The fast growing activities in the Danube River Basin in the nineties generated a pressing demand for information to be made available to the public. It was quickly realised that the demand could only be fulfilled with the help of a tool that would give everybody an equal opportunity to access information. By that time, the world wide web had become such an instrument. As a result of a joint effort of the projects within the Danube River Basin, a web-based information system was developed that relies on one of the most sophisticated tools: Oracle WebDB. By the beginning of 2000, the basic structure of the system had been created and the ICPDR launched an accelerated campaign to provide it with information.

Thanks to these efforts, our website has now become a live focal point containing a growing amount of up-to-date information on the ongoing and completed activities, understandable to everybody from the elementary school pupils to the highly qualified technical experts.

 

How to access the ICPDR website

 

When entering the website, you are welcomed with a short animation. On the following homepage some of the most important and current issues can be accessed directly.

However, there is more to discover: everything that is available can be found in three ways and is easily accessible from the fixed navigation bar. You may choose to:

• Navigate through the folders using an explorer-like interface, which is familiar to most personal computer users;
• Click the site map to see the folder locations and titles of all available documents on a single page. You can choose the displayed number of folder levels;
• Type in a keyword in the search box to find items anywhere. The advanced search function provides more sophisticated features, such as combing search terms, restricting search to the recently created items only or items associated with a topic, etc.

 

What type of information is available?

 

A wide range of items is available to suit different interests and purposes:

• from announcements of current vacancies or tenders to results of past programmes,
• from short overviews for readers new to the topic to complete detailed reports for experts,
• from printable documents for downloading to databases in which users can dynamically generate tables or charts from the available data sets.

 

Which topics are covered?

 

Throughout this year the ICPDR Secretariat has made a huge effort to make information available to the public through its website. Without presenting a complete list of the type of information available, here are some examples: rules and regulations, terms of reference, guidelines, activity reports, meeting summaries, address lists, thematic maps, yearbooks of the TransNational Monitoring Network (TNMN), documents of the Danube Regional Project and the Joint Action Programme, a database of the Emissions Inventory, results of the Danube Pollution Reduction Programme including the National Reports and Transboundary Analysis, and - not to forget - all content that was available on the former website of the Danube Programme Coordination Unit.

Special attention is always paid to the most important current activities such as the Joint Danube and Tisza Survey. You will find online information on press conferences, a timetable and station list of the sampling programmes and much more. Soon the final result with an analysis of the survey can be expected.

 

Limited access for experts

 

The ICPDR website also contains an internal working area, accessible only to registered users. This is where documents and databases are prepared by experts before being put on the main website. With the content management tools available within the system, electronic publishing can be carried out quickly and efficiently.

Future expectations for users

 

Besides the efforts the ICPDR member states put into implementing the EU Water Framework Directive, international organisations are also interested in helping improve the environment in the Danube River Basin. A new, five-year project is scheduled to start in December aimed at a detailed analysis and reduction of nutrient load in the Danube River and the Black Sea Basin. This project will further contribute not only to developing the information system towards using a harmonised mapping system and setting up new databases, but also to helping users with different needs in their daily work through an accelerated training programme.

 

All you need to do is click at www.icpdr.org. Visit us and find out more!

 

Authors: Károly Futaki, Alexander Höbart