Work conducted within REORIENT, a Sixth Framework project for the European Commission (EC), is described. One objective of REORIENT was to explain the status of transformation of the European railway sector into a functionally integrated, interoperable system. The status of interoperability within and between 11 countries in a corridor stretching from Greece to the Nordic countries was assessed, and conditions in the countries that appear to be barriers to achieving interoperability were identified. Barriers were defined as shortcomings in conditions that would facilitate the implementation of requirements presumed by the EC to lead to seamless international freight transport (implementation conditions). The primary data source for the analysis was a set of interviews with the major actors and stakeholders associated with each country's rail freight system. The qualitative information from the interviews was translated into numeric scores, which were subjected to statistical analysis. The objective of the statistical analysis was to provide an assessment of the relationships between the requirements and the implementation conditions. The statistical analysis involved both the identification of relevant relationships and an assessment of the strength of these relationships. A Barrier Significance Score (BSS) was computed for each country and for each implementation condition. These scores were used to assess the relative importance of barriers across the studied countries and to identify the most critical barriers to be removed in order to improve interoperability. Very large differences in BSSs were found between countries. In general, there are fewer barriers in Nordic countries and more barriers in the south.

A comprehensive, integrated system of 50 models was developed to evaluate policies that include mixes of building new facilities and changing operating rules to improve water supply, as well as adjusting prices and regulations to reduce demands. Analysis performed with the system resulted in a new national water management policy, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in investment expenditures and reducing agricultural damage by about $15 million per year, while decreasing thermal and algae pollution. The methodology was adopted by the Dutch government and has been used to train water resource planners from many nations.

The theme of the present discussion is to consider coastal observation needs in the broader context of a sustainable, integrated management response to coastal change. Thus underlining the notion that observations are an element of a more comprehensive process. We will therefore first explore the process of ICZM, and find that deficits in international co-ordination and concertation are large. An overview of salient coastal zone issues emphasises the spatial, spectral and temporal diversity of observational needs, which is concluded to be an important reason for the relative underdevelopment of coastal zone observation systems. A "global" coastal observation effort should give due consideration to these aspects, and aim to help resolve this in concertation with national and international institutions carrying responsibility for a sustainable development of the coastal zone. The interpretation of the meaning of global appears to be twofold, global in the sense of a generic, universal need (although many coastal problems are local), and global in the sense of institutionalisation and co-ordination on a global level. IntroductionWhere water meets the land, global change is perhaps most conspicuous to mankind. The dynamics of the land water interface are intense, not only due to natural causes, but also due to human exploitation of coastal resources. The central question that this paper intends to answer is whether a sustainable response aimed at combating negative global coastal change will benefit from a "global" coastal observation effort. Undoubtedly, the answer to this question is positive, but this is not as trivial as it appears. A focus on the true needs develops from viewing the nature of the process which is central in developing ICZM (Integrated Coastal Zone Management), and from there on the role of observations in this process. By reiterating the main problems that we face in coastal regions we are able to derive those observational needs that should be central in the context of a global effort. When receiving the invitation to present this paper, the request was to focus on the needs of developing countries, but we would argue that there exist only gradual differences between the needs of developed and developing countries.

No abstract

No abstract