The Dutch environmental information and planning system (in Dutch: RIM): a tool for policy analysis

Abstract

For the evaluation of alternative future scenarios for emissions of pollutants and costs of abatement strategies at the national level an interactive computer system has been developed for butch environmental policy makers: the Environmental Information and Planning System (in Dutch: RIM). The scenarios are built upon data on economic growth, energy consumption, emission factors of activities in different sectors and abatement measures. These basic data are stored in a database built with the commercially available package Informix and can easily be retrieved by a menudriven system or the Informix-query language. Scenario calculations are performed by a programme written in a C-ESQL interface. After specifying an abatement strategy and running the calculation programme the user can choose from a variety of tabular or graphical output options. Separate modules are being developed for important sectors like traffic and agriculture. While advantages of the system are flexibility and a large number of user options, these advantages and the combination of both model and information function in one system have a negative effect on overall system performance.