Transcript The MEDIAS-France structure, the MEDIAS network, its role

THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
PRESENTED BY
Dr. G. BEGNI, MEDIAS-France, France.
H. MAKHMARA, MEDIAS-France, France.
Dr. S. NIKULINA, UNDP, Uzbekistan.
Pr. E. ZAKARIN, Space Research Institute, Kazakhstan.
Pr. E. GORDOV, SCERT/IOM, Russia.
at the CITES International Conference, September 2003, organised by SCERT, INM,
IOM, Tomsk State University with the support of the EC INCO programme & under the
auspices of the national IGBP Committee.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
"Think globally, act locally”
• Global change issues are a major scientific and socio-economic
concern for the whole mankind.
• Nevertheless, its origins and impacts are of specific concern at
the regional, national and local scales, which bring the actual
attention of citizens and policy makers.
• Addressing these issues need a multidisciplinary and a multiscale approach, integrating complex scientific research, and
major socio-economic challenges, implementing
heterogeneous information sets.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• Communication between scientists and decision/policymakers is most often a hard work at all levels and scales!
• Having federative structures bringing together scientific (at
large) and managerial approaches appear as a relevant
solution to help filling these gaps.
• Having dedicated regional interdisciplinary scientific
networks, closely linked to major international programs
dealing with global change issues, are a part of the answer.
International programmes evolve in that way.
• Accepting to share access to information is mandatory.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• Such an idea led to develop the MEDIAS network and its
federative structure, MEDIAS-France.
• From its very beginning (1994), this initiative has been
pushed forward by ENRICH and START:
– The leading objective of ENRICH is to pursue a major coherent European
contribution to international actions in global change research,
– START (IGBP/IHDP/WCRP) focuses on training and capacity building to
strengthen the participation of developing countries in global change research.
Regional research networks are established and developed.
– Other structures encouraged regional initiatives - see further.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
The main goals of the MEDIAS network are:
•
to foster appropriate interdisciplinary studies that address
global environmental issues from a regional perspective,
•
to develop data archiving and management of long term
observing systems, analysis and synthesis of results,
• to organise training and capacity building activities, as well
as outreach actions towards decision makers,
• to promote dialogue with the socio-economic world, mainly
at regional scale.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• MEDIAS-France is the co-ordination unit of the MEDIAS
network (about 2300 members).
• At the beginning, it was mainly focussed on the
Mediterranean and Africa. Now, it is encouraged to spread
over other key regions and to address innovative issues.
• Namely, its acts as the secretariat of the START
Mediterranean Committee (MEDCOM).
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• MEDIAS-France is neither a research centre nor a
operational information archival and processing unit.
• Its objective is to act as a service structure to the benefit of
the scientific world.
• Its role is to encourage scientists and researchers to have a
better dialogue and proper synergies, to help them to have a
friendly access to better information tools and training
opportunities, and to have their voice better heard by their
own colleagues, international donors and decision makers.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• MEDIAS-France acts in close connection with several
scientific organisations, among which START and LUCC.
• LUCC is a joint IGBP/IHDP interdisciplinary programme
aimed at improving the understanding of the land use and land
cover change dynamics and their relationships with the global
environmental change.
LUCC engages actively both the physical and social science
communities. It encourages and endorses the development of
relevant projects and regional networks.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• The Aral sea basin is one of the major hotspots region in the
world where economic development led to a very severe
environmental situation.
• The question of a sustainable development taking into
account all the components of the system has to be
addressed in a comprehensive scientific way.
• Some international structures as INTAS, START, APN, are
paying a specific attention to these issues.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• The economic development of the Aral Sea basin was based
upon cotton monoculture.
• It implied an important water consumption and evaporation,
which could no longer compensate the Aral sea natural
evaporation
• In addition, fertilisers and pesticides led to an heavy water
and soil salinisation by water and wind transportation.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• The negative impacts of that situation make it not sustainable
on the long run.
• These negative impacts should in particular be evaluated in
terms of resource availability and adequate consumption,
irreversible environmental degradation, economical loss for
several sectors, human health.
• These issues should be addressed in line with the WSSD
implementation plan.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• Such studies imply an integrative approach, bringing together
Land Use and Land Cover issues, resources availability and
consumption, and socio-economic considerations and criteria
at several temporal and spatial scales.
• Nevertheless, an emphasis should be made on long term and
regional scale aspects.
• Water resources issues at large should be acknowledged as a
federative theme.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• This implies by definition a LUCC oriented approach
(plus some WCRP aspects).
• Appropriate skills exist in the region. Nevertheless, no
endorsed LUCC network or LUCC project exist in the
region so far.
• It was decided to face that paradox and set up such a
network and the related activity. First steps and promising
iterations were already made.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• MEDIAS-France launched the idea of the network in
close consultation with SRI, Kazakhstan (E. Zakarin), then
with LUCC IPO, START and APN. Links were set up
with LUTEA. Several other organisations in Europe and
Central Asia joined the nascent network.
• MEDIAS-FRANCE may host the network management
(including the metadatabases and multiproxy databases) as
a regional sub-network of the world-wide MEDIAS
network. The scientific co-ordination should be in the
Aral Sea region.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Indeed, the core network was set up by:
• Kazakhstan: SRI, Environment Institute
• Uzbekistan: SANIGMI, UNDP
• Russia: SRI, IOM (SCERT)
• France: MEDIAS-France, Université de Reims
• Germany: DLR/DFD, IFU
• Now, formally involving other partners to set up a
comprehensive multidisciplinary network is mandatory.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Several actions were led to start the initiative:
• A project was set up and submitted to INTAS funding,
unfortunately without success,
• “Side meetings” were held during the LUTEA Conference
in Ulan-Bataar, June-July 2001, and the ENVIROMIS2002 Conference in Tomsk, July 2002, leading to the
following key decisions.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Key decisions:
• Send a proposal to LUCC for regional network
endorsement. Encouraging iterations are on the way.
• Prepare a kick-off workshop. That workshop will take place
in Tashkent, January 2004, under the aegis of START, APN,
MEDIAS-France, UNDP and the Uzbekistan University.
• In parallel, fruitful contacts were taken with INTAS. A key
person of the network was invited to the mid-term symposium
of the ARAL Sea INTAS projects.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• Technically, the water resources issues at large in
connection with land use and land cover are considered as
the key issue to build upon.
• Regional and global factors have an impact on resources,
• Political decisions have a key impact on regional issues,
• Water consumption in connection with land use and land
cover have key impacts on regional water balance and
socio-economic aspects, with strong feed-backs.
• These aspects in turn have an impact on policy making.
• The simplified overall diagram can be shown as follows:
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Global Factors
Water Resources Availability
Other Factors
(Natural)
Climate Change
Water Consumption & Use
Land Use & Land Cover Change
Regional
Water Balance
(Natural)
Regional Factors
(Man & Use)
Political decisions
Various
Socio-Economic Impacts
(Poverty, Health care)
Central Asia Network: thematic and problematic
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• The work should be led through electronic communication
(fora), dedicated workshops and lead to syntheses in line
with LUCC objectives.
• Key inputs are results of research programs and updated
key information, in particular relevant indicators.
• This should lead to identify consolidated scientific results
and research gaps to be filled.
• Network endorsed reports could then be issued and
transmitted to START, LUCC, the scientific community and
the relevant policy makers.
• Capacity building has to be taken in due consideration.
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Research Programs
and
Initiatives
Organisation of:
• Electronic forum
• Synthesis
• Dedicated Workshops
Central Asia Network
Organisation Scheme
Identification of:
•Validated results
• Research gaps
Capacity Building
Drafting of:
Updated Information and Indicators
Network Endorsed Reports
• Physical (Land Use and land Cover Change)
• Socio-economic
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THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• The issue of multidisciplinary information databases
should not be neglected!
• Relevant information should be located, formatted, put into
proper databases and referenced through metadatabases.
• Databases are kept under control, while an access through a
metadata base should be made available through
acknowledged standards and efficient friendly interfaces.
• A Meta Catalog portal should allow first to retrieve metadata,
then to choose and retrieve datasets.
• Sophisticated techniques developed by MEDIAS-France
proved efficient to build up such a information systems.
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ARALSEA-MDB INFORMATION SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
4.Choose datasets
1.Search by criteria
(User friendly interface)
Meta Catalog (Portal to the ARALSEA I.S)
6. Retrieve datasets
2.Query metadata
3.Retrieve metadata
4.Query data
Meta database
(ISO 19115 AND/OR FGDC)
5. Locate and query datasets from relevant data sources
Exchange protocol
Exchange protocol
Exchange protocol
Data source
1
Data source
2
Data source
n
THE MEDIAS DISTRIBUTED DATABASES FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.
PLANNED APPLICATIONS TO CENTRAL ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
CONCLUSIONS - LOOKING FORWARD
• Environment, socio-economic future and sustainable
development raise major concerns in Central Asia.
• The MEDIAS network can be regionally developed in
synergy with START, LUCC & other actors to encourage
regional research, promote international dialogue and channel
new scientific developments.
• It also fosters the dialogue between scientists and
decision/policy makers at all levels to
"Think globally, act locally”
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