1st International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software - Lugano, Switzerland - June 2002
Keywords
environmental management, sustainability, decision support tool (dss), industrial risk, data warehouse
Start Date
1-7-2002 12:00 AM
Abstract
Decision-making processes for managing and defining policies related to social and environmental impacts from industry are becoming more and more complex. Raising public concerns on environmental issues requires public authorities to collect more accurate information related to impacts of industry. Overlaps between environmental, social and political interests, and rapid speed of change contribute even further to the complexity. Unfortunately, this multifaceted information is spread throughout multiple repositories. Thus, there is a need to integrate the available information within a structured network and to design a decision support system suitable for helping decision makers to define sustainable policies. This paper reports the experience gained in this field during the implementation of the SIMAGE project. The project is financed by the Italian Ministry for Environment and aims to improve the risk management of industrial areas in Italy. In particular, it describes how an architecture based on a data warehouse system can support the efficient implementation of the multi-criteria decision support system. The basic requirements of the prototype have further been evaluated by means of a forum consisting of major representatives of public bodies, acting as a proxy for the policies-makers.
Multi-criteria decision support system and Data Warehouse for designing and monitoring sustainable industrial strategies - an Italian case study
Decision-making processes for managing and defining policies related to social and environmental impacts from industry are becoming more and more complex. Raising public concerns on environmental issues requires public authorities to collect more accurate information related to impacts of industry. Overlaps between environmental, social and political interests, and rapid speed of change contribute even further to the complexity. Unfortunately, this multifaceted information is spread throughout multiple repositories. Thus, there is a need to integrate the available information within a structured network and to design a decision support system suitable for helping decision makers to define sustainable policies. This paper reports the experience gained in this field during the implementation of the SIMAGE project. The project is financed by the Italian Ministry for Environment and aims to improve the risk management of industrial areas in Italy. In particular, it describes how an architecture based on a data warehouse system can support the efficient implementation of the multi-criteria decision support system. The basic requirements of the prototype have further been evaluated by means of a forum consisting of major representatives of public bodies, acting as a proxy for the policies-makers.
