Website charts progress on Mediterranean project
Water and land in coastal areas of the Mediterranean have become scarce resources and as such need to be managed in order to ensure that development occurs in a sustainable way. Developing appropriate environmental software can aid ventures with this aim. The work done by this project has highlighted this fact. The tools that have been developed combine quantitative systems engineering and use numerical simulation models. They also draw on methods of environmental, socio-economic and policy impact assessment using rule-based expert systems technology and interactive decision support methods. This further encourages policy makers to make more informed decisions when it comes to coastal zones. Publicising the work done by the SMART project has been instrumental in the set up of the project website http://www.ess.co.at/SMART/ . The project website acts as the access point for interested parties enabling them to gain the necessary insight and information concerning the suitable contact points. In turn, this encouraged networking and the website acts as the link between the local, regional and international components of the project. Partners from a range of countries including Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Italy and Portugal are able to access the restricted pages which contain necessary administrative information and an online discussion forum. The discussion is open to participants and is invitation only. Eventually it is planned that a number of threads be made public. The website has been up and running since the very beginning of the project and therefore progress that has been made can be charted. However the main use of the site is to publicise the objectives and deliverables of the project. Furthermore, the publicly accessible pages contain useful technical background material for the project partners that is deemed of more generic interest but also contains modelling results, GIS data, and an image gallery.
