The Black Sea is an almost closed sea being bordered by countries with intensive agriculture and several harbors without or with very limited (waste) water treating capacities. The water pollution arising from this, has a very important (negative) impact on the marine environment of the Black Sea. Active measures have to be taken by the Black Sea countries, to improve the polluted state of the Black Sea Ecosystem. The action plan for saving the Black Sea can not be realized without a real time information and data on the several ecological aspects of the Black Sea marine environment.

Detailed discussions with marine (environmental) scientists from Romania, the Russian Federation and Ukraine resulted in the opinion that data-availability as well as data-access and integrated marine environmental management of the Black Sea Region may be improved by application of (innovative) practice tools and management systems from EC-countries.

A Black Sea Web on the Internet could provide such management tool and help the decision-makers in their tasks to implement an adequate integrated marine environmental management of the Black Sea Region.

The Black Sea Web Project, a joint-project between local partners from the Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Romania and EC-partners from the Netherlands and Denmark, focuses on strengthening of environmental management for the Black Sea Region. Within the framework of the Project, a Demonstrator for a Black Sea Marine Environmental Management Support System, based on Telematics (Black Sea Web) will be developed and evaluated. This Demonstrator might provide a model for future expansion of the system among all countries bounded on the Black Sea. Also it will contribute to the further development of the Black Sea Region state-of-the-art on Informatics and Telematics.

The innovative design of the to be developed Demonstrator for a Black Sea Web, is that the data source holders have access into each other data and information, on an independent basis. However, the data source holders will keep control of their own data. Within this concept, several databases, which are physically and geographically separated, can be accessed remotely for data retrieval and data transfer from a "Black Sea Web Interface".

The central element in the system is a Central Meta Directory, describing what information is available at what location. This directory (catalogue) will be built in the "Black Sea Web Interface", largely based upon GIS for geographical interfacing. The Central Meta Directory will be installed as a World Wide Web server.

Objectives

Partners

Partner's Role

Project Duration

• Development of an (innovative) management tool based on Telematics, which will help local and regional (governmental) organisations and bodies around the Black Sea to implement integrated marine environmental management, including:
  • Description of what information is available at what location, and Provision of Information Technology (IT-) Systems (Internet techniques) with automated procedures to access the actual information.
  • The (innovative) design of a Demonstrator for a Black Sea Marine Environmental Management Support System (Black Sea Web) to have access into each others data of organisations dealing with marine environmental data of the Black Sea, on an independent base and maintaining the control of their own data. This concept results in several connected databases, which are physically separated, but appear as one.
• Providing the capability for the implementation of different types of integrated environmental management information, through the use of a (innovative) Central Meta Directory.
  • The (Innovative) Design of a Central Meta Directory (CMD) as central element of the system, considering the guidelines of the Catalogue of Data Sources of the European Environment Agency. The CMD describes what information is available at what location and will be installed as a World Wide Web Server (WWW), and will be supported by applications based on a Geographical Information System (GIS) for geographical interfacing.
  • From the CMD and GIS users can search for relevant data and information.
    The system will provide automated procedures and telematic solutions (by the Internet) to access the actual distributed databases and to locate and bring out the required data.
  • The distributed database model will be based upon CORBA-software architecture; the telematics/transport model upon Internet techniques.
  • The Demonstrator will focus on two separate databases, maintained and managed by different partners from different countries along the Black Sea:
    • The Black Sea database of Marine Hydrophysical Institute in the Ukraine, containing physical and geo-chemical data on the marine Black Sea environment.
    • The database of the Romanian Marine Geology and Geo-ecology Centre containing geological and geo-ecological data.
• Facilitate the search for and access to specific environmental data by several, well-developed navigation systems.
• Developing a (innovative) Marine Environmental Management Support System, which can be used for a wide variety of environmental topics and management levels.
• Increasing the velocity and quantity of environmental data and information, available through the use of the Black Sea Web.

The Marine Information Service MARIS (Project Co-ordinator)
MARIS is an industrial company (engineering office), whose main business interests are marine Information services & Data brokerage, consultancy, development and implementation of Marine Data & Information management systems and services, project development and management, development and management of Internet Websites and applications and electronic publishing.

MARIS has still strong links with the government and performs many projects and tasks for governmental services. One of these tasks is that MARIS function as focal point for oceanographic and marine data, information and expertise for the Netherlands, maintaining various meta-databases on data resources, organisation addresses, marine research projects etc.

MARIS is also a member of the network of National Oceanographic Data Centres in Europe that act in the framework of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). By this and many other contacts MARIS has a strong international network of oceanographic data & information sources and is also well experienced in oceanographic data & information management and dissemination.

A key issue for MARIS is that it supports organisations to bridge the existing gap between internal data & information resources at one side and the user market at the other side. MARIS supports the development and implementation of the marketing strategy as well as engineer's effective information tools and systems to streamline dissemination and exploitation.

Information management systems are mostly developed in projects for governmental departments, such as the Ministry of Transport, Public Works & Water Management, and international bodies, such as the EC and UNEP, and for bilateral co-operation between the Netherlands and Eastern European countries.

Information services comprise among others the exploitation of factual databases and Web sites, targeted at economic users of the sea, such as the offshore oil & gas industry and dredging industry. Websites are set-up as thematic electronic markets and are targeted at the primary information/service providers in the specific theme. MARIS supports or manages the overall set-up and strategy for the site development and develops the individual home pages for participating organisations. These comprise governmental departments, regional government, research institutes, branch associations and private industries, such as publishers.

The State University of Moscow MSU (Partner)
The MSU is founded in 1755 and has a long-standing tradition of academic excellence. Today it is considered to be one of the most important scientific and educational centres in Russia. At present there are more than 8600 professors, lecturers and research associates working at MSU. More than 26000 undergraduate students at MSU, and about 5000 are working on their PhD projects. MSU has among others more than 100 laboratories, computer centre, botanical gardens, etc.

The Marine Hydrophysical Institute, Sevastopol - MHI (Partner)
MHI of the National Ukrainian Academy of Sciences was founded in 1929, when a stationary hydrophysical station was established in Katsively (Crimea) on shore of the Black Sea. In 1948, Marine Hydrophysical Institute affiliated to the USSR Academy of Sciences was set up in Moscow, on the basis of the Black Sea hydrophysical station (Katsiveli) and Marine hydrophysical laboratory (Moscow).
In 1961, MHI was re-affiliated to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and in 1963, was transferred to Sevastopol. About 200 researchers work in the MHI, amongst which 26 are professors and 120 persons are PhDs.
MHI has 14 scientific departments including Department of the Marine Information Systems and Technologies with the Data Base Laboratory.

Main Tasks of the Laboratory include:

• Development of the scientific basis, algorithms and software for the oceanographic data quality control, processing,and database management system
• Creation, loading and maintenance of the regional, special and interdisciplinary oceanographic databases.
  Among others, Laboratory maintain the Black Sea data base of the MHI and has a big experience in work with the Black Sea data.

Jointly with among others MARIS (Netherlands), it participated in the creation of the Black Sea Information System. Laboratory participates in these current international programs related to the Black Sea:

• Cooperative Marine Science Program for the Black Sea, CoMSBlack, (IOC).
• NATO TU-Black Sea Program. Ecosystem Modeling as a management Tool for the Black Sea. (Science for Stability Program, NATO).
• Black Sea Environmental Program, BSEP, (GEF).
• Global Oceanographic Data Archeology and Rescue Project, GODAR, (IOC).

The National Institute of Marine Geology and Geo-ecology GeoEcoMar (Partner)
GeoEcoMar is a governmental research-development institute, controlled and co-ordinated by the Ministry of Research and Technology of Romania. Presently GeoEcoMar has 105 scientific and technical employees.

The main activities are oriented as follows:

• Marine and fluvial geo-ecological studies regarding ecosystems of the macro-geo-system Danube, Danube Delta, Coastal Zone and Black Sea, as well as the environmental impact of hydro technical works.
• Geological-geophysical survey of the Black Sea, mainly the Romanian Continental Shelf.
• Studies of paleo-ecology, studies of the environmental and geological impacts of the climate and sea level changes.
• Land-sea interactions in the coastal zone and its integrated management.
• Studies, technical assistance and consulting for littoral and offshore marine engineering, industrial and environmental impact studies.

GeoEcoMar has carried out projects like AEuropean River-Ocean System (EROS-2000), financed by the EC (PHARE and PECO projects), and "The Global Environmental Facility (GEF), Project for Environmental Management of the Black Sea", supported by the World Bank, UNDP, UNEP and UNESCO.

TERMA Elektronik A/S -(Partner)
TERMA Elektronik A/S is a software house and systems integrator, founded in 1978. Headquartered in Birkerød, Denmark, the company operates a worldwide organisation with subsidiaries and branch offices in Europe, the US and the Pacific Rim.
TERMA is a leading supplier of software systems for project involving large amounts of mission-critical information within: space, airlines, financial, manufacturing and other industries.

TERMA is Denmark's largest space company and has been active in the space domain since the company's formation. The space activities of TERMA have traditionally been a source of innovation and technology development, which the rest of the company has been able to exploit in other market areas. TERMA was awarded the contract to manage the development and production of Denmark's first satellite and this satellite, Ørsted, is devoted to several Earth observing tasks.

The Space Division of TERMA has further developed a series of areas of expertise including applications of satellite data for Earth observation. This emphasises the use of IT-systems to support the acquisition and processing of data from space borne instruments.
TERMA's relevant background for the Black Sea Web Project is composed of specific experience in the application and management of remote sensing and in situ data for coastal zone and oceanographic applications, and in providing the necessary systems to compose the infrastructure for such data processing/application schemes.

The Netherlands Institute for Applied Geosciences NITG (Partner)
NITG is the Netherlands Centre for information, services and consultancy in geo-logical matters. It is a government agency within the Ministry of Economic Affairs and serves governm-ent, industry and society.

The main fields of activity in the Netherlands and abroad relate to land use projects in lowland and coastal areas, ground water resources and environmental mat-ters, applied marine and coastal geology, mineral resources (governmental as well as industrial advisor), and various geological and aggregate resource mapping programmes. An important part of these activities concerns the development as well as application of Data-Access, Data-Management and GIS-based Data-Applications.

Marine Information Service MARIS, Netherlands (NL)
Project Management/Development Meta Directories/Co-ordination Development Demonstrator Black Sea Web /User Consultation

Moscow State University (MSU), Department of Cartography and Geo-informatics, Faculty of Geography, Russian Federation (RU)
Development Application Layer/Development Central Meta Directory and Meta Directories/ Implementation, Testing and Promotion

National Institute for Marine Geology and Geo-ecology Bucharest (GeoEcoMar), Romania (RO)
Development Remote Data Access/Development Central Meta Directory/User Consultation/Testing of System/Implementation, Testing and Promotion

TERMA Elektronink A/S, Birkeroed (TERMA), Denmark (DK)
Development Remote Data Access/Development Central Meta Directory/Implementation, Testing and Promotion

Netherlands Institute of Applied Geosciences Haarlem (NITG), Netherlands (NL)
Development Application Layer (Presentation Tools)/User Consultation/Testing of System

Project Start : 1 September 1998
Project End : 29 February 2000
Project Duration : 1.5 year

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