Environmental informatics
The Environmental computer science is a branch of applied computer science and is concerned interdisciplinary with the analysis and evaluation of environmental issues with aid of computer science. The focus is on the use of simulation programs , geographic information systems ( GIS ) and database systems .
Typical applications are:
- Evaluation of information for economic and ecological optimization
- Dispersion models of pollutants
- Simulation of solar and energy converting systems
The company's environmental computer science especially accesses the economic aspects of environmental computer science and is thus content between environmental and economic computer science . In addition to the economic aspects, corporate environmental informatics in the company ensures that plants and locations are operated as intended. With their help, transparency is increased (e.g. which environmental and safety requirements the company has to comply with), the fulfillment of reporting obligations is facilitated and legal certainty is increased (e.g. protection against criminal consequences in accordance with Section 6 of the Environmental Liability Act).
Since theories and methods of environmental informatics can also be applied to informatics itself, it bears essential scientific roots of green IT and cannot yet be clearly distinguished from it.
particularities
In practice, there are often major challenges both for systems and for their application. On the one hand, the required data structures are very heterogeneous due to individual in-house processes and the different perspectives on environmental aspects (e.g. water protection, immission control, hazardous substances); on the other hand, the obligations often change due to new laws, be it regional (e.g. state regulations in water protection), national (e.g. federal emission control regulations) or international (e.g. REACH ). Newer approaches in environmental informatics therefore rely on generic (adaptable) data models and an integrated approach that standardizes the different perspectives.
literature
- Environmental informatics: Computer science methods for environmental protection and environmental research (Ed. Hermann Krallmann), Verlag Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, ISBN 9783486789348 , limited preview in the Google book search