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Environmental informatics (EI) is a developing field of science that applies information processing, management, and sharing strategies to the interdisciplinary field of environmental science. Applications include the integration of information and knowledge, the application of computational intelligence to environmental data, and the identification of the environmental impacts of information technology. EI helps scientists define information processing requirements, analyze real-world problems, and solve those problems using informatics methodologies and tools.

As EI has continued to evolve, several other definitions have been offered over the years. Some consider it "an emerging field centering around the development of standards and protocols, both technical and institutional, for sharing and integrating environmental data and information." Others consider it the application of "[r]esearch and system development focusing on the environmental sciences relating to the creation, collection, storage, processing, modelling, interpretation, display and dissemination of data and information."

Environmental informatics emerged roughly around the late 1980s in Central Europe. For example, in 1986 Germany's Gesellschaft für Informatik (Society for Computer Science) created the technical committee Informatik im Umweltschutz (Computer Science in Environmental Protection) dedicated to "the whole spectrum of subjects related to informatics in environmental protection." (Full article...)

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