Environmental informatics is the science of information applied to environmental science

Environmental science

Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical and biological sciences, to the study of the environment, and the solution of environmental problems...

. As such, it provides the information processing

Information processing

Information processing is the change of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens in the universe, from the falling of a rock to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system...

 and communication infrastructure to the interdisciplinary field of environmental sciences aiming at data, information and knowledge integration

Knowledge integration

Knowledge integration is the process of synthesizing multiple knowledge models into a common model .Compared to information integration, which involves merging information having different schemas and representation models, knowledge integration focuses more on synthesizing the understanding of a...

, the application of computational intelligence

Computational intelligence

Computational intelligence is a set of Nature-inspired computational methodologies and approaches to address complex problems of the real world applications to which traditional methodologies and approaches are ineffective or infeasible. It primarily includes Fuzzy logic systems, Neural Networks...

 to environmental data

Environmental data

Environmental data is that which is based on the measurement of environmental pressures, the state of the environment and the impacts on ecosystems...

 as well as the identification of environmental impacts

Environmental degradation

Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife...

 of information technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

. The UK Natural Environment Research Council

Natural Environment Research Council

The Natural Environment Research Council is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.-History:...

 defines environmental informatics as the "research and system development focusing on the environmental sciences relating to the creation, collection, storage, processing, modelling, interpretation, display and dissemination of data and information".

Environmental informatics emerged in early 1990 in Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

.

Current initiatives to effectively manage, share, and reuse environmental and ecological data are indicative of the increasing importance of fields like environmental informatics and Ecoinformatics

Ecoinformatics

Ecoinformatics, or ecological informatics, is the science of information in Ecology and Environmental science. It integrates environmental and information sciences to define entities and natural processes with language common to both humans and computers...

 to develop the foundations for effectively managing ecological information. Examples of these initiatives are National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 Datanet

Datanet

This article is about the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure . For the ISP, Datanet please visit Datanet .On September 28, 2007, the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure announced a request for proposals with the name Sustainable Digital Data...

 projects, DataONE

DataONE

Data Observation Network for Earth is a project supported by the National Science Foundation under the DataNet program. DataONE will provide scientific data archiving for ecological and environmental data produced by scientists worldwide. DataONE's stated goal is to preserve and provide access to...

and Data Conservancy.

External links

• Lancaster Environment Center: Centre for environmental informatics
• Masaryk University: Division of environmental informatics and modeling
• NUI Galway: Environmental informatics
• RISSAC: Department of environmental informatics, research institute for soil science and agricultural chemistry, Hungarian academy of sciences
• Stanford University: Sustainable development & environmental informatics
• TU Graz: Research focus area in environmental informatics
• University of California, Irvine: Bren school environmental informatics research
• University of Dayton: Center of excellence for strategic energy and environmental informatics
• University of Eastern Finland: Division of environmental informatics within the department of environmental science at Kuopio Campus
• University of Hamburg: Research in environmental informatics
• University of Las Vegas, Nevada: Environmental informatics undergraduate program
• University of Michigan: Environmental informatics GIS and modeling graduate program
• University of Oldenburg: Division of environmental informatics
• University of Sunderland: Centre for environmental informatics
• University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Berlin: Research and undergraduate program

• DataONE
• Data Conserancy