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Friday, 06 May 2005

Capacity Building and Access to Environmental Information.

A Turkish Ministry of Environment and Forestry delegation of 14 participants visited Hungary between 18 and 22 April 2005. During the 5 day study tour the delegates sought information on the following issues. Some notes resulting from the discussions are also included.

• Obtaining detailed information about the General Administrative Structure and Institutional and Administrative situation of the visited country regarding the Environmental activities.
• Which institution conducts EEA and Access to Environmental Information studies? General explanations about the access of information tools. Which institutions hold environmental information and in which format and which institutions use environmental information, for what purposes.
• What are the national strategy and legal tools used for data exchange (law, protocol, regulation etc.)? Can the related documents be provided (protocol examples, the regulations in their legal structure)?
• What studies on information exchange and access to information security are available?
• What are the technical tools available for access to data (database, central-scattered structure, which software, why)?
• What are the difficulties faced in data exchange, solutions to these difficulties and the subjects to be noticed?
• Examples of operation and implementation of databases, decision support system and GIS subjects?
• How the EEA studies are conducted (the studies for sharing information, preparing indicators, the information reported, and expectations)?
• How are the data collected?
• How is data quality monitored?
• What are the data, model and system costs? How were the EU funds used?
• Which guidance documents were used?

Meetings were organised for the delegation with experts of:

Information Centre of the Hungarian Ministry of Environment:

• Discussing outline of study tour, distribution of evaluation form to be completed on Friday, introduction to key people and distribution of materials.
• Detailed information was given about the Hungarian institution system for environment (Ministry of Environment and Water, Regional Institutions etc.
• Legal framework on environmental information in Hungary, strategy of environmental data collection and distribution. Overview of the institutions which are holding and distributing environmental data, explaining different data systems in different institutions.
• Environmental indicators used in public communication, Hungarian experience in developing indicators, publication series for decision makers, specialists, and general public about the state of the environment.
• Hungarian experiences about joining procedure to EU, negotiations from environmental point of view, using cohesion and structural funds, institutional background for using these funds.
• Introducing National Environmental Information System in detail: organisation (P. Bozó), technical (G. Berta), system functions (S. Szõke).

VITUKI Environmental and Water Research Institute:

• On-line data collection and distribution system for hydrological forecasting. Measurement of water quality, Hungarian practice of laboratory work, including data quality assurance (P. Bakonyi).
• Hungarian Practice of Laboratory Work (F. László).
• Data Quality Assurance (Ms C. Bélavári).
• Working with the European Environmental Agency, basics of Eionet-Water, data collection and processing system for water related issues. Hungarian and east-European experiences about data collection, data analysis, results compared to "old" member states (J. Fehér).

FÖMI Remote Sensing Centre:

• Overview of the international and Hungarian CORINE Landcover program, experiences with working international partners (FÖMI is part of the European Topic Centre), introducing case study for application of CORINE Landcover data.

Bükk National Park:

• Introduction of the work of National Park (J. Duska).
• The Nature Conservation Information System, phases of development, modules of the system, planned hardware and software architecture (A. Takács).
• Work with the European Environmental Agency, Natura 2000 reporting designated areas.

Regional Inspectorate in Miskolc:

• Data collection at regional level (including on-line air quality data measurement and distribution).

Chief Inspectorate in Budapest:

• Welcome and introduction of the work of Chief Inspectorate.
• Working as an authority at country-wide level, introducing environmental authorization system in Hungary, how the regulation circle works, how to use data in decision making.
• Working at international level: IMPEL network of the European Environmental Authority (P.Varga).