TECHNICAL INTERIM / FINAL REPORT LIFE-ENVIRONMENT 2005 · 2015. 8. 13. · 6.1. Task 1. Project...

Russia Life04TCY/ROS/000051 TECHNICAL FINAL REPORT

Reporting Date 27.03.2008

Information and Communication Technologies to Strengthen Sustainable City Management

- InfoCoSM -

Data Project Project location St. Petersburg

Project start date: 01.01.2005

Project end date: 31.12.2007 Extension date: Total Project duration (in months) 36 months Extension months

Total budget € 337 928,94 (total costs): € 331 215,87 (eligible costs)

EC contribution: € 228 207,73

(%) of total costs 67,3%

(%) of elibible costs 68,9%

Data Beneficiary Name Beneficiary Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and

Ecological Safety, City of St. Petersburg Contact person Mrs.Elena Titova, Project Manage

Postal address Kamennoostrovsky av., 5/3, RUSSIA, 197046, St. Petersburg

Visit address Kamennoostrovsky av., 5/3, RUSSIA, 197046, St. Petersburg

Telephone +7 812 233 83 01

Fax: +7 812 233 83 01

E-mail [email protected]

Project Website www.infoeco.ru

Information and Communication Technologies to Strengthen Sustainable City Management― InfoCoSM ― Russia Life04TCY/ROS/000051

LIST OF CONTENT Page

1. LIST (I) KEY-WORDS AND ABBREVIATIONS 2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3. INTRODUCTION

3.1. Background 3.2. General objectives of the project 3.3. Methodology 3.4. Expected results and environmental benefits

4. LIFE-PROJECT FRAMEWORK 4.1. Description and schematic presentation of working method 4.2. Presentation of Beneficiary, partners and project-organisation 4.3. Project modification

5. TECHNOLOGY

6. PROGRESS, RESULTS 6.1. Task 1. Project management and planning of activities

6.1.1. Launching project activities 6.1.2. Reporting 6.1.3. Steering Committee Meetings 6.1.4. Establish contact with other on-going projects

6.2. Task 2. Cooperation with stakeholders and target groups

6.2.1. Clarification of legal and administrative responsibilities 6.2.2. Understand economic and environmental issues and tradeoffs at stake in the area 6.2.3. Needs of stakeholders in term of environmental information 6.2.4. Development of an Information Strategy

6.3. Task 3. Data identification and elaboration of meta-data system

6.3.1. Data inventory and gathering 6.3.2.Development of a metadata management model 6.3.3. Development of metadata cards 6.3.4. Cartographic management of cards 6.3.5. Metadata management software and on-line access

6.4. Task 4. Geographic information system

6.4.1. Satellite images acquisition 6.4.2. Satellite image pre-processing 6.4.3. Collect and scanning of exogenous data 6.4.4. Digitalization topographic elements 6.4.5. Mapping of the land cover 6.4.6. Geo-referencing of ancillary data 6.4.7. Development of on-line access

6.5. Task 5. Environmental assessment and reporting for

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decision-making 6.5.1. Study visit (at EEA or other EU Members’ State MoE) 6.5.2. Selection of environmental indicators 6.5.3. Development of relational dataset 6.5.4. Packaged targeted information on environmental issues 6.5.5. Environmental assessment and reporting procedures

6.6. Task 6. Training

6.6.1.Training of trainers in Meta-information systems (MIS) 6.6.2. Training of trainers in GIS and Information tools 6.6.3. End-user training 6.6.4. End-user manual

6.7. Task 7. Dissemination

6.7.1. Information of the Media 6.7.2. Internet site development 6.7.3. Inform stakeholders 6.7. 4. Study visit to Hamburg 6.7. 5. Elaboration of a demonstration CD 6.7.6. Publishing of a project booklet 6.7.7. Information of professionals and decision-makers

7. EVALUATION AND CONCLUSIONS 7.1. Project implementation

7.1.1. The process 7.1.2. The project management, the problems encountered, the

partnerships and their added value 7.1.3. Technical and commercial application (reproducibility,

economic feasibility, limiting factors) 7.1.4. Comparison against the project-objectives 7.1.5. Effectiveness of dissemination activities 7.1.6. The future: continuation of the project + remaining threats

7.2. Analysis of long-term benefits

7.2.1. Environmental benefits 7.2.2. Long-term sustainability 7.2.3. Replicability, demonstration, transferability, cooperation 7.2.4. Innovation

8. AFTER-LIFE PLANS 8.1.Communication Plan 8.2. Plans of the system development

9. COMMENTS ON FINANCIAL REPORT 10. LIST OF ANNEXES ATTACHED TO THIS REPORT

11. LIST OF ANNEXES DELIVERED WITH PREVIOUS REPORTS

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1. KEY-WORDS AND ABBREVIATIONS Environmental management, information technologies, information system, MIS (Meta Information System), GIS (Geographic Information System), database, geographic datasets, meta information, user server, space image, portal services, on-line access, pilot area, stakeholders, information needs, decision-making 2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The project “Information and Communication Technologies to Strengthen Sustainable City Management” (Life04TCY/ROS/000051) was launched in January 2005. Final report is covering the period till the end of the project December 31, 2007. Project aim The general objective of the project is to provide environmental information support to decision-makers and the large public. In order to provide decision-makers with adequate and timely information, existing information systems have to be unified, interconnected, and made accessible to several city’s authorities, providing for a common basis to ground decision-making. Information has to be made accessible through a web portal to secure information of the public and citizens’ participation to the decision-making process. Project outputs Database of stakeholders, interested in using environmental information provided by means of modern information technology, a system of interactive presentation of environmental information to various stakeholder groups which contains:

• Internet portal www.infoeco.ru equipped with the software for publication of interactive maps;

• a set of information resources describing various aspects of the state of environment in the pilot area of Kronshtadt;

• meta-data base containing the description of all information resources of the portal, based on the Russian and European standards;

• a set of indicators of the state of environment; • feedback and communication service on environmental issues between citizens and

authorities; • user authentication service, which differentiates access rights to different information

resources; • a set of information services – software applications providing access to particular

information resources. Deliverables 13 Reports, 4 Manuals, Stakeholders’ database, Information strategy for Pilot area, data management model, 1 data dictionary, 70 metadata cards, filled and geo-referenced, Geo-referenced and relational databases, terms of references for the GIS ,15 map layers, containing 2723 objects, 7 information services and 8 information blocks, 1 GIS for pilot area, 1 feed-back gridding service, 32 environmental indicators, relational database for 10 environmental indicators, access to targeted information, environmental assessment and reporting templates, 8 experts trained in GIS and MIS, 17 trained end-users, end-user manual, press article, radio & TV broadcasts, Internet site, sstakeholders seminars proceedings, 3 study visit reports, ddemonstration CD-ROM, project booklet, international seminar proceedings

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1 booklet, 1 demonstration CD, 7 printed articles, layman’s report, final report

Number of Action

Deliverable Description

Planned Deliverable Date

Actual Deliverable date

Deliverable Transmission details

TASK 1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING OF ACTIVITIES 1.1 Launching project activities

Agreements and contracts between beneficiary, partners and sub-contractors. Composition of the PIU Composition of the SC Composition of the working groups Work plans for the working groups

By end of May 2005

March 2005 Interim report∗Annexes 1-6, Annex 45

First Six-monthly Technical progress reports

16.07. 2005 15.07.2005 Progress report N 1

Six-monthly Technical progress reports

20.01.2006

20.01.2006

Progress report N 2

Six-monthly Technical progress reports

20.08.2006 20.08.2006 Interim report (Progress report N 3)

Interim Report September 2006 20.08.2006 Interim report (Progress report N 3)

Six-monthly Technical progress

t

20.01.2007 20.01.2007 Progress report N 4

Six-monthly Technical progress

t

20.07.2007 20.07.2007 Progress report N 5

1.2 Reporting

Final report March 2008 27.03.2008 Final report First Steering Committee, SC Agenda and Proceedings

June 2005 1.02-3.02.05 Progress report N 1, Annexes 5, 6

Second Steering Committee agendas and proceedings

April 2006

31.10 - 3.11.2005

Progress report N 2, Annex 7

Third Steering Committee meeting

January 2007 01 - 03.08.06 Interim report Annex 8

1.3. Steering Committee Meetings

Fourth Steering Committee meeting

November 2007 23-24.04.07 Progress report N 5, Annex 52

∗ To avoid misunderstanding annexes numbering we refer to the Interim report because only since that report the use of the unified system of Annex’s numbering throughout all the Reports on the project started. Besides some annexes were revised or replaced by the new ones. They are attached to the Final Report

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Agenda and Proceedings of the Final SC Meeting

November 2007 27-28.11.07 Annex 63

TASK 2. COOPERATION WITH STAKEHOLDERS AND TARGET GROUPS

2.1 Clarification of legal and admi-nistrative responsibilities

Report on administrative responsibilities

July 2005 July 2005 Interim report Annexes 9,10

2.2. Understand economic and envi-ronmental issues and tradeoffs at stake in the area

Report on economic and environmental interests and tradeoffs

July 2005 July 2005 Interim report Annexes 9,10

2.3. Needs of stakehol-ders in term of en-vironmen-tal infor-mation

Stakeholders’ database; Interviews and questionnaires proceedings

October 2005 August 2005 Interim report Annexes 9,10, 14, Annexes51, 69

2.4. Information strategy

Information strategy November 2005 December 2005

Interim report Annexes 16

TASK 3. DATA IDENTIFICATION AND ELABORATION OF META-DATA CATALOGUE 3.1. Data inventory and gathering

Interviews proceedings, fulfilled questionnaires

January 2006 July 2005 Interim report Annexes 9,10 Annexes 51, 69

3.2 Deve-lopment of a metadata manage-ment model

Data management model

March 2006 June 2006 Interim report Annexes 17,18,21

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3.3 Develop-ment of metadata cards

Metadata cards based on ISO 19115

June 2006 August 2006 Interim report Annex 20

3.4 Cartogra-phic mana-gement of cards

Geo-referenced system of metadata cards

September 2006 September 2006

Interim report Annex 21, Progress report N4, Annex 41, Annex 71

3.5 Metadata manage-ment soft-ware and on-line access

On-line access to metadata

November 2006 November 2006

Interim report Annexes 19, 23, Progress report N4, Annexes 41,42,57

TASK 4. GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

Terms of references for the GIS

June 2006 March 2006 Annex 22

4.1. Satellite images acquisition

Progress report N 4, Annexes 46,47, 68

4.2. Satellite image pre-processing

Progress report N 4, Annexes 46,47,68

4.3. Collect and scan-ning of exo-genous data

Satellite images, rectified and corrected

September 2006 October 2006 Progress report N 4, Annexes 46,47

4.4. Digitalisa-tion topogra-phic elements

Digital topographic layers

December 2006 November 2006

Progress report N 4, Annexes 41, 54

4.5. Mapping of the land cover

Map of the land-use December 2006 November 2006

Progress report N 4, Annexes 54, 57

4.6. Geo-referencing of ancillary data

Geo-referenced and relational databases

February 2007 November 2006

Progress report N 4, Annexes 54,57, Annex 71

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4.7. Develop-ment of on-line access

On-line access April 2007 November 2006

Annex 27 Progress report N 4, Annexes, 54,57

TASK 5. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING FOR DECISION-MAKING

5.1 Study visit

Report on study visits July 2006 May 2006, Annexes 24,51

5.2 Selection of environ-mental indicators

Description of environmental indicators

September 2006 September 2006

Annex 25

5.3 Develop-ment of relational databases

Relational database for environmental indicators

March 2007 May 2007 Annexes 57 & 71

5.5 Packaged targeted in-formation

Access to targeted information

June 2007 May-June 2007

Progress rep. N 4 Annexes 41, 54, 57, 59

5.4 Environ-mental assessment and reporting procedures

Environmental assessment and reporting templates

November 2007 October 2007 Annex 48,58, 59, 72

TASK 6. TRAINING

6.1. Meta-informa-tion sys-tems (MIS)

3 local experts in MIS March 2007 May 2006 Annex 26

6.2 GIS and Infor-mation tools

3 local experts in GIS June 2006 September 2006

Annex 26

6.3 End-user training

17 end-user trained March 2007 May 2007, September 2007

Annex 55

6.4 End-user manual

500 copies of the end-user manual

May 2007 May 2007, November 2007

Annex 65

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TASK 7. DISSEMINATION 7.1 Infor-mation of the media

Press article, radio & TV broadcasts

May 2005 During the project im-plementation

Annexes 28, 56, 62

7.2 Internet site

Internet site May 2005 April 2005 Annex 27

7.3 Infor-mation to stakehol-ders

Stakeholders seminars proceedings

September 2005, December 2005, February 2007

September-November 2005 May 2007

Interim report, Annexes 11,12,13, Annexes 51, 55 & 67

7.4 Study visit

Study visit report June 2005 June 2005, December 2006

Annexes 50 & 51

7.5. Elabo-ration of demonstra-tion CD

Demonstration CD-ROM

October 2007 May 2007, November 2007

Annex 66

7.6 Publication of a project booklet

Project booklet October 2007 May 2007, November 2007

Annex 64

7.7 Infor-mation of professio-nals and decision-makers

International seminar proceedings

November 2007 November 2007

Annexes 61-62

Following reports have been sent: Report Date of sending Covering period First Six-monthly Technical progress reports 15.07.2005 01.01.2005-30.06.2005 Six-monthly Technical progress reports 20.01.2006

01.07.2005-15.01.2006

Six-monthly Technical progress reports 20.08.2006 01.01.2005 -20.08.2006 Interim Report 20.08.2006 01.01.2005- 20.08.2006 Six-monthly Technical progress reports 20.01.2007 20.08.2006 - 20.01.2007

Six-monthly Technical progress reports 20.07.2007 21.01.2007 - 20.07.2007

Final report 30 March 2008

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Summary of chapters Information and Communication Technologies to Strengthen Sustainable City Management (Life04TCY/ROS/000051), final report Introduction The aim of the project is to insure healthy environment for people by building the capacity of local administrations to provide sustainable management of municipalities. This can be achieved by strengthening co-operation and information exchange between municipal, local and regional authorities in different sectors of the city economy, through the development of a unified information system. This last comprises a Meta-Information System (MIS), a Geographic Information System (GIS) and related databases to provide interconnection between existing central and decentralised city information sources. Conferences and workshops, study visits, expertise, and training courses for administration representatives will provide experience to ground system’s development and its use by authorities’ staff. Access to information will be guaranty through on-line application for several target groups: city authorities and organisations, local deciders, investors, NGOs and the large public. LIFE project framework Main project actions - cooperation with stakeholders and target groups, aiming to identify both data owners and users’ needs, data identification and elaboration of meta-data catalogue, aiming to organise the information flow using state-of-the-art software for the management of meta-information and catalogue sources, development of geographic information system aimed at providing a common basis for interpreting and processing geo-referenced data, trainings in using the developed system, development of environmental assessment and reporting for decision-making: relevant templates, reports; dissemination of the results of the project: publications, seminars.

Progress, results The project consisted of 7 interrelated tasks aimed towards achievement of final result - to provide information support to decision-makers and the large public. Task 1. Project Management and Planning of Activities ensure efficient project management, Task 2. Cooperation with stakeholders and target groups allowed to make stakeholders’ needs assessment and developed of information strategy; Task 3. Data identification and elaboration of meta-data catalogue helped to organize information flows; Task 4. Geographic Information System provided visual base for presentation of information, Task 5. Environmental assessment and reporting for decision-making trainings created standardise procedures for assessing and reporting on the state of the environment using the set of indicators and the databases; Task 6. Trainings ensure that experts can use and develop the system further; Task 7. Dissemination provided dissemination of the project’s results and ensures replicability of the project in other regions. Project evaluation and conclusions The main project success was the developed system of interactive presentation of environmental information to various stakeholder groups, developed for the first time in Russia. It caused big interest not only in St. Petersburg but also in other subjects of Russian Federation. Though it became clear that the majority of local authorities need a substantial training in using modern methods of sustainable city management and particularly in use of information technologies in their daily work. The system of collecting raw data should be considerably revised in accordance with real needs of stakeholders rather than technical possibilities of environmental experts.

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After-LIFE communication plan Various districts of St. Petersburg and other Russian cities expressed their interest in developing similar systems in their areas. The city budget has reserved more than 200 000 EUR for 2008 for further development of the system. Special page with entrance for other district is already integrated in the portal (Annex 57). 3. INTRODUCTION 3.1. Background The scope of powers of the subjects of Russian Federation in the sphere of relations connected with environmental protection have been essentially expanded in the framework of an administrative reform, which is realised in Russia. At the same time the Government of St. Petersburg approved the environmental policy based on the principles of sustainable development, aimed to ensure a high quality of life without increasing the negative environmental impact. Sustainable development is impossible without participation of all authorities, institutions of local governing, business community and NGOs in the process of making and implementation of decisions in the field of environmental protection and sustainable nature use. As a result, the Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of St. Petersburg (hereinafter the Committee) was charged to coordinate the environmental activities in St. Petersburg and to provide information support in this sphere. For the purpose of information support of environmental activities in St. Petersburg, starting from 2003 the Committee has been developing the information and analytical complex «Environmental Passport of St. Petersburg». The complex is intended for collection, storage, processing and provision to different users of information about the state of environment of the city, its nature-resource potential, objects which are liable to environmental control by the subject of the Russian Federation, and about environmental restrictions for economic activities imposed on the territory. Having reliable data and showing them into graphs is yet not enough. All data and graphs have still to be turn into information, so that is make data interpretable and understandable for the targeted user. Through the combined use of relational databases and GIS, the project team planned to set the basis for building an operative information system on the state of the environment, accessible by different target groups: such target groups as governmental bodies of St. Petersburg, municipalities, NGOs and city residents. 3.2. General objectives of the project The general objective of the project is to provide information support to decision-makers and the large public. In order to provide decision-makers with adequate and timely information, existing information systems were unified, interconnected, and made accessible to several city’s authorities, providing for a common basis to ground decision-making. Information was made accessible through a web portal to secure information of the public and citizens’ participation in the decision-making process. Several target groups have been defined: city authorities and organisations, local deciders, investors, NGOs and the general public.

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Specific objectives of the project are: 1. To enhance capacity of local environmental administration to:

• Control environmental situation related to social and economic development of the area;

• Speed-up decision-making in case of environmental emergency situation; • Provide relevant information to other authorities, responsible for improving leaving

conditions and health, and depending on environmental quality; • Train local administration officers in selecting and use information they may need

in their daily work • Work in multi-sector partnerships with other authorities, general public and NGOs.

2. To promote the protection of the environment 3. To facilitate and speed-up the decision-making process by:

• Unifying information systems in use by several city authorities; • Organising access to existing sources of information owned by several city

organisations; • Allow for quick exchange of data among organisations, easy update, friendly-user

access and flexibility of information management structure. 3.3. Methodology

Though the final aim consists in developing an information system for the whole City of St. Petersburg, the project considered only one pilot municipality due to the limited amount of time and means available under the project. This pilot municipality was selected by the international team of experts as the most representative of all types of economic activities present in the City. The project was implemented jointly by the international project team and by specialized companies sub-contracted by the Beneficiary. Western European project partners have started similar work more that 30 years ago, so they shared their experience by presenting the reports and organisation of study visit for Russian experts. Study visits allowed developing new ideas related to the use of information systems in decision-making processes illustrated by EU experience. During the Steering Committee meetings working group meetings and the interim project results were discussed and commented. These open and friendly discussions served better understanding among partners and allowed the project team to find the most efficient solutions. Data analysis, data processing and the overall development of ICT solutions to access environmental data were the essential part of the project and it was implemented by sub-contracted experts in close co-operation with the project team. The project based on available information resources: existing databases, maps, equipment and software, it focused on organising an access to existing information and did not tend to produce new data. Nevertheless, a minimum investment was required to bring the existing resources to a satisfactory level of compatibility and to develop the different interfaces and on-line connections to share the data. Seminars and workshops as well as discussions with partners and end-users helped identifying users needs, whatever they are authorities or other target groups and to adjust the developing system to these needs as well as disseminate information about the project and its results to a broader audience.

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Training courses was a critical part of the whole project as it served to increase capacity of the authorities to manage problems in the most sustainable way by means of modern technologies.

3.4. Expected results and environmental benefits

It was expected that environment-related information would be systematically analysed and prepared to provide support for local authorities decision-making process and raise public awareness. A decision-making support system based on a coupled GIS and MIS and a scheme to regulate information exchange between local authorities of different levels would be developed for a pilot municipality. The general public, decision-makers and potential investors would have a better access to environmental information. This would raise effectiveness of environmental management and consequently lead to reduction of environmental impact.

The developed system would help to speed-up the decisions, to prioritize measures aimed to solve environmental problems in the pilot area, to reduce negative impact to the environment and to develop measures aimed to minimize environmental health risks.

Adequate and timely information will raise the efficiency of environmental control and improve leaving conditions of people by implementing basic principles subtending sustainable development and by building the capacity of local administrations to effectively manage modern problems of the municipality in a sustainable way. 4. LIFE-PROJECT FRAMEWORK 4.1. Description and schematic presentation of working method Project Management and Planning activities

• A project co-ordinator and his assistant were be appointed by St Petersburg City Environment Department.

• Each city named a national co-ordinator and provided necessary experts for information system development and trainings. These national experts formed an international working group in charge of the development of the information system. National co-ordinators met on average every nine months during the project to review its progress.

• Refinement of work plan during the first meeting of national coordinator. Specific work groups were set up to fulfil each particular task.

Seminars and conferences The Team members discussed the sustainability of the outcomes of the project in different occasions during the project. At the end of the Project, the co-ordinators met for two days to confirm how the city and the pilot district are going to take forward and develop the ideas shared and learnt during the project First seminars were organised in St. Petersburg to present the experience of Western partners in providing relevant information to target groups for sustainable city management and to discuss potential target groups and their needs.

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Several working group meetings were organised for the international working group to discuss the structure and content of information modules to be developed and to introduce the necessary improvements following the discussions with potential users carried out in the seminars. Cooperation with stakeholders and target groups This activity allowed project members to identify both data owners and users’ needs. Project experts visited a restricted number of organisations in order to characterise data they already own, and those they would need to properly carry out their daily activity. The project first of all clarified legal and administrative responsibilities among city’s administrative bodies. This concerns particularly two target groups: local environmental administrations and other local administrative bodies. Project expert group provided a description of their responsibilities and duties under existing legislation, their legal relationship, the data they own, information they produce and its end user, etc. Such activity allowed project implementers to conclude the necessary administrative arrangements to secure a smooth development of the project, especially concerning the exchange of data among organisations. The needs of regional organisations (of which local researchers and scientists) as well as regional deciders and investors in term of information were determined through semi-structured interview with representatives of the stakeholders. Project work team elaborated the questionnaire. Results of the interviews were consigned in proceedings and reports. This activity allowed developing a system answering the needs of these target groups’. At last, a strategy was outlined to secure adequate public information. Needs and expectations of the large public are difficult to define without thorough inquiries (i.e. opinion poll), falling out of the scope of the present project by the time, technical and financial means they would require. Nevertheless, user feedback mechanisms and proper information policy (based on the Environment for Europe experiences) was work out to allow further improvement of the system for public information. This activity allowed the project team to work in close co-operation with representatives of different target groups to turn the information system into an efficient, easy-to-use, and relevant source of information to face their particular needs. Data identification and elaboration of meta-data catalogue There were already several relevant data banks in St. Petersburg used by different branches of city’s authorities. These database are not always compatible, quite often contains useless information while missing data necessary to specific purposes and target groups. Working group meetings allowed assessing these data banks from the point of view of the relevance (data matches users’ needs), management (updating process), and processing (turning the data into information to serve decision-making). Then, information sources to be used in priority were defined and data catalogue was elaborated. The organisation of information flow was an important issue to be addressed by the project using state-of-the-art software for the management of meta-information and catalogue sources. Development of on-line application On-line application was developed and tested for reliability and easy-use of the system before the start of users’ trainings. It was tested for data exchange between state environmental database and local (district) ones, and up-dating facilities.

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Russian team of experts were in charge of improving data relevance, management and processing so that they can be used in the most efficient way to ground authorities’ decision-making. Experts from western partner countries provided technical assistance and scientific advices. Geographic Information System The geographic information system is aimed at providing a common basis for interpreting and processing geo-referenced data. Therefore, geographic information layers were shared among the committees concerned by the development of MIS, and the pilot district chosen for the development of the GIS. The base system was developed to match the requirements of potential users upon the results of discussions conducted during seminars and workshops and also during the data collection activities. Potential users tested a first version of the system so that the team could make necessary changes upon the request. The GIS Environmental passport of the pilot area is a final product consisting of following set of data and tools:

• A set of geo-referenced data bases reflecting environmental aspects which are significant for the authorities and general public;

• A set of map layers vector information (streets, buildings, infrastructures, etc). GIS was performed so as to use available geographic and ancillary data, to use for operating and visualising data provided to users through the MIS. Trainings Training sessions organised throughout project’s duration aimed at securing an effective and durable transfer of knowledge and know-how to reinforce Russian administrative capacities. The training programmes were first of all focus on the training of trainers, able to replicate and disseminate knowledge and know-how acquired during training. These trainees formed a pool of experts capable to train in their turn (local trainers). Training concerning Meta-information systems (MIS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were targeted at committees and district staff. Training sessions focused on use and management of MIS for data exchange, storage, retrieving, updating of the system. As a result, a pool of MIS users were created competent in use and understandings of what MIS are, how to use them effectively, the various aspects of the software and hardware, etc. The international team of experts developing the system provided end-users trainings both for representatives of environmental authorities of different levels and representatives of other administrative offices. The efficiency of the system was also tested at that level. The end-user manual is included into final presentation of CD version of the system so as to be further used. Study visits Russian experts visited Hamburg and Turku. Both cities are among the leading cities in Germany and Finland for the development and implementation of modern methods turn toward sustainable city management and GIS development. Long-term co-operation with St. Petersburg especially in the field of environmental management proved to be very useful for all

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partners. Digital Environmental Atlas of Hamburg gave the hint to start the development of environmental passport of St. Petersburg. The team visited partner cities with the purpose of gaining first hand experience of environmental information provision, and in particular looking at case studies of successes and failures and some of the barriers to information provision. The visits involved discussions with stakeholders and other branches of authorities on their co-operation with environmental office. Dissemination For dissemination of the project results the PIU regularly provided information to mass-media, presented objectives and results at relevant seminars and conferences, project web-site was launched already in May 2005, demonstration CD was produced and handed over during end-user trainings and Final conference together with end-user manual and project booklet, published in 500 copies each. 4.2. Presentation of Beneficiary, partners and project-organisation

Project partners Beneficiary: The Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of St. Petersburg City Administration (St. Petersburg CEP) – responsible for overall project implementation Partners 1: State Ministry for Urban Development and Environment of Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Hamburg and St. Petersburg were involved recently in a TACIS CBC project for the development of computer-based system to support the decision-making in case of oil spills in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region. Partner provided technical and information assistance in the refinement of project plan, cooperation with stakeholders and target groups, data identification and elaboration of meta-data system, dissemination activities. Partner 2: Comité d'Expansion Economique de Basse-Normandie –CEBANOR was not for profit professional organisation, which had a good experience in development of on-line information systems providing an overview of West Normandy including information on infrastructures, human resources, industry and research and development. It was planned that it would provide technical assistance in the refinement of project plan, the definition of users’ needs, the implementation of the information campaign and the development of the System. For this last item, CEBANOR will commit a highly qualified BRGM expert specialised in MIS development. Quitted the project in June 2005. Partner 3: Department of Environment and City Planning, City of Turku, Finland is a long-term partner of St. Petersburg in environmental projects. Turku experts subcontracted by the MoE Finland have a big experience in developing of information systems and their application in environmental decision-making. Partner 3 provided technical and information assistance in cooperation with stakeholders and target groups and environmental assessment and reporting for decision-making Partner 4: Human Geography department of Stockholm University, Sweden has been dealing with the problem of sustainable city management last several years. One of the projects was aimed to development of the new districts of Saint-Petersburg and their Municipalities. The university experts provided significant input to understanding the Municipalities needs, indicating system development and harmonization of Russian and western European approaches to sustainable city management.

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Project Implementation Unit consisted of following representatives: • Elena L. Titova, project coordinator (Beneficiary) • Alla L. Mazina, project coordinator assistant (Beneficiary) • Dmitry A. Frank-Kamenetsky, senior GIS expert (Beneficiary)

Local and international companies were hired for technical development of the system. They were selected on a tender base.

LIFE

The Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of the City

of St. Petersburg

Steering Committee

Project Implementation Unit Stakeholders

PARTNERS:

I II III IV

Pilot area:

City of Kronshtadt

Fig. 4.1. Project organization organogram

4.3. Project modification

Since CEBANOR due to its reorganisation had to quit the project, the partners agreed to share the responsibilities both technical and financial among them and applied for project modification. Besides to that time it became clear that partners have saved a lot of money foreseen for travelling, and the salaries of Russian experts grow, so they asked for transferring

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money from the budget line travelling to the budget line personal costs. The Commission approved following modifications by the AC dated April 26, 2007:

1. The partner CEBANOR withdraws. The Beneficiary and Partner 1, Hamburg City will replace CEBANOR’s financial input. Partner Hamburg City will replace CEBANOR’s remaining technical input.

2. The Partner Finnish Ministry of the Environment withdraw and is replaced by a new partner, City of Turku. All the technical and financial inputs have to be made by the City of Turku.

3. The provisional budget was modified as set out in the table below:

Original budget Requested revised Variation budget Budget item Total Eligible Total Eligible In € In % costs in

€ costs in

€ costs in

€ costs in

€ (H=E/B-

1) (A) (B)

% of total

eligible costs (C)

(D) (E)

% of total

eligible costs (F)

(G=E-B)

1. Personnel 116,600 33,0% 157,700 44,6% +41,100 + 35,2%

2. Travel 67,218 19,0% 35,660 10,1% -31,558 - 46,9%

3. Ext. assist 123,120 34,8% 123,120 34,8% 0 0,0%

Durables

4.1Infrastruct 0 0 0,0% 0 0 0,0% 0 0,0%

4.2.Equipment 17,000 8,500 2,4% 17,000 8,500 2,4% 0 0,0%

4.3.Prototypes 0 0 0,0% 0 0 0,0% 0 0,0%

5. Consumables

24,530 6,9% 14,230 4,0% - 10,300 -42,0%

Other costs 5,000 1,4% 5,000 1,4% 0 0,0%

Overheads 8,500 2,4% 9,258 2,6% 758 8,9%

TOTAL 361,968 353,468 100% 361,968 353,468 100% 0 0,0%

5. TECHNOLOGY The technical core of the project is a high-efficiency server HP Proliant DL380 securing processing, search and presentation of geo-data. The server is equipped with RAID array and connected to the Internet by a 100 Mbit/sec data channel. The operation of user services is

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provided by licensed software products: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, ESRI ArcIMS 9.2, ESRI ArcSDE 9.2. The spatial information is stored in the form of ESRI geo-database. The geo-base provides 8 web-services with over 120 information layers, including a satellite image. To use the web-services, a user does not need the installation of any special software. A user only needs to open a web browser and go to the web-service page, for example, http://www.infoeco.ru/map. The web interface of the project is based on ASP.NET2 technology with the use of AJAX. The web browsers Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are supported. The developed information system for Kronshtadt is a part of information and analytical system for the whole City of St. Petersburg known as the “Environmental passport of St. Petersburg”, that is why it was developed in accordance with the concept of the “Environmental passport of St. Petersburg” approved by the Decree of the Committee for Nature Use, Environmental protection and Ecological Safety N 13-p from March 1, 2004. The Concept postulates that the Environmental Passport is the information and analytical computer system for collecting, storing and providing access to the following information for various user groups:

• State of the nature resources potential of the territory • Level of negative environmental impact on the territory • Environmentally dangerous sites • Sites, which are subject to the state environmental control • Natural and anthropogenic processes which represent potential danger to human life and

economic activities on the territory • Environmental restrictions to economic activities on the territory. The field of application of the system is: • Information support to the decision-making in the field of environmental management • Information support to the State Environmental Control • Providing environmental information to governmental bodies • Providing access to environmental information for public.

The general structure of the “Passport” is shown in Fig. 5.2. The system is divided into 4 main subsystems: suubbssyysstteemm ooff ddaattaa ccoolllleeccttiinngg aanndd ssttoorriinngg,, analytical subsystem, automated syysstteemm ooff tthhee ssttaattee eennvviirroonnmmeennttaall ccoonnttrrooll aanndd decision support subsystem. The data collecting and storing subsystem, besides its main functions, provides data unification, methodological control, control of data reliability and data protection in case of illegal access or user’s mistakes. This subsystem provides collecting and storing of the geographical data, as well as all kinds of factual information. Its structure is based on several thematic blocks. All collected in different formats materials have to be transformed in format of geodatabase (ESRI ArcSDE 9.1).

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Fig. 5.1. InfoCoSM in the structure of the Environmental “passport” of St. Petersburg

Fig. 5.2. The general structure of the Environmental “Passport” of St. Petersburg

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Each information block consists of several information layers. An information layer is a combination of several coverages and databases. Subdivision of the layers is also based on thematic principle. Fig.5.3. illustrates the schematic diagram of the data storing subsystem. Another approach to the information structure is based on the period of information updating. From this point of view the information is subdivided into the following groups: operational (on-line), short-term (quarterly or monthly updated), long-term (annually updated), permanent. Table 5.1. shows the description of the information layer “Air quality monitoring” as an example, which is one of the layers of the “Air quality” information block.

Information block

Information layer 2Coverage

geographic dataData base

Fact informationCoverage elements

Information layer 1Coverage

geographic dataData base

Fact informationCoverage elements

Fig. 5.3. Schematic diagram of data collecting and storing subsystem.

Information layer Elements of the informationlayer

Type of thedata

Updating period

The network of the air quality it i t ti

Coverage Permanent

Characteristics of the stations Table Long -term

Primary data of the air quality t

Data base On line Air quality monitoring

Averaged air quality data Data base Short-term

Table 5.1. Information layer “Air quality monitoring”

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The second element of the Passport is the analytical subsystem. The main functions of this subsystem are: processing of primary data, administering of the informational resources, controlling of access to the different information resources. In addition it provides reference information for analytical procedures. Fig. 5.4. presents the scheme of interaction between data storing and analytical subsystems.

EExxaammppllee ooff tthhee aaiirr qquuaalliittyy ddaattaa pprroocceessssiinngg

Analytical subsystem Subsystem of data collecting and storing

Fig. 5.4. Scheme of interaction between data storing and analytical subsystems 6. PROGRESS, RESULTS 6.1. TASK 1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING OF ACTIVITIES The main objective of this activity was to insure smooth and efficient project implementation, timely implemented project tasks and reporting, efficient cooperation between Beneficiary, Partners, and Stakeholders. This work package comprises tasks necessary to launch the project, as well as project management and reporting activities to Life and Steering Committee. Planned time: from 01.01.2005 to 31.12.2007 Actual implementation time: from 01.01.2005 to 31.12.2007

Characteristics of the stations

Analytical methods

Monitoring stations

Primary monitoring data

Averaged data

Access rights

User request

Information resources

Data processing

tools

Analytical procedure

Thematic maps The map of the air

pollution index distribution

The map of NO2 pollution distribution

The map of dust pollution distribution

Reference information

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Results: Project Implementation Unit provided sound management of the project. Cooperation and information exchange were secured with stakeholders and other interested parties to allow building on experience and acquired knowledge. All reports were submitted in time and in accordance with the project plan. Sub-contractors were hired in accordance with EU and Russian legislation. Deliverables:

• Prepared and signed 4 agreements, 11 sub-contracts with local experts and 2 sub-contracts with European companies

• Project Implementation Unit, Steering Committee (SC) and Working groups were established in February 2005

• Detailed work plan and financial arrangements were elaborated in February 2005 and were revised each meeting of the SC

• Prepared and submitted in time 5 Progress reports and 1 Interim report • Links to other related projects

6.1.1. Launching project activities This work was necessary to launch the project, as well as project management and reporting activities to Life and Steering Committee and to the EC. It was necessary to arranged and sign contracts and agreements between, Beneficiary, Partners and Sub-contractors, set up a project Implementation Unit (PIU), set up a project Steering Committee (SC) composed of representatives of Beneficiary, partners and other interested parties as NGO. Agree SC composition and timetable for SC meetings, to elaborate a detailed work plan and financial arrangements. The launching event took place in St. Petersburg on February 1-3, 2005 and all partners participated in it (Annex 6). During this meeting the agreements between the Beneficiary and Partners were discussed, so that in February – May 2005 all 4 Agreements were signed (Annexes 1-4). Project Implementation Unit was set up and approved. It consists of two project Beneficiary representatives (Annex 6):

Elena L. Titova, Project coordinator, senior expert of the Division for International Co-operation and Environmental Education

Alla L. Mazina, Project coordinator assistant. (Annual contracts are in the Annexes 39-40)

The Project Implementation Unit took a responsibility for the project implementation and coordination of the partners’ activities between the Steering Committee meetings. The implementation of the project proves the absence of the necessity of the project coordinator assistant at the end of the project so it was decided not to prolong contract for 2007 with Mrs. Mazina. Her main task to coordinate partner’s activity was delegated to Mr. Frank-Kamenetsky, as it requested better understanding of the technical aspects of the work at the latest phases.

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Since August 2006 the Project Implementation Unit as it was decided at the Third Steering Committee meeting was dealing with preparation of the request for project modification because of the quitting the project by Partner 2 – CEBANOR. Finalizing of project modification caused by quitting the project by Partner 2 – CEBANOR and replacement of the Ministry of Environment of Finland by the Department for Environmental Protection of the City of Turku ended in April 2007 when the signed Amendment have been received. All necessary sub-contracts for the project implementation were done in accordance with either EU (sub-contracts with European companies) or Russian (sub-contracts with local companies) legislation. Organization of tenders for sub-contracts was one of the main tasks of the Project Implementation Unit. During the project period 2 international tenders and 11 local tenders were organized. It was foreseen by the project that 3 end-user working stations would be organised in the pilot area and the main server would stay with the Committee. For that in 2006 4 computers and necessary software were purchased and in 2007 the equipment have to be officially handed over to Kronshtadt and the working group 3 integrated them into the existing communication system of the District. The PIU organised tender to find the cheapest solution for delivery so the sub-contract was signed with local company for purchasing and instillation of the equipment (Annex 44). Each station consist of:

1. Case ATX MidiTower Codegen 6012-G1 350W 2. Motherboard Foxconn 915GL7MHS (i915GL, socket 775. DDR. VGA, mATX) 3. Processor Intel® Celeron® N331J (2.667GHz. socket 775, cache 256Kb, FSB

533MHz) box 4. Operational memory DDR 256Mb PC3200 (400MHz) Kingston 5. Hard disk 80Gb SATAII Samsung (7200rpm, cache 8Mb, SpinPoint P80SD,

HD080HJ) 6. Disk drive FDD 3,5" Sony 7. Clip board Mitsumi Classic PS/2 8. Mouth Genius Nelscroll + Eye Optical PS/2 9. Network filter Pilot S New 10. Monitor 19" ВеnQ FP91G+ (contrast 550:1. brightness 250 KJ/m2. DVI. 8 ms) 11. IBP PowerMan BackPro 600 Plus 12. DVD RW Asus DRW-1814BL Black BOX IDE

The notebook bought by the project was necessary to provide information exchange especially at the beginning of the project, before the developing system started to work. 6.1.2. Reporting Another task of the PIU was to prepare and submit in time project reports. As it was requested by the Commission and external monitoring team the dates of progress report submissions were slightly revised, besides it was decided to combine the Third progress report and the Six progress report with the Final Report. All 5 Progress reports and the Interim report were submitted in time though due to peculiarities of national regulations there were some time

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certain difficulties to collect from partners necessary supplementary documents. All progress reports (except the Financial part) were published on a web-site of the project (Annex 27). 6.1.3. Steering Committee Meetings The Steering Committee was established during the first meeting in Saint-Petersburg 1-3, February 2005 aiming to define project strategy, inform about project advancement, endorsement of project reports. The project partners have agreed that the Steering Committee will consist of all the project partners’ representatives. The list of the Steering Committee member is given in the Annex 5. According the project proposals the first Steering Committee meeting was planed to be organized in June 2005 and the next ones should be every 9-10 months. But from the beginning all partners decided to save time and money for traveling so they agreed that Steering Committee meetings and working group meetings would be combined whenever it is possible. That is why First Steering Committee meeting was organised already at the very beginning of the project, combined with the lunching event. It provided a good base for introduction of the Partners to each other; detailed executive planning, establishment of managerial units etc. The dates of the other meetings were chosen according the timetable of other project activities. An important positive result of the First Steering Committee meeting organized so early was that Beneficiary and Partners managed to build up a very good international team of professionals, who are experienced in international activities, highly motivated, willing to share their knowledge, capable to work in team. 4 working groups were established during the meeting. Two of them were organized for realization mainly of the task 2. The first one consisted of 5 local experts, responsible for the researches to understand economic and environmental issues and tradeoffs at stake in the area. The second working group consisted of one Sweden expert and two local experts. They were responsible for semi-structured interview with stakeholders to analyse the needs of stakeholders in term of environmental information. (Annex 6). Two other working groups were established for realization of the tasks 3-5. One of them was working with environmental indicators. The other one was developing a metadata catalogue (Annex 6). Working group meetings were organized to discuss the project development and to solve technical problems of the project implementation, that is why local and international experts were often invited to such meetings (Annex 45). During the Steering Committee meeting the detailed plan for the next 9 month was developed, and the necessity of sub-contracting was clarified (Annex 6.) During the second Steering Committee Meeting in Saint-Petersburg 31.10.05 - 3.11.05 international expert group presented results of the analyses of legal responsibilities and environmental information needs of the district administrations of St. Petersburg and of the self-governing municipal formations. The database of main stakeholders and the choice of Kronshtadt district as a pilot case for the project were approved. The draft of the Information strategy as well as the content and the layout of the project web-site were discussed. The

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detailed work plan for the next month and the necessity of new sub-contracts as well as the date of the next Steering Committee meeting were fixed (Annex 7). The Third Steering Committee Meeting, which took place in Saint-Petersburg 1.08.06 - 2.08.06 was aimed to analyze the current state of the project implementation, to discuss the project implementation program for the next period of time and the forthcoming Interim report. The state and prospects of the development of information resources, Geographic Information System for the pilot area, current state of the on-line access and data identification and elaboration of meta-data catalogue were discussed by the participants (Annex 8). Besides the Steering Committee discussed problems, caused by quitting of CEBANOR and made the decision that it would not seriously influence the project implementation. The Beneficiary was asked to apply the Commission for the project modification. During the Forth Steering Committee meeting n April 23-24, 2007 partners discussed in detail the Work plan till the end of 2007, as the dates and modalities for the last project year have to be defined precisely. The second day of the meeting was organized in the pilot area – in Kronshtadt. That gave the possibility to introduce the pilot area to the international expert team, make them acquainted with information systems of the district available for the management purposes and to present the project and its outcomes to local authorities The proceedings of the Meeting are given in Annex 52.

Fig. 6.1.3.1. Project partners are visiting Kronshtadt The Final Steering Committee meeting of the project team was combined with the International conference and was aimed mainly to discuss the results of the project, future plans of cooperation and the reporting procedures (Annex 63). 6.1.4. Establish contact with other on-going projects

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Data processing and the overall development of ICT solutions to access environmental data is a new tool, which is used for sustainable environmental management all over Europe more and more efficiently. During past 10-12 years several international projects on the development and integration of GIS for environmental management were implemented in the framework of LIFE programme. Starting InfoCoSM the implementation team gets acquainted with the results of other projects aiming to avoid certain mistakes and to benefit from the achieved results. Links to some of the most useful projects are available on the project web-site (Annexes 27 & 49). 7.2. TASK 2. COOPERATION WITH STAKEHOLDERS AND TARGET GROUPS

This activity allowed project members to identify both data owners and users’ needs. Project experts visited a representative sample of organisations in order to characterise data they already own, and those they would need to properly carry out their daily activity. Based on the analyse the Information strategy for the pilot area was developed. Planned time: from June 2005 to November 2005 Actual implementation time: from March 2005 to December 2005 Aiming to extend the use of international experience in the development of information strategy project partners decided to invite European experts for such a job. The delay with the development of the Information strategy for one month was caused by the necessity to organize the international tender and the lack of experience of the Beneficiary, but that did not have serious consequences for the other tasks partly due to the break because of Christmas Holidays in Europe and in Russia, partly because the following activities started even earlier than it was foresee by the project. Results: Implementation of this task allowed to identify 3 main groups of users: general public which can’t identify their real needs in information but want to have the access to environmental information, local authorities which need concrete information on different issues for their daily work and finally system administrators who are able to up-date information in the system. The analyze of information available at different stakeholders proves that only the City Administration have reliable information which can be used for the developing system. The developed information strategy foreseen different levels of access to the system for different users groups. Deliverables:

√ 2 Reports: • Legislative basis for environmental protection in Russia, Germany, France,

Finland and Sweden. The place of local authorities in environmental protection solutions

• Legal responsibilities and environmental information needs of the district administrations of St Petersburg and of the self-governing municipal formations: Environmental, social and economic issues

√ Databases of main stakeholders √ Questioner for the preparation of the Information strategy

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√ Interview proceedings √ Information strategy

6.2.1. Clarification of legal and administrative responsibilities

As it was decided by project partners the first seminar for stakeholders was organized during the lunching event because the project partners were anyway presenting their countries experience in collecting, processing and distribution of environmental information, as well as they presented legal responsibilities of their authorities in the field of environmental management and environmental information they are using for that. These presentations were later used for the development of the questionnaire for interviews (Annexes 51 & 67). 2 working groups were organized for realization of the task 2. The first one consisted of 5 local experts of the Committee for Nature use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of St. Petersburg City Administration and project partners (Annex 6). The first step to develop an Information Strategy was an elaboration of a Questioner (Annex 15), that was prepared by the first working group to clarify the needs of Information System’ users. The developed Questioner helped project partners to prepare reports relating legal and administrative responsibilities in partners’ countries. Each project partner has prepared a short report, which were analysed by a group of local experts in Saint-Petersburg. Compilation of the reports allowed to develop a general view to the environmental protection systems established in partners’ countries and to compare it with the rules, which had been formulated in the new Russian legislation (Annex 9). This compilation of the reports became a basis for the interviews with the target groups’ representatives. 6.2.2. Understand economic and environmental issues and tradeoffs at stake in the area

The second working group consisted of one Sweden expert and two local experts have collected information about social, economic and environmental problems of stakeholders. They made an analyse of the annual reports published by the City of St. Petersburg on the state of Environment as well as the statistical surveys annually published in St. Petersburg. Two local experts were employed by the project Beneficiary (Annexes 29,30).

They started with analyse of the survey made by the Beneficiary in 2003 in the framework of the TACIS CBC project “Improving environmental communication” (Contract: TSPF/0302/0091) when over 1350 questionnaires were distributed among St. Petersburg’s respondents, representing different target groups: the city officials - employees of the City Administration, the employees of schools and universities; NGOs and scientists. 486 questionnaires were filled in and returned.

Working group N 1 in cooperation with sub-contractor analyzed existing environmental data available at different stakeholders and assessed their in environmental information by using existing economic statistics, making detailed case studies of selected economic entities, visiting relevant institutions etc.

The working group, using the existing databases of the Committee, created the database of main stakeholders (see Annex 14, in Russian language).

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Before the partners started development of the Information Strategy for the pilot district the results of the needs assessment and results of the inventory data available by public and private stakeholders were discussed at the joint meeting of both working groups in September 2005 and they were presented to the Second Steering Committee meeting (Annexes 7, 9,10, 45). 6.2.3. Needs of stakeholders in term of environmental information Questionnaire, developed by the international team was send to local authorities of all 18 City districts, 111 Municipalities and 67 NGOs, only few of them were returned and representatives of these organisations expressed their interest to participate in the interview. In May 2005 second working group made interviews with representatives of 7 Municipal councils and 5 District administrations of Saint-Petersburg, that represent three different groups of the Saint-Petersburg districts:

Central districts: Admiralteiskij, Vasileostrovskij; Industrial districts: Viborgskij, Kronshtadtskij Suburb districts: Primorskij

The semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders (local politicians and civil servants) enabled the project work team to understand the case of the administrations and municipalities and their information needs from their own point of view. In addition to the politicians and civil servants in the various parts of the local administrative structure of the city, representatives of the two environmental NGOs were interviewed (Annex 51). The interviews with the NGOs gave the project work team the views of key stakeholders situated outside the official administrative structure. The interviews lasted between one and two hours. In one case the method of using a focus group was applied, in most of the other cases the interviews were carried out with the subject being alone (Annex 69). The practice of governing in the Municipal councils and District administrations of Saint-Petersburg was investigated by interviewing the person responsible for environmental protection on the different administration levels. Project expert group provided a description of their responsibilities and duties under existing legislation, their legal relationship, the data they own, information they produce and its end user, etc. The report on this investigation was prepared by the experts during the second working month (June 2005). It describes not only existing practice but economic and social needs and expectations of the decision-makers as well (see Annex 10). This report became a basis for an Information Strategy development. It became clear already at the preparatory phase that it is rather difficult for some people to find time for the interview, so to avoid additional visit and interviews with the same people this working group also asked people about sources of information they used and information available in their organization. So they started inventory data available by public and private stakeholders in project’s area, which was foreseen to be done later (Task 3).

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Fig. 6.2.3.1. Interview with stakeholders

The needs in environmental information and different sources of such information were discussed with stakeholders during several seminars organized by the Committee in the end of 2005 (Annexes11-13). It was decided not to organize special events in the frame of the project, as the above mentioned meetings allowed to get even more wide picture as representatives from different regions of Russia and Finland were able to share their knowledge in the filed. These seminars were also used for dissemination of project results. Since the project have to be focused on one pilot municipality that should be selected as the most representative of all types of economic activities and environmental issues present in the City. St. Petersburg is a 5 million Megalopolis divided into 110 municipalities being managed by municipal councils. In the frame of the project the information was developed for the priority topics identified in Kronstadt (that was chosen as a pilot district of Saint-Petersburg).

6.2.4. Development of an Information Strategy In order to secure a smooth integration of all components of the information system, an information strategy was developed with a view to give essentials in the development of the InfoCoSM information system. The objective was also to give visibility on project development to non-GIS specialists as deciders and officials of St. Petersburg administration. The partner’s reviews and report on interviewing formed the background for the Information strategy development. This strategy became the basement for the whole Information System development that was the one of the aims of the project. Information Strategy published in English (Annex 16) and Russian languages was located on the project web-site that allowed getting a feedback from local experts (5 representatives of Kronshtadt authorities an 2 representatives of NGOs). Information strategy was presented during the Second Steering Committee meeting, where representatives of the pilot district were also invited for the discussion.

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Last changes in the information strategy have been done based on the results of the discussion during the working group meeting in February 2006. All steps described in the Strategy were to be taken when developing the GIS services and it was tremendously important that they were understood not only by the specialists in charge of developing the system, but also by those ordering and financing it, i.e. all deciders involved in the decision-making process who can have few to none understandings of what a GIS service is and how it should be managed.

6.3. TASK 3. DATA IDENTIFICATION AND ELABORATION OF META-DATA CATALOGUE Inventory data available by public and private stakeholders in project’s area allowed to assess database from the point of view of their relevance, compatibility, and reliability and to list missing data necessary to specific purposes and target groups, strengthened information using state-of-the-art software for the management of meta-information and catalogue sources. Planned time: from January 2006 to November 2006 Actual implementation time: from July 2005 to November 2006 The delay with development of metadata management model was caused by the fact that Russian experts could not find consensus about the model and the necessity of sub-contracting European experts became clear. So it took time to make tender and to find the executor for the task. This also caused the delay with metadata cards development, but the efficient work of international team helped to get back to the project time schedule, so that all following sub- tasks were implemented in time. Results: Metadata management model for pilot area was created based on the analyse of 12 information systems, 80 services, 396 map coverings, 476 tables, 7 text arrays and 8 raster arrays, 70 metadata cards were developed, filled and geo-referenced. The system of information exchange was established. Deliverables:

√ Interview proceedings √ The data dictionary √ Metadata management model √ 70 metadata cards filled and geo-referenced √ Meta data system √ On-line access to metadata √ 2 Reports:

• Data identification and elaboration of meta-data catalogue • Meta data system development

√ 2 Manuals: • How to connect to ArcSDE spatial database using OpenOffice and

Microsoft Office suites • On-line Metadata Editor

6.3.1. Data inventory and gathering

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Partly data inventory was done during the interview with stakeholders and partly by Russian team (working group 1) as the Committee collected to that time more than 286 relevant databases. Working group N 1 in cooperation with sub-contractor analyzed existing environmental data: 12 information systems, 80 services, 396 map coverings, 476 tables, 7 text arrays and 8 raster arrays and were analysed. The analyses of available sources of information proved that information resources available at the municipal or district levels are not reliable and they are up-dated not regular, besides they are made in different geographical systems, so it was decided to build information system for the pilot area based on the system developing by the Committee for the whole City. That would also insure the sustainability of the project as the system will be developed and used even after the project end. At the same time the problems of a big system could be tested and solved in the frame of the project. The data collecting and storing subsystem, besides its main functions, provides data unification, methodological control, control of data reliability and data protection in case of illegal access or user’s mistakes. The overview of available data and their producers were presented during the Second Steering Committee meeting (Annex 7). 6.3.2.Development of a metadata management model Though it is foreseen by the Decree of the Government of St. Petersburg N 32-p from July, 5, 2004 “About the structure of the Environmental passport of St. Petersburg”, before starting InfoCoSM, metadata were not used at Committee's level, but the question of developing a proper metadata management system was one of the main tasks foreseen for the project. Metadata is basic information used to describe data, such as its content, quality, date, conditions of use, source, ownership and other characteristics. This information allows users to assess whether a certain dataset is suited for their purposes. During the process of elaborating the strategy, it appears that one of the pillars of the system should be a solid Metadata catalogue. Many reasons for that: the huge amount of information already stored in Committee's premises should be easily searched and accessed by Committee's staff; also in a changing environment, metadata remains the memory of the system, something that keeps information about data and that may be consulted at any time. At last, metadata represents the only visible part of Committee's resources for the public browsing the information system; it has therefore to be as exhaustive as possible. Choosing the right tool for editing, managing, and accessing metadata should also include consideration on interoperability. From that point of view, adequacy with international standards and procedures were tremendously important.

Adherence to ISO standards means that the data generated on one server with software A can be read with ease on another server using software B and can also be used by another user with software C. This is interoperability, and the key to a common understanding and use of geographic information.

The decision was then taken to base project metadata development on the subset of ISO standard in use by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The standard, known as the EEA Metadata Standard for Geographic Information (EEA-MSGI), is a profile of the ISO19115 standard for geographical metadata. EEA-MSGI defines a set of metadata for discovering and

32


quickly understanding geographical data. This short-cut appeared very profitable as it allowed the project to gain from EEA experience as this subset is very well documented, is compliant with ISO standard, and comes with an editor and stylesheets integrated in ESRI ARCGIS products.

The draft version of the metadata management model was elaborated together by local experts and sub-contractor “Soil and Water Ltd” (Annex 17). Draft version of the metadata management model was presented to the Steering committee (Annex 8).

The detailed description of the metadata management model was given in the Intermediary Report of “Soil and Water Ltd” (Annex 21). The objective of the report was to compile examples about what to be done to collect, organize and use metadata. Based on these examples, the Committee is able to develop its own policy in future. A cornerstone of that policy is the relation between the Committee and its data providers. These data providers are numerous and provide yet data without metadata. That makes using data very difficult as the way data is collected and provided may vary from year to year.

Obliging data users to provide metadata along with data would be the first step, obviously the most important. Then the metadata would be collected by the Committee for its own use, but also to provide a catalogue of available data to its potential users.

Fig. 6.3.3.1. Conceptual schema of general data model in project database

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6.3.3. Development of metadata cards The aim of this activity was an elaboration of the catalogue of data sources containing the meta-information about primary data, the type and context of its collection, temporal and spatial coverage as well as management and storage, accessibility, etc. and some primary data on related addresses (institutions, persons, etc.). Sub-contractors have developed the structure of the metadata cards based on ISO 19115 (see Annexes 17, 20). The detailed information of each information feature of the dataset was proposed by the Committee and 70 metadata cards were filled (Annex 20). This work was presented during the Steering Committee meeting. The metadata cards have to be ameliorated, especially concerning information sources and so called "lineage statements". The data dictionary (see Annex 18) was created in the same time. A data dictionary describes the content of the various tables in the database and a schema of tables and the relationships among them are the central elements at this stage. It include the data type (e.g. numeric, text, data, image), the space it requires in the field (if appropriate for the data type), and a description of the data. The scheme for the pilot area is presented in Annexes 17, 21. At least a short manual on how to access ArcSDE database using Office suites (Microsoft and Open Office) have been developed. This type of connection was used to develop information services. (Annex 19). 6.3.4. Cartographic management of cards

After the amelioration of metadata cards were completed the cartographic management of cards started. Data providers should delivered XML metadata file for each delivered feature class or dataset (group of files). The metadata contains general core elements (contact information, linkages, sources.) and attribute descriptions; this information was pre-filled in metadata template provided by the project team to reduce workload. The description of objects to be integrated in the system were delivered as:

Layers of cartographic information have to be presented in one of ESRI formats: -Shape-files, personal eco-data bases, layers of multi-user eco-data bases, Arc Info They have to be based on the unified version of the topographic base Tables to be presented in DBF format or databases MS Access Text documents have to be presented in MS Word (DOC, RTF), text decoding WIN, DOS Bit-map objects have to be presented in JPEG, TIFF, and BMP

Cartographic management of cards requested the use of the addressing system of real estate objects of St. Petersburg, approved by the Governor of St. Petersburg on 31.12.1997 The assessment of the efficiency of searching for information recourse was done. The needs of relevant stakeholder groups were taken into account while assessing. The work was done in accordance with the Information strategy developed in the frame of the project. The detailed report on the implementation of the activity was presented by the executer (according to Russian legislation available only in Russian – Annex 41). Now all cards contains information on geographically fixed special objects in local coordinate system, which have been accepted in St. Petersburg for all users. This provides easy access to metadata according to geographic location.

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Since metadata contains information regards as confidential according to Russian legislation only some examples of Geographical and relational database are given in Annex 71.

Fig. 6.3.4.1. Example of metadata card

Though the First study visit in May 2005 was scheduled for task 7 it turned to be more relevant to tasks 3 and 4.

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Hamburg was chosen for the first study visit in the frame of the project because this city is one of the leading cities in Germany for the development and implementation of modern methods of sustainable city management and GIS development. This information becomes a basis to study a structure of the information recourses and software that is using by the administration of the city of Hamburg to support decision-makers in different kinds of activities in the area of environment. During various working meetings in the frame of this visit the logical structure of the database and technical decisions using for its organization and functioning in the frame of a local net Intranet were discussed. The group of visitors familiarized also with some applied software and informational computer complexes. During the visit the representatives of the Beneficiary familiarized with an organisation of access to existing ecological information both for stakeholders and for general public in Germany and in Hamburg. The report on the visit is attached in Annexes 50 & 51. 6.3.5. Metadata management software and on-line access

Metadata management software and on-line access has started in January 2006. The interface was established on the project web-site www.infoeco.ru developed earlier. The project web-site was managed by local company “Ladoga-Telecom” selected by the Beneficiary on a base of tender. They were provided with the computer and necessary software, purchased in the framework of the project. 3 working stations were established in the pilot area, which allowed testing the developing system from the very beginning. The metadata application was developed in compliance with ISO19115 norm requirements where parameters such as the origin of data and copyrights are mandatory fields. The report on the implementation of this part of the project has been discussed during the Third Steering Committee meeting (Annexes 8, 23) and during the working group meeting in October 2006. In October-November 2006 this software was established and started to be tested. To support the up-dating metadata information the on-line metadata editor has been developed under the tasks 3-2 and 3-5 of the project (Annex 42). The development of an on-line metadata editor tends to alleviate all incompatibility issues that arise when unifying the efforts of several organisations, by providing a common and cross-platform interface to prepare metadata. Doing so, the Committee may require its data providers to follow a simple but yet coercive procedure to produce the metadata for every dataset they provides, that datasets are delivered with proper metadata secures full traceability on data origins and raises the general quality of Committee's information products. It also allows the Committee to reduce the workload in elaborating metadata information by transferring it partly back to data provider. The on-line metadata editor has all the features necessary to allow an efficient collaborative work on metadata. Among the most important are:

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http://www.infoeco.ru/


• User management, access restriction, and users level (owner, provider, processor, distributors);

• Import / export of standardize metadata in different format of which ESRI /EEA MSGI compatible xml file format;

• Follow-up of changes brought to metadata up to their publication; • The use of template and up-dating capabilities to allow users re-use as much as possible

the metadata already edited. To run the editor, a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP or Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP will be sufficient. Since metadata cards have been translated only beginning of January 2007 their Russian version was integrated into the system in February 2007. 6.4. TASK 4. GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

The aim of this work was the development of GIS on the base of the satellite images for the pilot area with the layers of the satellite images, with the set of topographical data, thematic layers, reflecting all environmental issues, needed for the decision-making. Planned time: from January 2006 to April 2007 Actual implementation time: January 2006 to December 2006 The detailed plan for GIS development was drafted in GIS ToR, which were developed according to European standards by western sub-contractor “Soil and Water” (Annex 22). The mentioned tasks of the sub-contractor include using satellite imagery or ancillary maps to put together a reasonable GIS for the applications. Also the topology of the data needs to be checked. As it was commented during the Third Steering Committee meeting there are various levels of data available for the Committee though they are of different to quality and needs special processing which have been done:

Ready data Data to be slightly verified Data to be significantly changed New feature classes

Results: GIS for pilot area based on satellite images (QuikBird) have been developed. It contains 30 thematic layers with 38795 objects combined in 6 blocks. All collected in different formats materials were transformed in format of geodatabase (ESRI ArcSDE 9.1). All map materials were transformed into geodatabase format, all cartographic objects are unique identified. Codes of the address system of St. Petersburg and mathematical codes were used. Fast change-off between map objects, attribute and conjugate tables was provided. Navigation by different attributes, creation of extracts both by attributes and by special data was provided. This provided the base for development of 7 user’s services for visualization of maps on the state of the environment and environmental risks. All servers are available on the project portal.

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Server software of ESRI ArcSDE 9.2 and ArcGIS 9.2 for publication of interactive maps in the Internet with all necessary licenses were purchased and established on server and working stations.

Deliverables: √ Terms of references for the GIS √ Two satellite images QuickBird √ 15 map layers, containing 2723 objects √ Map of the land-use √ GIS for the pilot area contains following layers: satellite images, topographic elements

edit with the use of satellite images and elements of infrastructure identified with the satellite images

√ Geo-referenced and relational databases (description and examples) √ 7 thematic servises √ The accessibility of thematic maps through information services using ArcIMS √ Reports:

• 2 study visits to Hamburg • 2 reports) • 3 On the satellite image processing • 7 Web services development

6.4.1. Satellite images acquisition Two satellite images were purchased in the frame of the project, though it was not possible to get SPOT images, as it was planned, because there were not up-to-date SPOT images for the pilot area, so in frame of the project two satellite images QuickBird were bought. One of them is panchromatic and has 2,5 meters resolution. The second one is polychromatic and has 10 meters resolution. 2 images were delivered to the Committee in time and the activities relating their processing are begun (Annex 68). 6.4.2. Satellite image pre-processing The preliminary image processing aimed to receive geo-reference comprehensive picture and image interpretation aimed to improve and to correct curtain elements of the topographic map have started. The work was done by Russian expert in accordance with the State contract (Annex 33). Three episodes of the QuickBird images cover the pilot area. The first one was made in August 2005, second one is October 2005 and the last one is from August 2005. All of them were accompanied by Shape-files, containing gridding edges. The images were spatially bound, mosaicked and radiometrically equalized. The results of the work were presented at the Third Steering Committee meeting (Annex 8, 46 & 57). 6.4.3. Collect and scanning of exogenous data The majority of the exogenous data was presented for processing in vector form and needed only some corrections and creation of attribute tables. Nevertheless, a big amount of materials was presented in hard copies. For their processing 8 map-cases of detailed planning in a scale of 1: 2000 as well as 3 map-cases of the streets and roads in scale of 1:10000 were scanned.

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Scanning was done at a minimal resolution of 300 - 400 dpi, in RGB color regime directly from Easy Trace shell. Binding of raster images was done with no less than 2 reference points. The accuracy requirements for control points become high as the resolution of satellite images becomes better. Topographic maps of 1: 200 000 or 1:50 000 have far less accurate internal geometry than Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite images, therefore large scale maps and/or satellite navigation points were preferred.

Fig. 6.4.2.1. The outlines of the basic images and fragments of images

Thus the overall cartographic information available on the area was collected. This map served as references for interpreting planimetric elements identified on satellite images and up-date existing maps. 6.4.4. Digitalization topographic elements List of vector layers of the digital topographic base is presented in (Annexes 47). The unified digital topographic base used by the City Authorities was used by the project team as a base for the project purposes. Certain layers, which were of no importance for the pilot area, were excluded. Digitalization was made by means of Arc Map 9. Through the digitalization of topographic elements and as a result of scanning of ancillary data and interpretation of satellite images, the database of topographic elements provided by the Committee was updated. The following elements were updated: streets and roads, buildings, industrial areas, hydrographic and technical infrastructure. 6.4.5. Mapping of the land cover Automatic land cover mapping from high-resolution images have been done with applications considering the neighboring pixels. When the data has been imported for the GIS and analyzed or digitized according to the needs, there it was needed to check the topology according to the general ESRI topology rules (ESRI 2006). Also checking like a lake is not inside a sea polygon or a road may not cross a river without a bridge was done. 6.4.6. Geo-referencing of ancillary data

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When geo-referencing ancillary data (for example pollution sources database, number of inhabitants, etc.) the classes and encoding as officially approved by St. Petersburg administration was used. Detailed report on digitalization topographic elements, mapping of the land cover and geo-referencing of ancillary data was presented in the report of the executor (Annex 47). GIS for the pilot area contains following layers: satellite images, topographic elements edit with the use of satellite images and elements of infrastructure identified with the satellite images. Now we’ve got cartographic information following a unified projection system and up-to-date database of topographic elements. The results of Task 4 implementation have been discussed during the working group meeting in St. Petersburg in October 2006. Several experts from Kronshtadt were invited so that they can give their comments and lean on how to develop and use the system (Annex 45). 6.4.7. Development of on-line access In order to provide user’s access to the information several web-applications (information services) have been developed. During the first months of 2007 the information filling of the portal was extended up to the following set of information blocks:

Topographic base (23 layers) Air (2 layers) Green areas (4 layers) Soil pollution (12 layers) Land using (2 layers) Water bodies and water courses catalogue (17 layers) Geology (21 layers) Master plan elements (3 layers)

The description of the services and their screenshots are given in Annexes 54, 57. Visualization of data by information services was done based on the map templates, standard map presentations and colour schemes developed in the Strategy (Annex 16). The ArcGIS map template files (.mxt) are made with the use of lyr-files that define colour and patterns definition, as well as pre-defined graphic layout (line/line size/font) for selected features that are frequently used on maps. Thematic maps through information services using ArcIMS became available on the website (see Fig. 6.4.7.1. below). The procedure of automatised web-publication of templates was developed in order to avoid any distortions while integration of the resources to web-server. In order to provide the information security in accordance with Russian legislation the access control system has been developed. The technologies involved (firewalls, digital certificates) at each level represent a pragmatic application of existing technologies, most of which are in use by the Committee today. The system allows regulating user’s access both to GIS information services and to metadata. First training on how to work with user’s tools for the information services and with meta-catalogue had been organized in Kronshtadt on May 7, 2007 for the group of 15 end-users (Annex 55).

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Fig. 6.4.7.1. Thematic maps are available through information services 6.5. TASK 5. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING FOR

DECISION-MAKING This task aimed to provide the decision-makers with benchmark evaluation to support decision-making and report on the environment. It comprises indicator-based products matching policy needs with the best understanding of environmental problems and their socio-economic interactions; packaged targeted information on specific aspects of a problem to establish a situation and to measure changes, environmental assessment and reporting procedures Planned time: from June 2006 to November 2007 Actual implementation time: May 2006 to October 2006 Results The set of environmental indicators was selected and relational database was developed. Information was systematized and packed according to the needs of users. Standard sated procedures for assessing and reporting on the state of the environment using the set of indicators and the databases were developed. Complications Main problems occurred during implementation of this task were the limits of available raw data (e.g. – absence of information on waste in the pilot area, or on inland water pollution) and too big variety of the reports which may need environmental information. There are no fixed forms of reports, used by stakeholders, they mainly need clear and understandable illustrations, that is why it was decided to develop mainly map-based templates in the framework of the project. Taking into account comments to the Interim report the project team considered the Communication (COM (2002)179) "Towards a Thematic Strategy on soil protection" adopted in April 2002, especially in its part contamination. Unfortunately limited time and financial recourses of the project, allowed us to use the existing raw data, but not to produce the new ones, that is why we have to postpone the use several indicators, proposed initially, but still the necessity of such raw data forced the Beneficiary to revised its monitoring programmes for the next years, particularly in its water and soil parts. Deliverables

√ Reports: • The study visit to Turku • Development of the Girded feedback link service

√ Manual: • Environmental Assessment and Reporting Procedures

√ Description of 32 environmental indicators √ Relational database for environmental indicators (description with examples)

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√ Girded feedback link service √ Environmental assessment and reporting templates (description with examples) √ Access to targeted information

6.5.1. Study visit (at EEA or other EU Members’ State MoE) Aiming to gain first hand experience in the provision and handling of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy making agents and the public the study visit of 5 Russian experts to Turku (Finland) was organized 18-21 April 2006. The report on the visit and list of participants was attached (Annexes 24 & 51). The results of the visit were used for development of the draft set of environmental indicators for the pilot area. 6.5.2. Selection of environmental indicators For the assessment of the state of the environment and environmental risks and for presenting it in clear and understandable form for inexperienced users a special service of environmental indicators was created. Environmental indicator were defined as parameters or values that describe the state of the environment and its impact on human beings, ecosystems and materials, the pressures on the environment, the driving forces and the responses steering that system. Based on the results of the survey, conducted by the project team in summer 2005 all types of information needed by respondents were spited into several groups:

• Economic • Social • Environmental • General

Respondents mentioned more that 209 parameters, characterizing the state of the environment, as date they may need for their daily work (Annex 10). This analyze, the information received during the study visits, the exchange of information with the experts from European countries during the project realization etc. give the possibility to propose the set of indicators of the state of the environment (Annex 25). This set was revised several times as it was necessary to adjust it both to the District need and to available raw data. Some changes were also done after the 2-d study visit to Hamburg (in the frame of the project) and after several meetings with Finnish experts while implementing Russian-Finnish project “Indicators of Sustainable development for St. Petersburg” (Annexes 50 & 51). Since one of the main tasks of the project was to make environmental information available and convenient for decision-making this task was one of the a key elements of the project. According to Kronstadt municipal civil officers interviewed, environmental issues and priorities of the island are (Annex 10):

• Pollution of air by small boiler houses running on coal and belonging to the Ministry of the Defence; their number has been divided by 2 during the last 15 years;

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• Quality of surface water and water of the Gulf of Finland, principally due to discharges from St. Petersburg and military ships standing in the port;

• Cleaning of channels that were used in the past either for defense purposes (Krontversky), either for transporting goods from the port (Obvodny Kanal); they need nowadays to be cleaned and deepened;

• Discharge of untreated wastewater from Kronstadt directly to the coastal sea, either untreated or unsatisfactory treated; this is mostly under the competencies of Vodokanal and of the Ministry of Defense;

• Reduction of green areas of common use. Not all information was possible to present in indicative form, that is why following indicators were selected for the pilot area according to the survey done under task 2: (Annexes 25, 57).

1. Air (11 indicators) 2. Water (1 indicator) 3. Soils (17 indicators) 4. Green areas (2 indicators)

Though in the comments to our Interim report it was advised to consider not only quality but also quantity of water, it turned to be impossible to present any information on water pollution in indicative form as there is no reliable raw data. It was discussed by the Committee that while the developing water monitoring system in St. Petersburg in 2008 this problem should be kept in mind. Indicative information is presented both in cartographic and in table forms. For calculation of the indicators the information from the special data sets allocated at server of the website infoeco.ru is used. 6.5.3. Development of relational dataset Though changes in contracting procedures in Russia caused some delay in project implementation it did not have dramatic impact on project implementation, as several tasks were implemented in parallel and not one after another. Data sets and databases available have been described in the Information strategy as well as required and optional elements of a GIS database schema (Annex 16). These databases were discussed during the Fourth Steering Committee Meeting and several working group meetings, organized in March-April 2007. Relational database for a limited number of indicators in order to quantify and aggregate multiple data were developed (Annex 71). While developing of the relational dataset the integrated structure of the portal have been developed. It provides the opportunity for joint work and interaction of the thematic maps, metadata, indicators and information services. The core of the integrated system links information sources (layers of thematic maps, metadata cards, etc) with their users (geo-information services, indicators and analytical functions). The software interfaces are linked to the core, which allows filling data and functional extensions. The hypertext tools for presentation of portals’ resources and navigation between them have

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been developed. The relational database Microsoft SQL Server is used for storage of information. The relational database for environmental indicators, developed in the framework of the InfoCoSM project contains information on:

• soil pollution by heavy metals • air pollution • state of green areas of common use

Soil pollution by heavy metals data block contains indicative information on total index of pollution (Zc), levels of pollution by particular substances (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sb, V, Zn) and sampling points. Air pollution data block contains indicative information on maximum possible concentration and annual average concentration of NO2, NO, SO2 and VOM. Data block on state of green areas of common use contains indicative information on the state of different types of green areas: trees, bushes, loans, and flowerbeds Since the volume of relational database for environmental indicators, used for the project purposes is very large and contains partly confidential information only fragments of it are shown in Annex 71 and the fragment of the data base scheme presented at Fig. 6.5.3.1. below. 6.5.4. Packaged targeted information on environmental issues Having reliable indicators and showing them into graphs is yet not enough. All indicators and graphs have still to be turn into information, so that is make data interpretable and understandable for the targeted user. Through the combined use of relational database and GIS, the project team has set the basis for building an operative information system on the state of the environment. It was planned to make targeted information packages related to environmental issued, including scientific, medical, economic and legislative available for decision-maker. Based on the results of the discussions with stakeholders during several seminars organized by the Committee in the end of 2005 (Annexes11-13) and during the first training of the end-users in May 2007 in Kronshtadt (Annex 55) it became clear that there is no any need so far in specific packages of information, but information should be presented mainly by media:

• Air • Water • Soil • Green area etc.

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Fig. 6.5.3.1. Fragment of the data base scheme

6.5.5. Environmental assessment and reporting procedures Database and, to a certain extend, GIS deal with primary data and do not provide much information. Assessment and reporting procedures are turning data into information in an operative manner. The development of Environmental assessment and reporting procedures has been stated in tasks 5.4 of the project proposal: the elaboration of standardize procedures for assessing and reporting on the state of the environment is to be based on the set of indicators and the databases developed in tasks 5.2 and 5.3. of the project. The target users of this information are decision-makers, stakeholders, and the large public. Standardized environmental assessment and reporting procedures were developed to provide insight in the efficiency of products, processes, and policies applied to solve environmental problems; allow systematized, comparable, and efficient communication to decision-makers, stakeholders and the large public on environmental problems (Annex 48). More precisely, standardized procedures concern:

• The content and the structure of the information to be provided to end-users; • The graphical representation and reports layout; • The representation of geographical data and maps

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The mechanisms of publications of the results, which allow allocating at the portal thematic maps, metadata, indicators and information services, have been developed. The system administrator has the access for data updating. These mechanisms allow to:

• To allocate and update thematic maps and their layers • Development and use of metadata • Identification and setting of environmental indicators • Creation of information services, using information resources of the portal resources for

providing of special functional • Establishment of the hypertext links between the portal resources

The level of understanding and thus the complexity that user is able to bear depends greatly on its education to environmental issues. Graphics and dashboards were designed around the purpose of the data and target audience. In general, dashboards include measures for priority areas; limiting itself to showing the most important trends without overloaded the reader with details. This is why the format was so important: poorly presented data is hard to understand and interpret accurately. Color and text allow highlighting details or add information. Text included on a graph can bring additional information necessary to understand the break in a trend appearing on a graph. For example, if inspection numbers suddenly drop, a short note on the graph explaining that two inspectors quit provides context to explain the drop. The combined use of maps, graphs, tabular data and text offer the user the capacity to build informative and efficient dashboard. The reporting template consists of headings under which report text can be organized. Under each heading is a brief description of the text that the user will write for the report. Charts and tables can be copied and pasted into the report where appropriate. The content of reports may vary according to the priorities of the moment. Its overall structure and naming conventions should however remain the same to provide the user with solid landmarks. Since the end-users could not properly specify types of the reports they may need it was decided to concentrate efforts on the development of map templates. The idea beyond using map templates is to standardize the handling of this large body of data, and also to simplify the production of maps. Examples of templates are available at http://www.infoeco.ru Map templates were developed for small-scale standard map presentations in printed reports and Web applications. The use of templates will simplify map production as map extents, map projections, background features (e.g. country boundaries, lakes, rivers) and color schemes are predefined. Maps presented in reports and on the Web therefore appear harmonious and ease the final layout process. In future, it will be possible to reuse and mix data from different productions. Additionally, individual users save time and effort, as there is no need to reproduce manually common parts of the maps.

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Fig. 6.5.5.1. Examples of map template on air pollution

The metadata template contains information common to multiple datasets that can be used in ESRI ArcGIS products. Metadata templates are used to quickly add information that is the same for all GIS resources created for a project, or to safely copy metadata between datasets. There are two views/stylesheets: a simple (InfoCoSM Simple) useful for browsing data and a standard (InfoCoSM Standard) for viewing all metadata at once. Switch between the stylesheets using the dropdown bar of the metadata editor in Arc Catalogue. Examples of the developed templates are presented in Annex 72. During the presentation of the results at the second end-user training the participants of the discussions noted that so far there is no real need in the content of reports may vary according to the priorities of the moment. Though it would be very helpful for them to have the gridded feedback link service for more efficient communication and use of the developed resources. The Beneficiary made additional contract with local company “Ladoga-Telecom” for creation of such service (Annex 58). Following tasks were implemented to develop the service (Annex 59):

• The design of the service and the structure of relevant data base have been developed • Special block for acceptance of the complains have been created • The complains processing block was designed

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Fig. 6.5.5.2. Examples of metadata template The service consists of two blocks for receiving and processing of information and a database for storage of information. It contains:

• User’s part, web-interface • Service part, supplement server • Data base server

Aiming to prevent illegal access the service is provided with authentication mechanism: Each citizen can send his application by entering the address: www.infoeco.ru/map. You do not need any registration for that. When user enters the address www.infoeco.ru/map he will see the button “Application”. By pushing the button he will open the window, which has the field for text where the user can write his application or complain. After filling the text field user have to fix a point at the map and send his message by pushing button “Send” (Annex 57, 59). The interface for the unregistered user presented at Fig. 6.5.5.3 below. To review and to process the application it is necessary to insert the login and the password. All saved into the data base applications are available for processing by the authorized employers of the Administration. While entering the system at www.infoeco.ru/gis and after inserting the login and the password the button “Review applications” will appear. The user can review all applications either for the fix data or for a certain period of time. After choosing of the application the user will see the animated marker and the description of the problem in the marked point (see Fig. 6.5.5.4. Interface for the authorities below).

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http://www.infoeco.ru/map

http://www.infoeco.ru/map

http://www.infoeco.ru/gis


.

Fig. 6.5.5.3. Interface for the unregistered user

Fig. 6.5.5.4. Interface for the authorities

6.6. TASK 6. TRAINING Training sessions organised throughout project’s duration were aimed at securing an effective and durable transfer of knowledge and know-how to reinforce Russian administrative capacities.

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Planned time: from June 2006 to May 2007 Actual implementation time: April 2006 to September 2007 Results 4 training sessions targeted at Department staff and their partners in MIS and GIS and information tools were organised, which make them able to keep the system alive and develop it by adding new information. 2 end-user trainings made the participants able to retrieve and select information using the MIS; to produce maps using the GIS web interface, to evaluate the state of the environment using environmental indicators. End-user manual as a handbook to produce thematic analysis and maps of the past and current environmental situation using GIS and MIS have been developed. Printed versions were distributed during the Final conference and the e-version is available on the project portal. Deliverables 3 local experts in MIS 5 local experts in GIS 17 end-users trained 500 copies of the end-user manual 6.6.1.Training of trainers in Meta-information systems (MIS) Training courses was a critical part of the whole project and they were focus on in-deep training of a small pool of experts able to reapply and train in its turn. The Project Implementation Unit made a survey of Russian organizations able to provide necessary courses. The official distributor of ESRI in Russia is Data+ (Moscow). This organization has some regional centers and some authorized center of education. The Beneficiary organized a tender procedure to find a center, which will organize the training of trainers in the frame of the project in the best way and for lowest price. St. Petersburg’s center CREDO got the contract for trainings (Annex 36) The training programme consisted of two sessions: Introduction to ArcIMS (April 2006) and Building geodatabases (May 2006). Three experts from St. Petersburg Mr. Frank-Kamenetsky, Mr. Vishnjakov and Mr. Sobolev visited the training sessions focusing on use and management of MIS for data exchange, storage, retrieving, up-dating of the system and created a pool of 3 MIS managers comfortable and competent in use and understanding of what MIS are, how to use them effectively, the various aspects of the software and hardware, etc. All of them got international certificates of the ESRI experts. (Annexes 26). After the short presentations of the Manual, the demonstration CD and the developed services the participants got the possibilities to work with the developed resources. Their comments (Annex 55) were used by the expert team for correcting of the final version of the materials. Final presentation of the developed system was organized on November 28, 2007 in Kronshtadt. Representatives of the Kronshtadt administration got their individual logins and

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passwords to work with the system and it was decided that during the year 2008 several additional training will be organized for representatives of other units of the Kronshtadt administration and the municipality of Kronshtadt. 6.6.2. Training of trainers in GIS and Information tools The delay with training in GIS was caused by the fixed annual programmes of the company, providing such courses, besides it was decided by Beneficiary that it would have sense to have more local experts –advanced users of the developing system. Training of trainers in GIS was focused on geographic and semantic information and data management under GIS, production of cartographic information, in use of ArcGIS 8 tools: Arc Catalog, Arc Map и Arc Toolbox, etc., The training programme consisted of two sessions (Annex 26). 5 experts both from the Committee and from Kronshtadt became comfortable and competent in use and understanding of what GIS are, how to use them effectively, the various aspects of the software and hardware, etc., and able to keep the system alive and develop it by adding new information; they provide assistance to users in retrieving data. They are able now to teach others how to work with the developed system. 6.6.3. End-user training Because of the delay with project implementation it was decided during the Third Steering Committee meeting to rearrange the training procedures and to start with training in using metadata catalogue and information services already in May 2007. First training on how to work with user’s tools for the information services and with meta-catalogue has been organized in Kronshtadt on May 7, 2007 for the group of end-users. 17 representatives of local authorities mainly from Kronshtad and also from some other districts of St. Petersburg took part in the event (Annexes 51 & 55). Their comments on the developed end-user software were the valuable contribution to the project development and were use by the expert team while finalizing the tools and prepare the end-user manual (Annex 45). One of the main comments from the trainees was the request to develop the gridded feedback link service for more efficient communication and use of the developed resources (Annex 55). The second end-user training was also organized in Kronshtadt on September 7, 2007, when both the system and the end-user-manual were ready for the final discussion. Mainly participants of this training were the same as in a first one, but representatives of 3 NGOs were also invited for the second training.

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FIG. 6.6.3.1. End-user trainings 6.6.4. End-user manual The concept of the end-user-manual has been discussed during the Fourth Steering Committee Meeting (Annex 52). It should be a handbook to produce thematic analysis and maps of the past and current environmental situation using GIS and MIS. The draft version of the end-user manual was ready by the end of April 2007 and it was tested during the end-user training in May 2007, so that the expert team have some time to make last improvements in the manual before it is presented to the broader audience in November 2007 during a big international IT conference. The manual started with the description of GIS information services created in the frame of the project. It contains information of the way services work, of available users’ tools, and gives recommendations on how to use efficiently the resources provided. The services are simple to use and do not require the installation of any third-party software on the users computer. (Annex 65). During the September end-user training the participants got possibilities to work both with the developed system and with the final version of the Manual, which was approved by the participants. In October 2007, 500 copies of the Manual were published. More than 250 copies were distributed to the participants of the Final Conference (some of them asked for additional copies for their colleagues in the regions), about 10 copies were taken by project partners for their colleagues in Germany, Finland and Sweden. Rest of the circulation will be distributed in 2008 during the relevant conferences and seminars, part will be sent to the to libraries of Universities and research institutions, dealing with GIS technologies. 6.7. TASK 7. DISSEMINATION The project implementation and results became visible through the dissemination activities. This allowed to raise interest and awareness among data providers or users, whatever they are private or public organisations and paved the way for the development of similar approaches in other districts/cities and in other organisations. Planned time: from May 2005 to November 2007 Actual implementation time: April 2006 to September 2007 Results Information about the project was regularly sent to mass-media, project web-site was launched at the very beginning, stakeholders were informed during special seminars and conferences, demonstration CD and project booklet were developed and distributed during the Final

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conference. Professionals and decision-makers were informed about project outcomes and practical applications during the Final conference and end-user trainings. Complications The main difficulties faced the project team while implementing this task was the approach of Russian mass-media to the information they are interested in. On one hand Russian journalist prefer to talk only about some accidents or any other negative cases and it is very difficult to force them to say something positive, on the other hand any published logos according to Russian legislation considered to be advertisement and costs a lot of money, which was not foreseen in the project proposal. It refers both to printed materials or TV programmes. Nevertheless, information about the project was regularly sent to mass-media and the project was several times mentioned in it. Deliverables

√ 7 articles published √ At least 4 references in TV programme “Green Telephone” √ 1 special issue of ARC REVIEW √ 2 Radio interview √ Internet portal: www.infoeco.ru √ 4 seminars for stakeholders, more than 150 participants √ Demonstration CD (500 copies) √ Project booklet (500 copies)

6.7.1. Information of the Media The major objectives and activities of the Project were presented in 5 articles published in the Newsletter of Saint-Petersburg city Administration (Annex 28). The Newsletter is a weekly publication, which covers all events taking place in the City Departments and District administrations. It is intended for the mass media of St. Petersburg, serving as an information source. On August 8, 2006 an article about the project implementation have been published in electronic review of Saint-Petersburg city Administration (Annex 28). One article was published in Newsletter of Stockholm Region Office in Saint Petersburg. Another one was published by our German partners in Hamburg daily newspaper (Annex 28). Two interviews about the project implementation to Swedish radio and to Radio “Rossia” gave our Swedish partner (Available from the project web-site). The results of the project and its implementation were also published in the special issue of the newspaper ARCREVIE was devoted to the Conference (Annex 62). InfoCoSM project was presented in the issue by the article of Mr. Rymjantsev and Mr. Rutkovsky “entitled “Environmental portal – INFOECO.RU” (pages 4-5). Besides, the results of the project were mentioned in the article by Mr. Frank-Kamenetsky “Environmental Passport of St. Petersburg”(pages 2-4) and in the article by Mr. Kurnosov, Mr. Rymjantsev and Mr. Rutkovsky “ Unified data base of nature users” (pages 6-7). The Beneficiary is running a bi-weekly TV programme entitled “Green telephone”. In the programme main environmental problems and their solutions are discussed. At least each

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second month starting from the year 2005 the programme is devoted to the Environmental GIS of the city – the “Green Passport”, and each time the InfoCoSM project is mentioned as a pilot case for the whole system (Annex 56). 6.7.2. Internet site development The Internet site www.infoeco.ru (see Annex 27) has been developed in order to disseminate information about the project. This web-based resource also provides information exchange service for the project participants because of the guest book opened for the registered users. This Internet resource is equipped by the high-speed Internet connection and high capacity server. It can be used in multiple user regimes as the information core for the implementation of the further project tasks. All the news and information relating the project’ realization is regularly published on the project website. Besides since the beginning development all services produced in the framework of the project were available from the front page of the project site. Since January 2007 the Committee is running 2 Life projects and the web-site was transformed into the environmental Internet portal www.infoeco.ru. It integrated the web-site of a new LIFE- TCY project “ Integrating Geological Information in City Management to Prevent Environmental Risks (GeoInforM - LIFE06 TCY/ROS/000267)”. Such an integrated web-site demonstrates the complementary effect of two information projects implemented in St. Petersburg. To lunch the site the Beneficiary organized a tender procedure to find a sub-contractor for the project’ web-site development and since the beginning of the project its web-site (the Portal nowadays) is managed by local company “Ladoga-Telecom” according to the contracts with the Committee (Annexes 37-38). 6.7.3. Inform stakeholders A lot of seminars and workshops discussing GIS development are organised annually in St. Petersburg, which makes difficult sometime to collect the relevant audience. That is why it was decide at the First Steering Committee meeting to use when it is possible the traditional seminars and conferences for the purposes of the project aiming to get bigger audience. The information relating the project objectives and implementation was disseminated for the stakeholders firstly through the one-day information seminar for stakeholders, organized during the launching event in Saint-Petersburg 1-3, February 2005. During the seminar the representatives of each project’ partner have presented experience of their country in the area of the project to local specialists, stakeholders and potential partners (21 person participated in the seminar) (Annexes 6, 67). The project objectives and results were also presented at the following seminars and conferences: Russian-Finnish workshop on databases and GIS-applications in environmental management was organised in St. Petersburg, 7 September 2005. The aim of this workshop was to exchange experiences and discuss further cooperation possibilities in data base management and GIS-applications between Finnish and Russian experts in the field of environmental management (48 participants).

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Environmental experts from the administrations in St. Petersburg and Finland took part in this workshop. During the workshop was prepared proposals for Russian-Finnish cooperation (Annex 11). The workshop was not organized as a part of InfoCoSM project, but in the frame of bilateral cooperation between two of the project partners and it created a good base for further development of InfoCoSM project. The conference “Using of GIS for decisions making in the areas of nature using and environment protection” took place in Saint-Petersburg 25 October 2005 (Annex 12). Representatives of Saint-Petersburg city administration, other regions of Russia, Universities, research centers and other interested organizations (58 participants) took part in this conference to exchange their experiences and information in the field of GIS using. The seminar “Information support for environment protection in Saint-Petersburg” took place also in Saint-Petersburg 10-11 November 2005 (Annex 13). The aim of this seminar was to exchange information between the local experts in the field of information technologies using for environmental decisions making, to plan the development of the “Green Passport” of St. Petersburg (25 participants). Russian-Finnish seminars on indicators of sustainable development were organized in October-December 2006 where the project was presented and the set of indicators developed in the frame of the project has been discussed. Representatives of several Finnish cities and 3 big European projects on the topic gave their comments to the developed set of indicators. During the meeting in St. Petersburg the set of indicators have been discussed with different stakeholders in the city. Preliminary project results were presented to potential end-users during the First end-user training in Kronshtadt in May 2007 (17 participants) (Annex 55). Discussions on the results of the project at these meetings helped the InfoCoSM partners to develop Information Strategy and Environmental assessment and reporting procedures. 6.7. 4. Study visit to Hamburg 4-days study visit to Hamburg was organised for 4 representatives of St. Petersburg City Administration (of Beneficiary). The aim of the visit was to study the experience of the city administration of Hamburg in up-to-date information technologies using for decision-making in the area of environment and ecological safety. During the visit the representatives of the project Beneficiary have familiarized with a structure of the Ministry for the Environment and Health, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, with a system of environmental management in Germany, and particularly in Hamburg. During the meeting with a representative of a juridical service of the Ministry were discussed the responsibilities and rights of various departments of different environmental services working in Hamburg and also the practice of their communication with federal and districts administrations. This information becomes a basis to study a structure of the information recourses and software that is using by the administration of the city of Hamburg to support decision-makers in different kinds of activities in the area of environment.

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During various working meetings in the frame of this visit the logical structure of the database and technical decisions using for its organization and functioning in the frame of a local net Intranet were discussed. In order to manage all the informational recourses a metadata base was created according a request of the Ministry. During the study visit the main methods of the data descriptions in the maps of metadata and the technical decisions using for registration and offering the information for users were explained.

Fig. 6.7.4.1. Discussions with colleagues from Hamburg During the visit the representatives of the Beneficiary familiarized with an organisation of access to existing ecological information both for stakeholders and for general public in Germany and in Hamburg Annexes 50 & 51). One of the main tangible results of the visit was a new LIFE project, started by the Beneficiary and Hamburg - “ Integrating Geological Information in City Management to Prevent Environmental Risks (GeoInforM - LIFE06 TCY/ROS/000267)” 6.7. 5. Elaboration of a demonstration CD The demonstration CD has been developed by project sub-contractor Ladoga-Telecom (Annexes 53 & 66). The structure of the CD have been discussed during the Fourth Steering Committee meeting and it contains following information, presented in the interactive form:

• General information about the project and its partners • Main documents (End-user manual, project booklet manual on Environmental

assessment and reporting procedures) • Demo versions of thematic maps in ESRI Arc Reader format (GIS on-line and GIS

demo) • Necessary software for downloading

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To work with the CD some users may need special software, which can be easily installed form the Demo CD. The draft version of the CD was ready by the end of April 2007 and it was tested during the end-user training in May 2007, so that the expert team have some time to make last improvements in the manual before it is presented to the broader audience in November 2007 during a big international IT conference. During the September end-user training the participants got possibilities to work both with the developed system and with the final version of the CD, which was approved by the participants. In October 2007, 500 copies of the disk were printed. More than 250 copies were distributed to the participants of the Final Conference (some of them asked for additional copies for their colleagues in the regions), about 10 copies were taken by project partners for their colleagues in Germany, Finland and Sweden. Rest of the circulation will be distributed in 2008 during the relevant conferences and seminars. 6.7.6. Publishing of a project booklet The same sub-contractor developed the draft of the project booklet, which was sent for the comments to all project partners and to Kronshtadt in Spring 2007. The project Implementation Unit collected all comments and handed them over to sub-contractor. Final version of the booklet was ready by August 2007 and was presented during the second training in Kronshtadt. The booklet contains information on:

• General information about the project, its partners, links to other relevant Life projects • Project objectives, tasks, areas of applicability • Short review of the projects’ geo-functions (work with the thematic maps, metadata,

indicators) • Project results • Assessment of the project results by customers

The sub-contractor made necessary changes according to the comments made in Kronshtadt and about 250 copies from 500 circulation of the booklet were distributed during the Final Conference, about 10 copies were taken by project partners for their colleagues in Germany, Finland and Sweden, other copies will be used for project publicity after its end. 6.7.7. Information of professionals and decision-makers Results of the project were presented to professionals and decision-makers during a big international conference on Information Technologies As Basis for the Management in the Field of Nature Use and Environmental Protection, took place in St. Petersburg on November 29 and 30, 2007. The Conference covered both LIFE TCY project and other major local and international projects dealing with information technologies, which are currently implemented/coordinated by the Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety, City of St. Petersburg. Thus the Conference helped to disseminate the project results far beyond the borders of St. Petersburg (Annex 61).

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The main reason to combine both projects at the Conference was to reach a bigger audience and besides, InfoCoSM would be considered as an integral element in the whole picture of versatile activities, which are implemented in St. Petersburg, both at local and international levels, with an aim to intensify the use of information technologies to improve the environmental management of the area. State contract with local company “CREDO” (Annex 60), which is well known all over CIS countries as a main expert in dissemination of knowledge and also relevant ESRI software allowed to collect more than 200 participants from St. Petersburg, 11 regions of Russia and other countries (Annex 61). InfoCoSM was presented at the Section on Informational Support of the Managerial Decision-Making in the Field of Nature Use and Environmental Protection by Elena L. Titova, project manager in the lecture entitled “Information and Communication Technologies to Strengthen Sustainable City Management - international project of the EU programme “LIFE». Besides, the Project was mentioned in three plenary lectures: “Strategy of the information support of the environmental activities in St. Petersburg” by Ivan A. Serebritsky, Head of the Department for the State Regulation in the Field of Nature Use and Environmental Protection, Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety, “Role of GIS in environmental projects” by Jean-Pierre Houix, France and “Environmental Passport of St. Petersburg” by Dmitry A. Frank-Kamenetsky.

6. EVALUATION AND CONCLUSIONS 6.1. Project implementation

7.1.1. The process The project was developed in accordance with the project proposal. It was planned that the project will be focused on a pilot municipality that would be selected as the most representative of all types of economic activities and environmental issues present in the City. St. Petersburg is a 5 million Megalopolis divided into 110 municipalities being managed by municipal councils. The Kronshtadt district of St. Petersburg was selected as a pilot case. One of the main reasons for that were not only the facts of geographical isolation of the area but also that regional (district) and municipal authorities are dealing with the same area. That helps to simplify the scheme of information flows among them.

It was planned that information needs will be studied prior to the development of an information strategy able to assist decision-makers, city services and other stakeholders to consider environmental issues in their daily activities. As it became clear from the discussions with the trainees and stakeholders during the interview, seminars and trainings such a study not only created the base for the strategy development but also helped them better understand their own needs in reliable and well-presented environmental information The planned inventory of existing environmental data and to assess the needs of stakeholders in environmental information proves that one of the main problems of stakeholders is their lack of experience and knowledge in using GIS for their daily work. Besides the existing databases could not so far provide certain part of necessary environmental information.

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While drafting new plans of the development of environmental monitoring systems in St. Petersburg the Beneficiary already use the project results for this task. Some more new monitoring stations will be established especially for water monitoring in Kronshtadt in the next years. Several seminars and study visits, which were organised to provide exchange of information among participants, contributed a lot not only to the project development but also for future cooperation of partners. Thus, the new Life project –GeoInforM to a great extent is a result of the study visit to Hamburg. Four others districts of St. Petersburg have already started preparatory work for the development of their local information sub-systems as a part of Environmental passport of St. Petersburg. The project planned to be based on available information resources: existing databases, maps, equipment and software; to focus on organising an access to existing information and would not tend to produce new data. Nevertheless, a minimum investment will be required to bring the existing resources to a satisfactory level of compatibility and to develop the different interfaces and on-line connections to share the data. The analyses of available sources of information proved that there are nearly no reliable information at the level of districts and municipalities, so it was decided to build information system for the pilot area based on the system developing by the Committee for the whole City. That created problems for implementation of Task 5. “Environmental assessment and reporting for decision-making”, as it was not possible to develop relevant template and reports in particularly on the state of water bodies. A common information platform was build through the development of coupled geographic (GIS) and meta- information systems (MIS). The GIS includes unified geo-referenced data, harmonised topographic information, and up-to-date data on land use. The meta-information system integrates a data holding catalogue with searching and updating functions to provide a clear view of information available, its sources, location, and access conditions as it was planned. 8 city officers were trained to use, manage and develop the system. They trained in their turn the 17 system’s end-users to secure an adequate use of data resources, supported by in-house training materials. The project produced a demonstration CD-ROM, end-user manual, an information brochure on the project and 16 other information materials, which can be used by those who are planning to develop similar system of their own. Besides a final international conference allowed disseminate project results to potential users form all over Russia and some other CIS countries. All publications and materials produced in the framework of the project are available from the project web-site both in English and Russian languages. 7.1.2. The project management, the problems encountered, the partnerships and their added value

• The level of cooperation has been increased both between Russian partners and between Russian and European partners. The partners have developed the common approach to the project management and methodology.

• The international working groups have been working successfully. All the important issues were discussed and all partners make decisions jointly.

• European and Russian partners have been sharing experiences at best available practices in the development of such systems, not only in their countries but also abroad, so that

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their experience was used to efficiently speed-up the process in St. Petersburg. Meta-information systems and GIS are widely used in Partner’s countries for managing environmental information and supporting the decision-making processes, approach that was useful to use and adjust in Russia.

• The project activities have proved that European and Russian colleagues have a common understanding of approaches to the system’s development.

• All the participants founded seminar and study visit very useful, especially in providing the participants opportunities to exchange opinions on various problems, for transfer of best knowledge and techniques, to know each other and to agree on further cooperation.

• At the working meetings all current issues of the Project implementation were considered, complex and disputed problems discussed and solved. Active participation of all partners in working meetings helped prompt exchange of opinions, increased trust and mutual understanding. Frequent meetings were the most effective way to manage the Project. Everyday communications using e-mail and telephone also help successful implementation of the Project. In the course of implementation of the Project the level of management of the Project and Project staff by all partners considerably increased.

• Co-operation with Finnish partner will continue in the framework of a new bilateral project on the development of common information strategy

• With German partner co-operation is discussed on the development of information support for managing of oil spills

7.1.3. Technical and commercial application (reproducibility, economic feasibility, limiting factors) As it is stated in the Main directions of the Environmental policy of the City of St. Petersburg till the year 2012, the Committee’s policy in the sphere of use of information technologies for the issues of nature management and environmental control in Saint-Petersburg should be directed to achievement of the following primary goals:

• Maintenance and development of Information-analytical complex « Ecological passport of the territory of Saint-Petersburg» as the uniform system of storage of all kinds of ecological information in Saint-Petersburg.

• Organization of access of the interested public authorities of Saint-Petersburg,

enterprises and organizations, individuals to information resources of Ecological passport of the territory of Saint-Petersburg.

• Integration of Ecological passport of the territory of Saint-Petersburg with the

information systems of public authorities of Saint-Petersburg, Leningrad region and the adjacent states.

• Expansion of application of information resources of Ecological passport of the territory

of Saint-Petersburg for a support of acceptance of administrative decisions. • Development of the system of storage, processing and disclosure of scientific and

technical- ecological information to the public authorities concerned.

• Creation of the system of arrangement, storage and disclosure to the population of Ecological information open to public, with the purposes of ecological studies, education and formation of ecological culture of population.

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All these issues were considered during the project implementation so the project results are a valuable contribution to the development of the bigger system. The problems and shortcomings the project faced will provide a good base for saving both financial and time recourses while developing the Environmental Passport of St. Petersburg.

7.1.4. Comparison against the project-objectives

The general objective of the project was to provide information support to decision-makers and the large public. The achievement of this objective presumed:

• Providing decision-makers with adequate and timely information • Unification, interconnection, and making accessible to several city’s authorities the

existing information systems • Providing a common basis to ground decision-making • Providing of the access to the information through a web portal to secure the public and

citizens’ participation to the decision-making process. All these tasks were fulfilled successfully, though due to the lack of the raw data the developed system still need further development and improvement. 7.1.5. Effectiveness of dissemination activities

The dissemination activity seems to be rather efficient as there are at least 4 other city districts witch have started the development of their information systems, based on Kronshtadt experience. Besides during the Final conference the agreements with Moscow experts, representatives from Comy Republic and some others were made, that in 2008 they will visit St. Petersburg to get acquainted with the developed system on spot.

7.1.6. The future: continuation of the project + remaining threats

As it was mentioned earlier the Committee is developing Environmental passport of St. Petersburg. This activity is based on the implementation of the Environmental policy of the City of St. Petersburg till the year 2012 and supported by several legal acts of the City Government. It is a base for the development of the Environmental balance of the City, which is the essential part of the whole system of planning of the City development. Definitely it will be a long lasting process, unless the general political situation change and new priorities will be declared.

After half a year of testing the use of the developed system in Kronshtadt in October 2008 the Beneficiary will organise a conference for the representatives of other city districts to discuss the possibilities of expansion of the developed system to their regions. Kronshtadt experts will present the results of the system use, its efficiency and problems, so that the project team can avoid them in future. Already now 4 from 18 city districts have expressed their interest to develop it. Those are the biggest City districts:

• Krasnoselsky • Krasnogverdejsky • Kalininsky • Kirovsky

Special page with entrance for other district is already integrated in the portal (Annex 57). 7.2. Analysis of long-term benefits

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7.2.1. Environmental benefits

Long-term / qualitative environmental benefits One of the main objectives of the project was to provide local authorities with modern tools of sustainable city management aiming to ensure healthy environment for people. Though the project did not provide momentary environmental benefits in terms of reductions of emissions or energy/resource savings, it provides the basis for prioritisation of environmental problems, help to identify hot spots in the area. By using tools, developed under the project, the authorities were able to identify the zones, where the environmental conditions does not fit standards of quality of the environment, acceptable for location of kinder gardens ore recreation areas, or to realised which of the proposed technical projects would help to improve living conditions for bigger number of people, due to reconstruction of traffic system. Long-term / qualitative economic benefits Any economic activity according to Russian legislation requires obtaining of special permissions from different authorities, presuming also consideration of the environmental issues. The developed system allows shorter the process 4 times. Time for issuing permissions for surface water use reduced from half a year to 1 month. All these provide good bases for investment attractiveness; provide conditions for economic development of the area, creation of new job opportunities. Besides the developed system allows to calculate much more precisely the expenses of the budget needed for the maintain of green areas or dredging rivers and channels and by this to save money and time for other needs. 7.2.2. Long-term sustainability Financial sustainability The ration efficiency / cost of the proposed system is likely very high: it improves the management capacities of city administrative bodies, provide for unified reference systems, and a more rational approach of inter-institutional co-operation. This found expression first of all in a gain of time when looking for information, but also in the possibilities it offers to avoid repeating similar activities, or to benefit from previous experience. All these improvements in the management of the information have direct impact on functioning costs. The system is not generating incomes but is likely to safe existing resources, providing for their more rational use. Since the developed system is a part of the bigger one developed by the City of St. Petersburg funds are allocated for several years so that the work will be continued after the project ended. Institutional sustainability The project was aimed at organising existing information and developing a new information policy management, rather than producing new structure or information. It was built on available sources and technical means, keeping investments to the minimum required to secure a smooth implementation of the project and a good achievement of the system.

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Therefore, no fundamental institutional changes were awaited per se, thought inter-institutional co-operation (i.e. relations among administrative bodies, and with other target groups) were improved. The development of information system, providing for an increase in data exchange among institutions, reinforce their co-operation and therefore contribute to institutional sustainability. Local environmental authorities and their colleagues from administrative offices at different levels assume the responsibility of achieving sustainable development and reaching satisfactory level of environmental protection. Sustainability at the policy level At policy level, the improvements concern first of all the working methods, and especially the information management policy, that means:

• better co-operation among administrative bodies and between administration and target groups;

• a better understanding of organisation's activity, through the set of data it owns and manages;

• an increased visibility of information owned by a particular organisation, or a set of organisations, allowing an easier identification of information sources;

• a better management of information gathering through the comparison of information hold by different administrations, in order to avoid gaps or overlapping of activities;

• an increase in the flow of information shared, that increased efficiency of administrative bodies to receive, provide or analyse information;

• a rational and secured access to information sources thanks to user's access control by system's manager;

• a wider accessibility to information sources, in particular if considering access to information of the large public, deciders and investors;

7.2.3. Replicability, demonstration, transferability, cooperation Project approach may be replicated at several levels:

• At city administration level, through the progressive involvement of administrative bodies into the development of the system. The metadata catalogue will be progressively enriched by adding new information sources and data description, using however the same metadata description procedure, i.e. benefiting directly from project results;

• At target groups' level: should the system be available on-line to information users and providers, it will works as a showcase of the data owned by one or another organisation. It makes the information visible to other potential users, providing for an easier search of data and the development of a new approach in information among the organisations concerned. Joining the system allows information providers to develop contacts, exchange data, and show their knowledge and experience.

• It is already foreseen that similar systems will be developed for all city district and their access will be available from the same web-portal (Annex 57).

7.2.4. Innovation

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Though data processing and the overall development of ICT solutions to access environmental data is a tool, which is used for sustainable environmental management all over Europe for more than 30 years it is still a pretty new instrument in Russia. That is why project results caused a great interest of our colleagues in Moscow and other subjects of Russian Federation and several districts of the city are planning to develop similar systems. Our Western partners have marked the methodological approach to the system development. In their countries they started from the “end of the pipe”, trying to unify different existing information sub-systems into the common one, while in St. Petersburg “Environmental passport” started its development from the source – the Concept, including the concept of the access to the system of different stakeholders. 7. AFTER-LIFE PLANS

8.1.Communication Plan In the annual report on the state of environment and environmental problems of St. Petersburg in June 2008 special chapter will be devoted to the InfoCoSM project. This publication with 1 500 circulation is distributing for all interested partners, city libraries and Universities. Besides this publication was sent to more than 56 subjects of Russian Federation, with whom the Committee have active co-operation. The website of the project will be continued, and there is already reserve money for its support for the year 2008 and 2009. St. Petersburg annually organised up to 10-15 seminars and workshops on IT and GIS technologies, so the project results will be presented there as well. The city of Turku (project partner 3) is running the page on the City administration’s web-site on bilateral cooperation between the Beneficiary (St. Petersburg Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety) and partner cities in Finland. The Finnish ministry of the Environment coordinates this cooperation, so in spring 2008 at the meeting with representatives of the Ministry it is planned to discuss the possibilities to present also InfoCoSM on this site. Since January 2007 the Committee is running the other LIFE- TCY project “ Integrating Geological Information in City Management to Prevent Environmental Risks (GeoInforM - LIFE06 TCY/ROS/000267)”, which is the logical continuation of the InfoCoSM the results of InfoCoSM project will be automatically mentioned during the GeoInforM project events. This will demonstrate the complementary effect of two information projects implemented in St. Petersburg. Besides the Committee started in 2007 new bilateral project with the City of Turku “Development of Environmental Information Strategies in the cities of St. Petersburg and Turku”, which is also using the results of the InfoCoSM project and serves to certain extend as the continuation of the Life project.

Project results will be also published in 2008 in the Environmental Bulletin of the Union of Baltic Cities.

8.2. Plans of the system development

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As it was stated several times before the developed system is a small part of the Information and analytical complex «Environmental Passport of the territory of St. Petersburg». The project help to develop pilot system of the preparation of targeted information reveals merits and demerits of the system, provides the base for its future development. Plans for the system development in the nearest future are presented in table 8.2.1 below.

Action Responsible for implementing

Time schedule Source of funding

Task 2. Cooperation with stakeholders and target groups

Monitoring of the applications to the system

System administrators

On regular bases State financing

Analyse of complains on environmental issues by “Green telephone” and via the developed system

Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety


Task 3. Data identification and elaboration of meta-data system

Further development and up-dating of meta data and metadata cards


2008-2010 State financing

Integration of new data base into the system



Maintenance of meta catalogue



Task 4. Geographic information system

Maintaining of the developed services



Development of map coverage for new areas



Task 5. Environmental assessment and reporting for decision makers and general public

Development of an Committee for 2008-2010 State financing

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electronic catalogue «Research Work in the field of environmental protection, nature use and ecological safety» is published annually.

Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety

Development of an electronic catalogue of popular science and educational environmental information, which is available in the Committee, including reports, printed matter, leaflets and posters, video- and radio- programmes, popular science films


2008-2010 State financing

Task 6. Training

Trainings of end-users Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety


Task 7. Dissemination

Special chapter in the annual report on the state of environment and environmental problems of St. Petersburg devoted to the InfoCoSM project


June 2008 State financing

Presentation of project results at annually organised seminars and workshops on IT and GIS technologies



Allocation of project results on a web-site on bilateral cooperation between the Beneficiary (St. Petersburg Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety) and partner cities in Finland.

Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety and the City of Turku

2008 State financing by partners

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Project results will be also published in the Environmental Bulletin of the Union of Baltic Cities.


2008 No money needed

The web-portal of the project will be continued and even developed



Tab.8.2.1 Plans for the system development in the nearest future

The strategy of information technologies application in the sphere of Nature use and environmental protection for St. Petersburg, developed based on the project outcomes is attached in Annex 70. 9. COMMENTS ON FINANCIAL REPORT Exchange rate In accordance with Art 25.4 of the SAP only the euro (€) is used in the statement of expenditure and income. All payments made by the beneficiary in different currencies were converted by the beneficiary, using the exchange rate applied by the European Central Bank on the first day of the month in which the statement of expenditure and income is presented to the Commission (March 1, 2008). The exchange rate used for this report is:

1 EURO = 36,3920 RUB 1 EURO = 9,3683 SEK

VAT In Russia it could be possible to return VAT but the procedure of making sub-contract or invoice with no VAT takes up to 9-10 months, including visit to Moscow, so it was decided that all cost paid by the Beneficiary will be presented without VAT. It is totally the responsibility of the Beneficiary to cover VAT cost from its own budget. In the Final report VAT both for Beneficiary and Partner 4 Stockholm were subtracted from all costs, as Stockholm was not able to provide necessary documents. Partner 1 (Hamburg) and Partners 3 (Turku) provided necessary statements on VAT. (Annex F 1 to Financial report) Payment procedures For any sub-contract or invoice more than 2000 EURO the Beneficiary have to make tender (small if costs less that 7 000 EURO and big, if more than 7000 EURO) according to Russian law. Based on the tender results, state contract should be done. It is not possible to pay the whole sum of the contract costs at once. The payment procedure is split according to phases indicated in the contract. The payment will be done upon the acceptance of work signed by the contract sides. That is why for the same work several invoices presented according to the contract phases. Though the Beneficiary still have special bank account for the project in EUR, starting from June 2005 it did not have the corresponding bank account for RUB where the money have to be

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transferred after selling EUR. All money in RUB integrated into the City budget under the special budget line and budget code (90) and the Beneficiary make a request to the Financial Committee of the City Administration to make necessary payment. Some days later the Beneficiary received confirmation from the Financial Committee that the requested payment have been done (Annex F 2 to Financial report). Project costs Total project costs were 337 928,94 EUR, which is 93 % of the planned expenditures (Table F.1). Total eligible costs of the project is 331 215,87 EUR, which is 94 % of the planned expenditures (Table 2). However, the aims of the project have been fully reached, and all actions have been implemented at the full extent. Reasons of the discrepancy. Project budget was largely influenced by the permanently changing economic situation in Russia and legislative changes in sub-contracting system for state and municipal organization, as well as by changes of the exchange rate. The project aims were reached thanks to the strict and constant control of finances realised by the PIU and the Steering Committee as well due to professional and unselfish work of the project team.

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 Task 6 Task 7 Total %

Personnel 47349,57 43555,06 8868,44 16395,64 11571,10 13953,12 16893,38 158586,30 101%

Travel 8978,00 3512,32 5844,79 668,82 3140,10 0,00 4863,78 27007,81 76%

Ext. Assist 4306,70 14111,68 29787,19 30940,30 6182,03 17435,22 15788,44 118551,56 96%

Equipment 6713,07 6713,07 13426,14 79%

Consumables 1400,40 126,66 3725,90 173,22 5426,18 38%

Other costs 5 523,78 5 523,78 110%

Overheads 9407,19 9407,19 102%

Total 76965,63 61305,71 51213,49 58443,73 20893,23 31388,34 37718,82 337928,94 93%

% of planned 91% 99% 93% 85% 105% 94% 97%

Table F. 1. Summary on expenditures (total real costs)

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 Task 6 Task 7 Total %

Personnel 47349,57 43555,06 8868,44 16395,64 11571,10 13953,12 16893,38 158586,30 101%

Travel 8978,00 3512,32 5844,79 668,82 3140,10 0,00 4863,78 27007,81 76%

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Ext. Assist 4306,70 14111,68 29787,19 30940,30 6182,03 17435,22 15788,44 118551,56 96%

Equipment 3356,53 3356,54 6713,07 79%

Consumables 1400,40 126,66 3725,90 173,22 5426,18 38%

Other costs 5 523,78 5 523,78 110%

Overheads 9407,19 9407,19 102%

Total 76965,64 61305,72 47856,95 55087,20 22265,79 31388,33 37718,81 331215,89 94%

% of planned 91% 99% 103% 80% 105% 94% 97% 94%

Table F. 2. Summary on expenditures (eligible project costs) 3.2. Comments on budget categories. Personnel 101 % of the planned finances have been spent. Personnel expenditures were slightly exceeded while implementing in tasks 1, 5 and 7. That was mainly caused by the fact that the salaries of Russian team members grew since the beginning of the project up to 40%, besides changes in Russian financial procedures starting from June 2005 requested more time for organization of necessary tenders for sub-contracting. Task 5 turned to be much more time consuming, as no needs were identified in Task 2 for concrete reports and templates and the project team spend a lot of time developing reasonable forms for presenting information. Task 6 requested only half of foreseen personal expenses as it was decided that authorized experts to insure highest quality of trainings should provide training courses especially in GIS and MIS. Travel. 76% of the planned costs have been spent. It was possible to save finances of this category because several working group meetings were combined with Steering Committees; besides some of the visits by Western partners were replaced by telephone or e-mail contacts. Travel costs were saved also because of the strict control of finances. Project partner 2 –CEBANOR quitted the project and their travel costs (the most expensive traveling) were not used. External assistance. 96 % of the planned have been spent. Reasons for the savings were organization of tenders to find out the most cost-efficient solutions. All sub-contracts were made based on tender procedures in accordance to Russian legislation (for local sub-contracts) and according to Rules and Procedures for services, supply and works contracts financed from the General budget of the European Communities in the context of cooperation with third countries for Western sub-contracts. Durable goods. 79 % of the planned have been spent. Reasons for the savings were organization of tenders to find out the most cost-efficient solutions and very fast changes of prices in the computer market. Besides in Russia this sector of market uses to operate prices in USD, so due to the decrees of the rate price were lower that it was planned. Consumable materials. 38% of the planned have been spent mainly because of rather low price for satellite images due to tender procedures and because of national regulations in Hamburg and Turku, where these expenses are counted in the budget line Overheads.

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Other costs. 110% of the planned has been spent. This budget line was exceeded by 523,78 EUR mainly because of post expenses. Special P.O.Box for sending correspondence from and to Europe was used which allowed dramatically to speed-up information exchange and also to save money for traveling. Besides cost to post services also grew considerably since the beginning of the project. Nevertheless this discrepancy is still in the limits, permitted by rule of art. 13.2 of SAP. Overheads. 102 % of the planned costs have been spent. These expenditures were slightly exceeded due to the mistake made while preparing of the project proposal as none of the partners new the procedures of overhead counting in their offices before we started the project. 3.2. Comments on action categories. Task1. 91 % (91% of eligible costs) of the planned finances have been spent. All actions were implemented at the full extent. Main savings were on travel costs because of the strict control of finances and on consumables as all office materials purchased in the framework of the project were used only for preparation of project reports. Savings on external assistance and consumables were also possible due to tender procedures. Task 2. 99 % (99% of eligible costs) of the planned finances have been spent. All actions were implemented at the full extent. Some small savings on external assistance were possible due to tender procedures, while selecting sub-contractors. Task 3. 93% (103% of eligible costs) have been spent. All actions were implemented at the full extent. External assistance expenses were exceeded as it was necessary to sub-contract highly skilled computer experts for development of metadata management model and to hire Western European experts for assistance in development meta catalogue in accordance with ISO standards. Task 4. 85 % (80% of eligible costs) have been spent. All actions were implemented at the full extent though processing of the satellite images cost slightly more than we expected. Main savings were reached due to saving on travel costs, as partners’ visits to St. Petersburg were combined for tasks 3 & 4. Savings on external assistance and consumables (satellite images) were possible due to tender procedures. Task 5. 105 % (105% of eligible costs) have been spent. All actions were implemented at the full extent. Though the development of the set of indicators demanded much more working time of the team and also expensive external assistance was requested to provide desirable results. Task 6. 94 % (94% of eligible costs) have been spent, mainly due to the possibility to hire Russian experts for providing trainings. While submitting the project proposal we expected that we would need sub-contract with European organization for GIS and MIS authorized training but PIU found local experts who have license of ESRI for this type of trainings. All actions were implemented at the full extent. Task 7. 97 % (94% of eligible costs) have been spent. All actions were implemented at the full extent. External assistance expenses were exceeded as it was necessary to sub-contract highly skilled computer experts for the development of demonstration CD. Higher expenses in the budget line “personal” were due to the growth of salaries of Russian project team.

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3.3. Comments to financial part of interim report were following with the corresponding annexes are attached as a separate file to this report. 10. LIST OF ANNEXES ATTACHED TO THIS REPORT All necessary annexes were submitted in time with relevant reports, but some of them were later up-dated, because of the project development or revised in accordance with the comments to the reports.

Task № of Annex Name of Annex Comments

Task 1.3. 6 Proceedings of the 1st Steering Committee meeting revised

Task 7.3 11 Proceedings of Russian-Finnish workshop on databases and GIS-applications in environmental management

revised

Task 2.4 16 Road map for InfoCoSM (Information strategy) corrected

Task 3 22 GIS ToR revised

Task 3.5 23 Current state of online access to InfoCoSM resources and meta-catalogs project

up-dated

Task 5.1 24 Report on study visit to Turku revised

Task 5.2 25 Description of environmental indicators up-dated

Tasks 6.1 & 6.2

26 Report on GIS and MIS trainings up-dated

Task 7.2 27 Internet site www.infoeco.ru up-dated

Task7.1 28 Information to media up-dated

Task 1.3 45 Proceedings of the working groups meetings new

Task 5.5 48 Environmental Assessment and Reporting procedures

new

Task 1 49 Links to other related projects new

Tasks 4 &7 50 Reports on study visits to Hamburg revised

Task 7 51 Illustrations up-dated

Task 6.3 55 Reports on End-users’ trainings up-dated

Tasks 4 & 5

57 Web-services developed in the framework of the project

new

Task 4.6 58 State contract on the development of the Gridded feedback link service

new

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Task 4.6 59 Report on the Development of the Gridded feedback link service

new

Task 7.7 60 State contract on organization of Final Conference new

Task 7.7 61 Proceedings of the Final Conference new

Tasks 7.1 and 7.7

62 Special issue of the magazine “ARC REVIEW” with articles about the project

new

Task 1.3 63 Proceedings of the Final Steering Committee meeting, November 27-28, 2007

new

Task 7.6 64 Project booklet (Layman’s report) new

Task 6.4 65 End-user manual new

Task 7.5 66 Demonstration CD new

Task 7.3 67 Presentations for seminars with stakeholders new

Task 4.1 68 Satellite images new

Tasks 2.3 & 3.1

69 Interview proceedings new

Task 7 70 Strategy of information technologies application

in the sphere of nature use and environmental protection for St. Petersburg

new

Tasks 3 & 5

71 Description of geographical and relational databanks and relational databank for environmental indicators

new

Tasks 3 & 5

72 Examples of reporting templates new

Task 4 73 State contract for the delivery of satellite images new

11. LIST OF ANNEXES DELIVERED WITH PREVIOUS REPORTS The systemized numeration with fixed numbers of annexes started form Interim report/ progress report № 3.

Task Name of Annex In which report was annexed

№ of Annex

Task 1.1 Agreement with German partner Interim report 1

Task 1.1 Agreement with French partner Interim report 2

Task 1.1 Agreement with Finnish partner Interim report 3

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Task 1.1 Agreement with Sweden partner Interim report 4

Task 1.3 Steering Committee members Interim report 5

Task 1.3 Proceedings of the 2nd Steering Committee meeting

Interim report 7

Task1.3 Proceedings of the 3rd Steering Committee meeting

Interim report 8

Task 2.1 Legislative basis for environmental protection in Russia and partner countries (the place of local authorities in environmental protection solutions)

Interim report 9

Task 2.2 Legal responsibilities and environmental information needs of the district administrations of St Petersburg and of the self-governing municipal formations: environmental, social and economic issues

Interim report 10

Task 7.3 Proceedings of the conference “using of GIS for decisions making in the areas of nature using and environment protection”

Interim report 12

Task 7.3 Proceedings of the seminar “Informational support for environment protection in Saint-Petersburg”

Interim report 13

Task 2.2 & 2.3

The databases of main stakeholders

Interim report 14

Task 2.2 Questioner for the preparation of the Information strategy

Interim report 15

Task 3.2 Metadata management model Interim report 17

Task 3.3 The data dictionary Interim report 18

Task 3.3 How to connect to ArcSDE spatial database using OpenOffice and Microsoft Office suites

Interim report 19

Task 3.3 The metadata cards (examples) Interim report 20

Task3.2-3.4

Presentation of Meta data system Interim report 21

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Task 2.1 Contract on clarification of legal and administrative responsibilities (economist)

Interim report 29

Task 2.1 Contract on clarification of legal and administrative responsibilities (sociologist)

Interim report 30

Task 2.1 Contract on the technical assistance to prepare the study of economic and environmental issues and tradeoffs at stake in the area and preparation of the information strategy

Interim report 31

Task 3 Contract on technical assistance in the development of a metadata management model, validation of the model, introduction to metadata cards

Interim report 32

Tasks 4.2-4.3

Contract on satellite image processing (interpretation of satellite images)

Interim report 33

Task 4.4 –4.5

State contract on satellite image processing (scanning of exogenous data, digitalisation of ancillary data).

Interim report 34

Task 3 State contract on the development of a metadata management model, development of metadata cards

Interim report 35

Task 6 State contract on the organization of training in GIS and MIS

Interim report 36

Task 3.5 State contract on the development and support of on-line access to metadata catalogue

Interim report 37

Task 7.2 State contract on the development and support of the project web-site

Interim report 38

Task 1.1 Contract with project local manager assistant in 2005

Interim report 39

Task 1.1 Contract with project local manager assistant in 2006

Interim report 40

Task 3 Report on Data identification and elaboration of meta-data catalogue

Progress report N 4 41

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Task 3 On-line Metadata Editor Progress report N 4 42

Tasks 3 & 4

State contract on the delivery of software for the project


Task 3 & 4 State contract on the delivery of hardware for the project


Task 4.2-4.3

Report on the satellite image processing (interpretation


Task 4.4-4.5

Report on the satellite image processing (scanning of exogenous data, digitalisation of ancillary data)


Task 1.3 Proceedings of the Fourth Steering Committee meeting


Task 5 State contract with “Ladoga-Telecom” «Development of the system for providing environmental information to local authorities, municipalities and general public»


Tasks 4 & 5

Forming of Internet-resources to provide base for co-operation of local authorities on sustainable city management


Task 7.1 Episodes fro the TV programme “Green telephone”


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