Environmental Software Featuring Interactive Interfaces

Abstract

With steady population growth and industrialization, human activities have increasingly affected the environment. Growing concern about these impacts and their immediate, as well as longterm consequences, including risk associated with technological systems and the inherent uncertainty of any forecast makes environmental planning and management, especially environmental impact assessment, a task of global importance that requires comprehensive, interdisciplinary Information.

The volume and complexity of this information, uncertainty in the data and comprehension of the processes, as well as the often large number of alternatives to be considered, require specific data processing tools. The availability of affordable Computers, as well as new technologies such as expert systems, interactive modeling and dynamic Computer graphics, now make it possible for powerful, accessible, and general Software systems for environmental impact and risk assessment to be built. These systems are designed to provide planners and policy makers with direct and interactive access to a large volume of information in combination with methods of scientific analysis.

To make such systems really usable, emphasis has to be put on the user interface, using components such as graphical and symbolic user interaction, graphical display of results that are dynamically or spatially distributed, integrated geographical information systems (GIS), or the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) components.

Some basic principles such eis interaction and visualization are discussed, based on several application examples in the area of general environmental impact assessment, as well as surface and groundwater quality, air pollution and industrial risk assessment, developed and implemented by IIASA’s Advanced Computer Applications (ACA) group for planners, managers and decision makers.