5 CONCLUSIONS

The purpose of this thesis was to analyze the SoE reporting on the Internet as a way of communicating information on the environment to a wide audience in order to help the process of decision-making and raising of awareness. It had two aims: the first was to show a possible way of creation of a Web site containing information on the environment; the second was to present the most common environmental indicators used in SoE reports in the Region and in some international reports, as well as to show some ways of graphical presentation of the chosen indicators in order to give ideas in which way information can be presented in electronic SoE reports.

In order to achieve thesis aims, a comparison of the Web sites containing SoE reports for 13 CEE countries was performed. This comparison consisted of two steps. First, ten different characteristics in Web site design were examined and compared with the recommended ones. Second, further comparison went deeper into the structure of the reports, examining the coverage of the environmental issues, problems, and indicators, as well as ways of their graphical presentation.

The contribution of the GRID Arendal to the process of creating SoE reports on the Internet is, without any doubt, a large step forward in improving their accessibility and usability of information. However, analysis of their quality has never before been performed. Therefore, the comparison made in this work presents the first effort to draw attention to this aspect of SoE reporting on the Internet. It has showed that mistakes in Web page design are often made, and that it is necessary to pay much more attention to correct them in the future. This especially means improving the structure of reports, explanation of scientific terms, simplicity and quality of graphical presentation, as well as navigation. This should be treated very seriously, if reporters want the information they produce to really influence public attitude.

In order to suggest how to present this information and avoid the mistakes in design, a sample Web site has been prepared. It offers a pattern which can be followed when presenting information on the environment on the Web. However, it does not aim to be a final solution, and will be developed further as well as included in future research of usability of environmental Web sites.

Further comparison of the reports proved that it is possible to find a small number of common indicators for the majority of the issues and countries. However, the process of their harmonization should be continued. In addition, graphical presentation of the indicators in electronic reports should be regarded as a very important issue in communicating information, and should be improved. Finally, as a result of the research, tables with all used and proposed indicators in 15 CEE countries were produced. They represent a contribution to the already existing collection made by Denisov, Mnatsakanian, and Semichaevski (UNEP/CEU 1997).

A very significant issue the thesis touched upon has been the relationship between issues, problems, and indicators. It is very important to understand that all issues and problems influence each other. Accordingly, the research pointed out that many indicators can be applied to describe more than one problem in SoE reports. This is where the Internet should be used as an excellent tool for making cross-references: links enable users to quickly and smoothly switch between different issues and problems represented by the same indicator, without looking into the table of contents or flipping pages.

From this point of view, it can be expected that the popularity of the Internet will continue to grow in the future, and that it will become cheaper and more accessible for the majority of people in CEE countries. It is also likely that SoE reporting on the Internet will become a very serious way of informing and educating a wide audience. But first it is essential to properly understand the way in which it should be used and the advantages it has over printed publications. SoE reporting on the Internet has to be carefully planned in order to make the most of the opportunities it offers. Only in this way can we expect that it will perform its purpose of educating, informing, raising of awareness, and changing people's attitude towards the environment, in order to enable them to improve the quality of life. This thesis represents the initial contribution to this future work.