Research project AS/DD/07 (Research action AS)
1. General context (international, national, etc.)
The European Environment Agency (EEA) created the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET) in order to have quality environmental information in the form notably of assessments and reports on the state of the environment. EIONET relies on a wide array of bodies from all of the Agency’s Member States.
To optimise the country’s national focal point (NFP), each level of power in Belgium has provided for a certain structure and its own coordinating body (a federal structure and one structure for each of the Regions). The Flemish, Walloon, and Brussels networks are operational and make use of a pre-existing coordinating unit, the Interregional Environment Cell or CELINE/IRCEL.
2. Project description and aims
The project aims to promote the integration and management of the data (in the broad sense) provided by the national bodies and to encourage communication and information exchanges amongst all of the federal, regional, interregional, and international players concerned by this action.
The project’s main goal is to evaluate the federation government’s contributions to EIONET and make recommendations for the future. These recommendations will lay the foundations for extending this cooperation agreement to include other federal bodies, for example (the EEA’s work has evolved and now embraces areas that the agreement’s negotiators could not foreseen in 1994).
The project also provides for a contribution to the inventory of legal (directives, etc.) and moral (questionnaires from the OECD, Eurostat, EEA, and other agencies) obligations to supply environmental information actively or passively to all the administrative and scientific bodies involved in drafting and compiling European and international reports and inventories. This takes the form of the Reporting Obligations Database (ROD) set up by the Brussels Institute for Management of the Environment (IBGE/BIM).
The federal network currently consists of an uncoordinated assortment of bodies belonging to several ministries (Social Affairs, Public Health and the Environment; SMEs, Tradesmen and Agriculture; and Economic Affairs), scientific establishments (Royal Institute of Natural Sciences (IRSNB/KBIN), Royal Meteorological Institute), and type B semi-State-owned institutions such as the National Geographic Institute.
Finally, the project also provides for the creation of descriptive sheets for inclusion in the OSTC’s information system for sustainable development (SIDD/ISDO).
3. (Expected) results/outputs
- Proposals concerning EIONET’s operationality on the federal level and its possible extension to include other federal bodies.
- Contribution to the ROD.
- Fact sheets on the federal bodies belonging to EIONET.
4. (Potential) users
OSTC, CELINE/IRCEL, and NFP; the Studies and Coordination Office of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Public Health and the Environment; CIDD/ICDO, CFDD/FRDO, EEA and ETC, CCIEP (Environmental Data Steering Group), etc.
Methods
Three questionnaires are being used to evaluate the federal bodies’ contributions to EIONET:
1. The first questionnaire analyses very specifically how the federal bodies are working within the network.
2. The second questionnaire identifies the environmental databanks.
3. The third questionnaire describes the data sources (databases and organisations).
The federal bodies that might join EIONET are also being interviewed.
Versterking van de federale participatie in de werkzaamheden in het Europese Milieuagentschap en in het netwerk EIONET : eidrapport
Brussel : Federaal Wetenschapsbeleid, 2005 (SP1566)
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