web services

2.2. The "Information Cards" (Publicznie dost$pny wykaz...)

The respective procedure is collected through 6 cards, "B" to"G", (Fig. 2) that describes the process and by a card "A" thatcontains an overview of the status of the procedure. Apart form thecards, there does also exist a register of addresses of applicants,licensing authorities, entities archiving documents, etc.

s Al Ihe time of printing, the test access addresses http://landconsuIt.de/oos/ andhttp://vyww.twinning.bayern.de are available. If needed, you can obtain passwordsunder erich.weihs@stmlu.bayern.de for the test-version.

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Weihs Erich, Wqzyk Piotr

Cards "B" to "G" refer to the address catalogue and, ifapplicable, to further matters that are connected with the collectedprocedure. To each of the cards, files of any format (word files,scanned original documents, images, etc.) can be "attached" and takenover into the database.

Form4

(Card)

B

C

D

E

F

G

Referral to Form (Card)

Process application

Decisions and regulations

Directives, strategies, plans

respective drafts

EIA reports, EIA forecasts,

or programs and their

analyses, expert opinions

List of the sample-taking of the environmental media soil,

air, water

Further information on documents

Figure 2: Card "A " - List of the cards accompanying the proceduralprocess

2.3. Collection of the Reporting Duty - new solution Card "0"

With the collection of the data on the EIA, there issimultaneously created a data sheet according to Fig. 3 that forms themaster data record for the preparation of the statistics on the reportingduty.

3. Die Architecture of the Process

The IT process for monitoring the EIA is based on theframework architecture of the Bavarian Catalogue of EnvironmentalObjects (Weihs 1998, 1999). In 1998 already, we had designated thecentral catalogue as a catalogue of environmental objects because thatwas intended to document a general approach that points beyond the

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Webservices: INFOOS for supporting the public administration ...

meta information system and finds its Information Technologyapplication in the framework technology.

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Figure 3: Part of the form for the collection of the data basis for theduty to report to the European Union (Information card "B")

3.1. Utilization of XML

All of the subject- and safety-related data, the input/output ofcertain style-sheets, etc. are based on XML without exception. Alsothe data storage of all data is done in a native XML database. A nativeXML database Tamino was chosen because it shows the objectstructure as intended by us, the objects can be easily referenced andwe want to fully use the query possibilities of XQL (X Query/ X Path)and do not want to accept any loss of performance. The chosendatabase itself allows for a direct connection to the web-server andoffers the advantages of commercial databases, such as transactionsafety, logging, recovering, etc. and the management of the large datavolumes to be expected.

The process according to Fig. 4 mainly comprises thecomponents Tomcat and Apache and the database. For the Polish EIA

151

Weihs Erich, W<>zyk Piotr

(OOS), we have added various services through an own portal page(module: Internet Cafe) such as: discussion forum, newsletter, chatroom, respective relevant direct links and a documentation (E1AArchive) of the most important relevant documents (EIA Assistant).

The Tomcat shown in Fig. 4 administers the Java applicationsand style-sheets as well as the security to the web. The call to thedatabase is made through the style-sheets. As far necessary,programming was made in the XML, integrating existing open-sourceproducts. For the http/s requests of the web clients, the XML data inconnection with the style-sheets are converted into html (currently bymeans of XERCES). That way, we can continue to pursue the strategyof a lean client because there will not be required any explicitinstallation in the client. Except for a current browser version, thereare no further requirements.

Apart from the XML database that is subject to licensing, thereis only used open-source software. The entire configuration isplatform-independent and can run under Windows X, UNIX orLINUX. Currently, the development is made under Windows 2000and Linux, the production environment is operated under SUNSolaris. Taking into account the task - the configuration presentedallows for a reduction of costs and development time by up to 20 - 40% compared with comparable functionalities of other system.

Apache/Tomcat XML-DB

Thin Client

Html / http, https

Figure 4: The IT architecture of the system

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Web services: INFOOSfor supporting the public administration ...

3,2. The Framework Technology

One can imagine the IT architecture as a framework the subject-related "picture contents" (objects, entities) of which can beexchanged. Therefore, we designate this architecture as a framework.Style-sheets the functionality of which is represented by reusableservlets can be imagined as "picture-frames". That way, the functionsalways needed for processing, such as collection, updating, deletion,import, export, version , rights, can be operated by means of a toolbar- as it is known from Windows applications - that differs according tothe rights of the user and to the language selected

3.3. Security Concept

According to the architecture model shown in Fig. 4, access to*" o

the database is obtained through the calls included in the style-sheets/servlets. Since the style-sheets are assigned to the user profiles, theaccess rights can be regulated at that level. Therefore, it is notnecessary to assign special rights to individual tags (fields and tablesin SQL databases) within the database itself. That will considerablereduce the administrative expenses in the current operation withoutany security losses (on the contrary). With the help of this method, theaccess rights can be assigned to the various administrative levels, asthat may be required in an EIA procedure.

History of Data Processing (Processing Quality Assurance)

Together with every stored alteration of an object, the precedingstate is completely recorded and stored in the database. Since theofficer responsible normally is not allowed to delete (regulation in theuser profile), every alteration can be chronologically traced backaccording to Fig. 5 and a prior state can be restored, if necessary.

Rights at Class Level

Due to the different user-related handling of the "InformationCards" and address entries, there was provided a specific class-relatedassignment of rights. To this end, there exists a security class

7 Specification of the history of processing* cf. Figure 4. e.g. ScrvletEdit?id~{ INOID} for updating' 'uf . Fie. 6e.i*. show last version of user: sea-001 from 06.10.2003 / 09:11 PM

153

Weihs Erich, Wt>tyk Piotr

accessible to the administrator only where the assignment of rights isregulated.

Rights at the Object Level

Apart from the rights at class level, it turned out to be necessaryto assign rights at the object level, too: In the interest of highestpossible transparency, every process created is visible to theauthorized staff members. Alterations, however, can only be made bythe user who created the object with his/her write right (unless otherrights were granted, such as group administrator's rights).

EIA as Web-Service

EIA was designed as a web service and can be called as a serverservice via various interfaces. Beyond that, the process for certaincards, functions or individual objects can be called directly viaservlets. That way, it is possible to integrate the data and functionsinto other web services or portal pages: In the web offer, therepresentation can be created in accordance with the layout of thebusiness sector; for the handling of matters, it is shown with agraphical user interface adapted to the administration of the projectsand wi th all required data.

4. Monitoring of the Polish EIA/SEA10

The monitoring accompanies the EIA/SEA procedures with thehelp of the so-called Information Cards "A" - "G" and card "0".According to Fig. 8, card "B" comprises the most importantadministrative data for the fi l ing of applications (applicant, file no.,applicant address, etc.). There is automatically created a card "0" to becompleted later that forms the basis for the statistics report required bythe European Union.

'". Twinning Project Strengthen Environmental Impaet AssessmentPL/2000/IB/EN/Ol. P II A R E-Prognim 2000: Twinning project between the Ministryof'the Environment of the Republic of Poland and the Federal Ministry for theEnvironment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of the Federal Republic ofGermany

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Figure 8: Example of the collection of the master data of anapplication filed (Card "B")

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Weihs Erich, Wqzyk Piotr

The data collected in card "0" can be aggregated by means ofvarious selection criteria for EU reporting according to Fig. 9.

Cards "B" to "G" refer to one another under a file number andrefer, as far as there exists a reference, to other cards accompanyingEIA procedures. Apart from the class describing the EIA, the classcontaining the addresses of the parties involved in the procedure alsocomprises a diary and a class for the documentation of materialsaccompanying the procedure. To each of the documents / objects,there can be "attached" any types of files from the file systemaccessible to the collection client that are also stored in the databaseand can be shown via the network.

| For rnuterze OOS _^J | wyswietl document 11 rowy doloimenl | usuril [edyti£J [wersja | j

PUVP-Statistic Result

ContentTypes of responsible authoritiesFilled Field 'Record number of forms registeris the decision definite ?UVP $52.1 and 552 6_of the 'Natutschulzgeselz' ?PHARE20QO-EntriesIs Procedure Obligatory ?Procedureprccess iVeifahrerisablaui)Appliei enquired UVP-report si;s ?Department se! UVP-report size ?Proposal Indorsement CriteriaChanged scope accelerates UVP-pmcadureChanged scope nphmiie; appiiers information [Unterlagsn)Social conditions or human health regarded •Criteria feu deiermine the cheapeast van an!Criteria for determine the quality of the UVP-reportPublic audilion accelerated decision ?Public audition improved U'VP-rejaort quality •Public mvolverrienl assumed^;Are there enough UVP-MethodsProposal fo- -•evi UVP-'v-elhods

Figure 9: Parts of the statistics for the EU reporting duty(test-data)

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Web services: INf-'OOSfor supporting the public administration

Bibliography

[1] EU (2000): Twinning Project Strengthen Environmental ImpactAssessment PL/2000/IB/EN/01, P H A R E-Program 2000: Twinningproject between the Ministry of the Environment of the Republic ofPoland and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, NatureConservation and Nuclear Safety of the Federal Republic of Germany

[21 Weihs, E. (1998): On the classification of environmental data in theBavarian Environmental Information System using an object-orientedapproach in: Studies in Classification, Data Analysis, and KnowledgeOrganization: Data Science, Classification, and Related Methods;Tokyo p. 728 - 735

[3] Weihs, E. (1999): Objektorientierung bei der Speicherung undRecherche von XML-Daten in vernetzten Systemen in: Managementvon Umweltinformationen in vernetzten Urngebungen, Vol. 21Umweltinformatik aktuell, p. 58 -69

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