18th International Conference Informatics for Environmental Protection: EnviroInfo 2004

Special track at the 18th International Conference Informatics for Environmental Protection: EnviroInfo 2004

October 21-23, 2004, CERN, Geneva (Switzerland)

The Conference


The 18th Conference EnviroInfo 2004 will be held in Geneva, Switzerland. It continues the successful series of conferences dedicated to information exchange among scientists, public administrations, private and public companies involved in environmental information processing as well as environmental informatics end-users.


The forthcoming conference will cover the wide scope of environmental information systems topics. It will show the state-of-the-art in research,development and application.


The 2004 Conference will focus on "sharing":


Sharing information technologies, in order to comply with the principles of sustainable development,such as:
- North-South technology transfer
- Open software development for environmental protection
- Open geographic information systems
- Environmental information sharing networks
- Experience sharing networks
- Etc.


Sharing data and knowledge:
- Between citizens and public administrations, through e-government projects
- Between scientists and technology experts, through knowledge transfer
- Between administrations, through information systems coordination
- Etc.


The topics
Topics to be discussed at EnviroInfo 2004 include:
- Sharing environmental knowledge and technologies
- Environmental data catalogue
- Open source / Business models
- Environmental impacts of the information society
- Sharing data for regional technical and biological risk management
- Environmental statistics (Environmetrics) / Chemometrics
- New developments on sharing in web technology
- Data management interoperability sharing norms / Protocols
- Supporting environmental awareness building (sustainable development)
- Environmental information and civil society / NGO
- Remote sensing for environment monitoring, planning and environmental
impact assessments
- Geographical information system and application in environmental and
planning context
- Environmental information systems & Environmental databases
- Geography Markup Language (GML) & SensorML
- Modeling, simulation and sharing
- Environment and Health
- Corporate sustainability communication and reporting


Partnership
EnviroInfo 2004 is pleased to welcome specific partnership for this event :
- EIONET (Environmental Information Observation NETworks)
- ECO-INFORMA :
- ECO-INFORMATICS


The participants
EnviroInfo 2004 is open to scientists, managers and decision makers from various disciplines, experts from IT industry, governmental institutions, international and intergovernmental organisations,environmental agencies and networks, specialists of theoretical and applied informatics, managers and experts from environmental technology companies, consultants, students and the concerned public.

The contributions
Speakers will be invited to introduce keynote sessions. They will give state-of-the-art and overviews on the main conference topics.


Contributions will take the form of:
- papers and oral presentations (workshops)
- posters


Call for papers
All participants are invited to contribute to EnviroInfo 2004 by submitting papers related to the topics of the symposium.


The deadline for the submission of abstracts is February 27, 2004. For details regarding the layout (page format, bibliography, etc.) and the registration of abstracts, please consult the web site of the conference (<http://www.enviroinfo2004.org/>).


The authors whose contributions have been accepted by the Program Committee will be informed by April 30, 2004. All selected papers will be published in a proceedings volume to be distributed during the conference.


Important dates
EnviroInfo 2004 will take place on October 21-23, 2004. Until then, the main dates are:
- December 2003: call for papers
- February 27, 2004: submission of abstracts
- April 30, 2004: notification of acceptance
- June 2004: preliminary program
- August 2004: submission of full papers and poster descriptions


The city, Geneva
Geneva is located between the Alps and the Jura mountains, at the South-West tip of Switzerland. It is at the crossroads of Western Europe. Geneva holds a privileged geographical position. The city is 373 meters above sea level.


The area of the Geneva district covers 282 km2. It lies south of the French Department of Ain and north of the French Department of Haute-Savoie. Its border is 107.5 km long, of which 103 km connect Geneva with France and only 4.5 km with the Swiss Confederation, via the canton of Vaud on the right bank of the lake Geneva (lac Léman).


The CERN
The conference will be held at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. CERN is an intergovernmental organisation with 20 member states that has its seat in Geneva but straddles the Swiss-French border. It has the world largest highenergy physics accelerator complex and is the place where several researchers obtained the Nobel Price in physics for their discoveries. The technological spin-off of the CERN activities is very important too: among other things, the World Wide Web was invented there.


The conference will take place in the "Globe de l'Innovation" (formerly known as "Palais de l'Equilibre"), a wooden sphere built for the Swiss national exhibition Expo.02 as a symbol of sustainable development. The Swiss Confederation offered it to CERN to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the organisation.


The public partners
At the moment, the public partners expected to support the conference include:
- European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN)
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP - Nairobi and Geneva)
- United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR - Geneva)
- European Environmental Agency (Copenhagen)
- European Commission - DG Information Society Technologies (Brussels)
- Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape (SAEFL - Bern)
- Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA)
- French Institute of Environment (IFEN - Orléans)
- State and City of Geneva
- Geneva International Academic Network
- University of Geneva / Swiss Federal Institute for Technologies (EPFL -
Lausanne)
- Geneva Industrial Services (SI-Geneva)
- Department of Haute-Savoie (Annecy)
- Department of Ain (Bourg-en-Bresse)
- Regional Council of Rhônes-Alpes (Lyon)
- The Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva)


Interested public partners and private companies are kindly requested to
contact the conference chairman.


Registration fees
3 days rate
420 CHF (262 Euro) Until June 30th 2004
370 CHF (230 Euro) Until June 30th 2004*
600 CHF (375 Euro) After June 30th 2004
1st day rate
250 CHF (156 Euro) Until June 30th 2004
300 CHF (188 Euro) After June 30th 2004
Student rate
265 CHF (170 Euro) Until June 30th 2004
280 CHF (180 Euro) After June 30th 2004


* for GI-TC 4.6 members/authors
Registration deadline: September 15th 2004


Organisation
Conference chairman: Mr Philippe Minier
State of Geneva
Department of interior, agriculture and environment
Program Committee chairman: Dr Alberto Susini
State of Geneva - Geneva Labour Inspectorate -
Environmental Affairs (OCIR -DEEE)


The EnviroInfo symposium is the annual international conference of the technical committee 4.6 "Informatics in Environmental Protection" of the German Informatics Society (GI).
Responsible: Prof. Dr. Lorenz Hilty, GI-TC 4.6, chairman, EMPA, St.Gallen.


General contact information
Etat de Genève: DIAE
Service des systèmes
d'information et de géomatique
CP 36 - 1211 Genève 8 - Switzerland
Tél + 41 22 327 48 57 - Fax + 41 22 327 50 70
General contact: Mr Philippe Minier
Email: enviroinfo@etat.ge.ch
http://www.enviroinfo2004.org/

Posted on March 02, 2004