The Danish Nature and Environment Portal (DMP) is a result of the municipal reform and was established on January 1st 2007, as a partnership between the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark, Danish Regions and the Ministry of the Environment. The aim is to ensure mutual access to a number of data on the environment, to develop new mutual data areas, as well as enhancing mutual digital administration - benefitting all environmental authorities, as well as the public in general.
Presently, DMP manages mutual data solutions for the authorities on the surface water area, the subsoil water area and the nature area, as well as a mutual public Area Information. In addition, an advanced user control with associated role control, where more than 10,000 public users can access 15-20 technical systems depending on which role (rights) they have been assigned.
Area Information is the most significant solution of public interest and is visited daily by more than 2000 unique users.
DMP is headed by a board, consisting of two members from each of the partners and an observer from the Digital Task Force under the Ministry of Finance. The annual budget is approximately 40 million DKK of which about 25 million DKK covers the management of DMP (salaries, rent and operation of data solutions) and approximately 15 million DKK is allocated development.
The municipalities pay 45%, the state pays 45% and the regions pay the remaining 10%.
The Secretariat consists of 11 persons in total.
Our daily work is greatly influenced by the fact that the construction in its essence is a voluntary partnership. DMP is not a statutory office, but a secretariat based on a voluntary collaboration with an appurtenant agreement on responsibility of data after which the parties commit themselves and each other to share specified data on specified parts of the Danish Environment and Nature Portal. Here, it is for example stated that the municipalities are responsible for the instructive registration of protected areas under the law for Protection of Nature Section 3 - and that they must register this record on the Danish Environment and Nature Portal.
The Secretariat is very young - 2 years this New Year. This leads to great dynamism: There is nothing "we normally do" - but this also means that we have a limited number of routines to lean on in everyday life.
Specifically, we have inherited a number of data solutions from the counties - especially on the subsoil water area - which from the beginning were not designed to be used on a national level. And, therefore, require a major effort in the daily management of the Portal.
The daily work is organized around five groups for each of the five main topics of the Portal and 15 user groups, where the "customers" - meaning the users - meet on a regular basis. This way we ensure a constant dialogue with the people, who actually need to use our systems. The databases, however, are placed outside our offices - thus DMP has entered into contracts with the Ministry of Environment's Centre for Administration of Departmental Offices (CFK), GEUS, the Map- and Land Register, the National Environmental Research Institute and a number of private companies. And as the portal has had a flying start, many of the systems are being developed while under operation.
We are in the process of implementing service-oriented architecture (SOA), as the main concept. In practice, this means that we develop a layer of so-called web services, which enable the authorities' executive systems to operate directly with our databases - without having to log-in to the portal.
The ordinary citizen will still be able to access a website called www.miljoeportal.dk - because everyone should be able to find relevant environmental data for his/her own area in a smooth and quick way via the Web. The ambition is that the website for the citizens will be much more sophisticated over the years to come - so one can make individual searches to suit ones personal needs. For instance, the angler would like to know something about the flow in the nearby stream, the weekend cottage buyer would like to find information on local plans and protective lines - and parents to small infants would like to learn about the quality of drinking water in the area, where they are looking for a flat.