Hydroinformatics for control, management and risk assessment

Under the influence of its increasingly widespread use of intranets (even though for the most part still based upon the Internet) hydroinformatics is changing character. This tendency to change is strengthened by the rapidly increasing use of such language innovations as Java, with its host of supporting tools. The products of hydroinformatics change accordingly, from such model-based constructs as forecasting, real-time control, diagnostic and data-quality-control systems to more multi-dimensional constructs, such as distributed environmental impact assessment and decision support systems, in which large numbers of interested parties become empowered as stakeholders in the management of water based assets. The social dimension thereby becomes increasingly represented in its relation to the technical dimension. Put very simply: instead of the other-knowledge and data being made available for the operation of hydraulic and environmental engineering knowledge, it is the hydraulic and environmental engineering knowledge that is increasingly being made available for the operation of other kinds of knowledge and data. Different interest groups have different, and frequently conflicting, demands for data and the way in which this is processed by technical knowledge, and these differences play an increasingly vital role in the design of hydroinformatics systems. The seminar, which will be supported by products from European vendors in the hydroinformatics market, will illustrate this tendency.