The Great Lakes Regional Environmental Information System (GLREIS)

Philip Meier
Interdisciplinary Data Resources
Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
phil.meier@qm.ciesin.org

The Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network
(CIESIN), in cooperation with the U.S. EPA, has developed an
environmental information system providing public access to
information, data and data utilities relevant to the Great Lakes
Region.  The Great Lakes Regional Environmental Information System
(GLREIS) utilizes the World-Wide Web (WWW) to provide a user-friendly
interface to hypertext "guides to information", documents, databases,
and several CIESIN-developed software applications that facilitate data
identification, acquisition, and utility.  The "guides" provide
descriptions of data sets, organizations and initiatives pertaining to
the Great Lakes.  CIESIN-developed applications include the CIESIN
Gateway, several unique map servers, the Land Transformation Model and
a Decision Support System.

The CIESIN Gateway is a distributed information system that provides
the capability to locate and retrieve metadata and data from a "virtual
archive" of globally distributed data servers.  The Gateway speeds the
task of locating and acquiring metadata and data by providing a
parallel search capability.

The map servers provide interactive mapping of user-selected U.S.
Census population and housing variables (STF3), and select EPA Great
Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) GIS coverages and databases.
These map servers were developed using SAS and ARC/INFO, respectively.

The Decision Support System (DSS) prototype provides analysis tools
including modeling, simulation, and visualization for  water quality
management at the watershed level.  One of the tools available through
the DSS is the Land Transformation Model (LTM).  The LTM analyzes how
past decisions on land use have influenced present land use change
patterns.  By integrating variables pertaining to socioeconomics,
ecological succession, pollution potential, hydrology, and ecosystem
integrity within a GIS framework, future land use change can be
projected.

The Great Lakes Regional Environmental Information System is the
paradigm for ongoing and planned CIESIN activities in other large
geographic regions, such as the U.S.-Mexico border area, the Chesapeake
Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Northwest.

GLREIS accessible at:  http://epawww.ciesin.org