Information System for Monitoring the Living Environment - ELYSE

The Information System for Monitoring the Living Environment is aimed at obtaining an overall picture of the state of the living environment and being able to monitor changes over time and from one area to another. The living environment is defined as the area in which people live their daily lives and includes factors that influence the living conditions in the built environment. Under the Land Use and Building Act of Finland, the authorities have been obliged since the beginning of the year 2000 to monitor land use and the built environment.

ELYSE contains statistical data on 12 monitoring themes, which are broken down into more precise monitoring indicators. The monitoring themes are:

1. Population
2. Land use and community structure
3. Buildings and the built cultural environment
4. Housing
5. Services
6. Jobs
7. Landscape and the natural environment
8. Recreational areas
9. Traffic
10. Municipal infrastructure and energy
11. Environmental hazards
12. The social environment

The first version of the information system was taken into use in spring 2003 with four of the 12 monitoring themes: population, buildings, housing and services. The development of the system will continue in 2005-2006.

Source data for the system is taken from different national registers and geographical datasets. The monitoring areas cover both administrative divisions and functional areas such as densely populated areas, sparsely populated areas and residential areas. The indicators for the administrative divisions are updated every year, and for the functional areas, every five years beginning from the year 2000.

As a part of the Finnish Environmental Information System (Hertta), ELYSE has a browser-based user interface. ELYSE serves first of all the Ministry of the Environment and the 13 regional environment centres in their work, but via an extranet it can also be used by regional councils, municipalities and other authorities. The system has been built and is maintained by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

For more information:

Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Data and Information Centre, Geoinformatics and Land Use Division

• Help desk of the information systems for land use:
  service@ymparisto.fi [replace service with alu_tuki]
  
• Ms. Kaisu Harju, Expert (Land Use and GIS)
  tel: + 358 9 40300 657
  e-mail: firstname.surname@ymparisto.fi [kaisu harju]