Application of GIS and Web technologies for Danube waterway data management in Croatia

The paper gives a general description of the Danube waterway data management in Croatia. For this purpose, we initiated the development of a specialized geographic information system (GIS), the so called River IS, which provides efficient waterway related data management for the Croatian part of the Danube River. In addition, Croatian activities in the Pan-European Programme Consortium Operational Management Platform River Information Services (COMPRIS) and INTERREG project Data Warehouse for the Danube Waterway (D4D) are described. Greatest emphasis is placed on our research how to solve the major problems identified by “GIS Forum Danube” expert groups. We present our solutions to two important D4D project objectives. The first project objective concerns preparation of national GIS data of the participating countries in the world geodetic WGS84 coordinates as well as checking the transnational compatibility of GIS data. The second important project objective concerns development of a commonly agreed catalogue of object types and their attributes necessary to describe waterway related data. For example, the conversion of the Croatian national geographic data into Inland ECDIS digital navigation maps is described. 1. General information about River Information Services The “GIS Forum Danube” was founded in 1997 as a trilateral working group by the waterway directorates from Germany, Austria and Slovakia. Since 1999 the Group has been accepted by the Danube Commission as a Working Group (Danube Commission 2005). Hungary joined in 2000, Croatia in 2002 and finally Romania and the Ukraine in 2003, while Serbia & Montenegro approached the initiative in 2004. The “GIS Forum Danube” aims at more intensive exchange of geographic data and closer cooperation in terms of the waterway management along the Danube River. In 1998, the European Union initiated the development of the concept of River Information Services (RIS) that describes all kind of information services for inland navigation. RIS constitutes a concept of harmonized information services to support traffic and transport management in inland navigation, including interfaces to other transport modes. A suitable framework for the international exchange of RIS related information has to be established (European Commission 2005). For that purpose, the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become crucial. ICT is an important instrument to enable efficient waterway management. European Union research support can be found in each phase of RIS progress. Several research and development projects focused on RIS initiatives have worked continually on the technological developments, system integrations, standardization, international cooperation and networking (European Commission 2005). For example, the pan-European programme Consortium Operational Management Platform River Information Services (COMPRIS) is a FP5 Programme which started in 2002. COMPRIS deals with the pan-European standardization and piloting of RIS, which is a prerequisite for full installation of RIS 1 Division for Marine & Environmental Research of the Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Bijenicka 54, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia, Phone: 00385-1-4561140, Fax: 00385-1-4680117, E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] EnviroInfo 2005 (Brno) Informatics for Environmental Protection Networking Environmental Information Copyright © Masaryk University Brno, Brno 2005. ISBN: 80-210-3780-6