| The Water Framework Directive (WFD) poses an immense challenge to water
management in Europe. Aiming at a "good ecological status" of surface waters
in 2015, integrated river basin management plans need to be in place by 2009,
and broadly supported by stakeholders. Information & Communication
Technology (ICT) tools, such as computational models, are very helpful in
designing river basin management plans (rbmp-s). However, many scientists
believe that a single integrated modelling system to support the WFD cannot
be developed, and integrated systems need to be quite tailored to the local
situation and evolve during a collaborative planning process. As a
consequence there is an urgent need to increase the flexibility of modelling
systems, such that dedicated model systems can be developed from available
building blocks. In the recent past a number of initiatives have been started
to develop an IT framework for modelling to meet the required flexibility.
In Europe the international project HarmonIT, which is sponsored by the
European Commission, is developing and implementing a standard interface for
modelling components and other relevant tools: The Open Modelling Interface
(OpenMI). This paper describes the HarmonIT project and objectives in
general. The current progress is described. It describes the roles for
different types of stakeholders in modelling, varying from software coders to
non-specialized users of decision support systems. It will provide insight in
the requirements imposed when using the OpenMI. |