Wikipedista:Helka001/CENIA, czech environmental information agency

CENIA, Czech Environmental Information Agency, is a contributing organization to the Ministry of the Environment. CENIA’s mission is to collect, evaluate and interpret environmental information and to provide to the professional and general public. CENIA cooperates with all data providers in the environmental sector as well as with a number of research, scientific or university workplaces, as well as participating in the development and provision of selected data and map services and is the operator of a number of information systems. CENIA uses its expertise in the preparation of national evaluation documents and strategic and conceptual materials created by the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Rep. Various individual teams of staff cooperate in national, as well as international projects, CENIA also has a well profiled position in the field of science and research. In the Czech Republic, CENIA is the main contact point for the European Environment Agency (EEA) and is actively involved within the European Environment Information and Observation Network (Eionet). At the same time, it is also the National Contact Point for INSPIRE Directive activities (European Spatial Information Infrastructure) and is the representative body for the European Ecolabel Scheme - the Ecolabel of the EU and the Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS).

History

CENIA's first predecessor was the Computational and Experimental Laboratory (VEL), back in the early 1970s. This was then transformed into the Rationalization and Experimental Laboratory (REL), which, at the time, operated a mainframe computer and engaged in the sale of machine time and programming. Shortly after the establishment of the Ministry of the Environment in January 1990, the REL was transformed into the Center for Environmental Information (CEI), with the task of creating a Single Environmental Information System in the Czech Republic. Its most important activity was the publication of the Environmental Yearbook, from the very beginning, which has been extended since 1996 to the Czech/English Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic. As of 1 April 1992, the CEI was transformed into the Czech Ecological Institute (ČEÚ), which also provided a number of other tasks, such as environmental education and awareness raising, voluntary environmental protection instruments, environmental economics, environmental impact assessments, environmental risks, and other activities. The ČEÚ prepared documents for state environmental policy and was one of the first workplaces in the Czech Republic to introduce the use of e-mail and the Internet. An important extension of the ČEÚ's competence was its establishment as the governing agency for Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) and the Integrated Pollution Register (IRZ). On 1 April 2005, CENIA, the Czech Environmental Information Agency, was established on the basis of the decision of the Minister of the Environment of the Czech Republic. The name CENIA is abbreviated to the English transcription: Czech ENvironmental Information Agency. The agency’s dandelion flower logo describes the agency's main mission: To be the center of information that has a solid foundation, but is easily expanded.

Activities

The basic purpose of CENIA is to carry out synthesis based research in the field of ecology and environmental care and professional support for state administration performance, especially in the area of integrated prevention. The main activities and outputs of the organisation are: 1. Environmental monitoring, which aims at collecting, coordinating and providing quality information on the environment and natural resources. 2. Support for strategic management, the subject of which is the creation of selected indicator sets and preparation of comprehensive evaluation documents, in particular the Environmental Report of the Czech Republic, the Environment Report in the Regions of the Czech Republic (the so-called Regional Reports) and the Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic. 3. Management of selected information systems that collect, validate, process and publish data from relevant areas of the environment. 4. Professional support for state administration performancethrough coordination and unification of the IPPC process in the Czech Republic, the organisation of EIA / SEA expertise and the Integrated Pollution Register (IRZ). 5. Other activities CENIA mediates the awarding of eco-labels to Eco-friendly products/services and EU Eco-labels, and also administers the EMAS process. It also runs the Local Agenda 21 (MA21) Portal / Database to provide information on the implementation of MA21 in the Czech Republic and provide municipalities with a tool for presenting the MA21 process level that they fulfill. 6. Project activity CENIA fulfills the mission of the Environmental Information Agency also by implementing national and international projects. The objective of the project activity is to support and develop CENIA's professional agendas and capacities.

External links

CENIA website Publications Information System of Statistics and Reporting ISSaR ISPOP reporting system Waste Management Information System ISOH EIA / SEA Information System EnviHELP Helpdesk Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control IPPC Integrated Pollution Register IRZ Ecolabelling and EMAS Local Agenda 21 MA21 Current projects