Information technology in municipal environmental policy: Automated registration, sure, but what about expert systems?

Abstract

Dutch municipalities are confronted with an increased number of prescribed environmental tasks and also with a growing demand, both from the central government and environmental pressure groups, to undertake environmental activities on their own initiative. This development over-taxed the information management of most municipalities. In the past few years, computer technology was introduced to relieve part of this pressure (e.g., by automation of registration systems). In this article we present a classification of computer applications for environmental management, investigate their possible impact on the environmental knowledge and information system, and distinguish between a formal and informal knowledge domain. Special attention will be paid to expert systems.