4. CONCLUSIONS
The environmental science domain aims for widespread temporal and spatial
environmental monitoring as well as an appropriate visualization of the acquired
information. A GIS platform can support the multidisciplinary research efforts by offering
functionalities for intuitive and on-demand access to the necessary research data.
The intermediate results of the COGEAR and SwissExperiment projects prove the
viability of a distributed access to organized data collections over the Web. The concept of
distributed data access allows for flexible, evolving database schemas that are adapted to
the specific research tasks of the individual partners. The use of services allows for low
maintenance costs and straightforward integration with any given user interface. Finally, an
intuitive cartographic presentation of the data has the potential to improve the insight in
many environmental processes.
The COGEAR and SwissExperiment projects are supported by a functional GIS
platform. Based on complementary use of commercial and open source software, the
platform is able to provide a solid foundation for the future multidisciplinary research
activities.