Environmental Data Exchange Network for Inland Water (eBook)

Front Cover 1
Environmental Data Exchange Network for Inland Water 4
Copyright Page 5
Table of Contents 6
Foreword 8
Preface 10
Acknowledgments 12
List of Contributors 14
PART I Environmental Data Exchange 16
Chapter 1 Environmental Data Exchange for Inland Water 18
1.1 Introduction 18
1.2 General background 20
1.3 Technical background 22
1.4 Social considerations 26
1.5 Water issues in Europe 28
1.6 Book outline 28
Chapter 2 An Example of a Data Exchange Network: The French System for Water Data 32
2.1 The french system for water 32
2.2 Information system structure 33
2.3 Perspectives 36
2.4 Technical principles and choices 39
2.5 Discussion 41
Chapter 3 The Evolution of Thematic Reporting into a Shared Information System: An Example on Water 44
3.1 Historic legacy and political background 44
3.2 Identifying business processes and streamlining reporting obligations 45
3.3 Reportnet as a current technological solution to streamline reporting 46
3.4 Review of monitoring 48
3.5 Distributed information system 49
3.6 From water data flows to a water information system 49
3.7 From a reporting to an information system 51
Notes 52
Chapter 4 Agent-Based Concepts for Environmental Data 54
4.1 Introduction 54
4.2 Project motivation 55
4.3 Infosleuth 56
4.4 Technical system description 57
4.5 Project description 59
4.6 Conclusion 62
Acknowledgements 63
Chapter 5 Review of Models and Technologies for Database Integration 66
5.1 Introduction 66
5.2 RDBMS, SQL and data warehouses 67
5.3 The global view database integration model 69
5.4 Distributed databases 70
5.5 SQL summary 71
5.6 XML, web services and the grid 71
5.7 The semantic web 74
5.8 Agents and multi-agent systems 78
5.9 Concluding remarks 82
Chapter 6 Security Issues for Distributed Software Agents 84
6.1 Introduction 84
6.2 RDBMS security mechanisms 85
6.3 Interfaces between agent software and the RDBMS 86
6.4 Network configurations 88
6.5 Installing the resource agent in a corporate network configuration 90
6.6 Conclusions 95
PART II The EDEN-IW Project 96
Chapter 7 Introduction and Overview of Results 98
7.1 Introduction 98
7.2 Main results 99
7.3 Independent software agents 100
7.4 Inland water application 102
7.5 Environmental analysis 105
7.6 Agent communication visualiser 107
7.7 Semantic management 109
7.8 Discussion 110
Chapter 8 Multi-agent System Technology in Distributed Database Systems 112
8.1 Introduction 112
8.2 Specification of MAS using FIPA standards 115
8.3 Developing MAS applications 122
8.4 EDEN-IW MAS system design and implementation 126
8.5 Discussion and conclusions 135
Chapter 9 An Ontology-based Approach for Enhancing Inland Water Information Retrieval from Heterogeneous Databases 138
9.1 Introduction 138
9.2 What is an ontology? 138
9.3 Inland water data application requirements 140
9.4 EDEN-IW semantic model and services 142
9.5 Discussion 158
Chapter 10 Quadrilingual List and Terminology Reference System 160
10.1 Introduction 160
10.2 The quadrilingual list of determinands 162
10.3 The terminology reference system 170
10.4 Discussions and conclusions 184
Chapter 11 Agent Communication Visualising Technologies 190
11.1 Introduction 190
11.2 Goals of the agent communication visualiser 192
11.3 The ACV project 193
11.4 The ACV in use 196
11.5 Potential uses of the ACV 202
11.6 The ACV website 202
11.7 Conclusive remarks 203
Chapter 12 Interaction with the User 208
12.1 Introduction 208
12.2 Web application design 208
12.3 Web application overview 213
12.4 Using EDEN-IW for inland water analysis 219
12.5 Final remarks 226
Notes 227
Chapter 13 Geographical Information and Map Services 228
13.1 Introduction 228
13.2 GIS data in the inland-water domain 228
13.3 Open geospatial consortium standards 229
13.4 EDEN-IW GIS system architecture 230
13.5 Concluding remarks 239
Chapter 14 Performance Issues of Distributed Systems 240
14.1 Introduction 240
14.2 The setup 240
14.3 Analysis method 241
14.4 The search for available determinands 243
14.5 The search for stations 245
14.6 The search for measurement data 250
14.7 A simple model for the performance of a distributed system 254
14.8 Summary and conclusions 256
Part III Perspectives and Data Harmonisation 258
Chapter 15 Environmental Data: Edge Issues and the Path Forward 260
15.1 Introduction 260
15.2 Operational edge issues 260
15.3 The semantics edge: A major challenge and promising opportunity 262
15.4 Concluding remarks 271
Notes 272
Chapter 16 A Water Reference for Europe 274
16.1 Introduction 274
16.2 Components of the reference 276
16.3 Radar sensing techniques to detect elevation 278
16.4 Detection of water surfaces 281
16.5 Automated coding methods for hydrological systems 287
16.6 Inclusion of objects influenced by man 294
16.7 Display of results 296
16.8 Conclusions and recommendations for further research 297
16.9 Glossary of terms 299
Websites 300
Notes 300
Chapter 17 Perspectives for Information Systems for Water 302
17.1 Introduction 302
17.2 The EDEN-IW project in this context 303
17.3 The information system 303
17.4 The future development of wise 305
References 312
Acronyms 322
Index 326