IT4 Forest enthusiast Jan-Peter Mund attended the annual workshop of the Environmental Information Systems (EIS) Section of the Environmental Informatics Committee of the Society for Informatics (Gesellschaft für Informatik e. V.) in Tönning.

At the workshop from 10th to 12th June, participants discussed EIS solutions and technologies from remote sensing to underwater sensor technology; marine conservation, human impacts, conflicts of use. Several interventions explored data generation (Copernicus, drones, sensor networks, mobile data collection, crowdsourcing, the Internet of Things) and data provisions (Big (Geo) Data, data stream processing, open and FAIR data, data security, environmental portals). Other presentation highlighted data analysis in times of artificial intelligence touching upon data science, machine learning, decision support, generative AI, LLM, agent-based AI, and geo-AI. Cross-cutting issues included software Engineering for Environmental Information Systems (Modelling, Standards, Low-Code, Reference Architectures, Green IT for Environmental Information Systems)

The EIS Working Group targets EIS users (e.g. from public authorities) and subject matter experts in the environmental sector (e.g. from geo-ecology, hydrology, biology, geography, etc.), as well as developers (e.g. from companies) and researchers in the field. The EIS Working Group aims to enable UIS developers to present solutions and critically discuss their usability with specialist users. It is intended to transfer experiences and requirements of UIS users to developers at an early stage, in order to identify new needs.

This year’s conference was hosted by the national park Wadden Sea.