Why Environmental Informatics?

This web site is being updated to emphasize application of state-of-the-art research and best practices for collecting, managing, analyzing, visualizing, and communicating environmental data and information.

With an undergraduate natural science degree and a Ph.D. emphasizing the human side of computer information systems, I have seen many examples of miscommunications between scientists and information technology experts. For example, not many IT personnel would design a database or other information system that would handle the various nuances of dissolved oxygen measurement techniques, or even know that which one was used can be important. I have seen spreadsheets created by scientists for recording/analyzing data that were organized in manner that a talented IT person would quickly recoginze as flawed becuase the design made it unnecessarily difficult to analyze the data.

A goal for this web site is to help bridge the gap between scientists generating data and IT professionals skilled in data management. Scientists will find examples and guidance for using techniques that will help them better manage the data. IT personnel will similarly find examples that illustrate and explain some of the complexities of scientific data that are not common to business-oriented IT systems.

The main sections of this site address those goals and needs:

• The Environmental Data section mainly contains examples of databases, information systems, and web pages that use a variety of techniques and follow guidelines for a high quality user experience. Each example includes a view of the final result and a discussion of the design decisions that contributed to its success. For most, there is a an outline of how to do something similar with your own data.
• The Information Technology section intrduces topics such as databases, GIS (Geographic Information Systems), and information visualization as well as broader topics of user interface (UI) improvement, application integration, and web services.
• The Maryland Nature section provides additional resources for nature topics related to environmental informatics projects I have done or of particular personal interest, including those I have presented at conferences, workshops, and field trips.
• The Consulting section is currently the prior version of this site that primarily focused on environmental informatics consulting.