Andri Baltensweiler • Martin Brändli

Within an ongoing research project called "Data Center for Nature and Landscape (DNL)" a Web-based platform for visualizing and analysing environmental data with the special feature of comprehensive metadata handling and communication was developed. A particular research focus is the database design and Web communication of lineage metadata in order to comprehensively describe the origin of stored datasets. Departing from a detailed list of requirements for an Internet GIS solution, an architecture and implementation of an on-line communication platform was derived. The implementation is based on the Web components of the Java 2 platform and integrates ESRI’s Internet mapping software ArcIMS.

Experiences from a first prototype implementation show that providing metadata, in particular lineage information, enables environmental data exploration in a temporal, spatial and semantic context which is thoroughly accessible to the user.