TEMSIS — a transnational system for public information and environmental decision support

TEMSIS — Transnational Environmental Management Support and Information System is intended to be a tool for transnational co-operation between the communities in the German–French urban agglomeration, Moselle-Est/Stadtverband Saarbrücken. Its main objective is to integrate existing information platforms of local environmental authorities in Germany and France, to support information exchange and thus strengthen the co-operation which is necessary to solve common problems. An important aspect is to inform the public very early if planning activities start, to create intensive discussions among all involved participants and thus to make decisions transparent. This methodology completely conforms with the EU guideline of 1990, which allows all citizens free access to environmental information. The project is funded by the Telematics Applications Programme of the European Community. The content of this paper was carried out in co-operation with all partners of the project. This article sets the focus on the description of the distributed architecture and on the integration issues in the project.