Meta-Modelling the European Environmental Information Space

In this paper a conceptual Meta-Model is presented with the aim to structure environmental information, relevant for the environmental part of sustainable development. It is focused on crucial environmental information flows handled in the discipline of Environmental Informatics. The introduced structure is a conceptual systems dynamics type model which describes the natural environment (air, water, soil, climate etc.), the private sector (industry, trade, transport etc.) and households. It uses the input-output presentation where causeeffect chains and information feedback paths are considered. The Meta-Model brings together substantial information about environmental indicators from different areas and organizations, the knowledge about levels of action, and grades of spatial resolution. The systems model drafted here is new in establishing a connection between IT applications and sustainable development. It provides a basic structure for interlinking complex, time dependent information flows, aiming to support semantic interoperability in environmental research. Now the Model is applied as organizing principle in the 7th European Framework Programme in the project ICT for Environmental Sustainability Research (ICT-ENSURE).