Eionet: European Information and Observation Network
The Eionet network was created
in 1990 by the same community regulation which founded the EEA. It is
the essential tool for synthesising environmental information at a European
scale from national data.
The members of the network are:
European : the five European Topic Centres designated by the EEA
National :
The National Focal Points
(NFP) : each of the EEA Member states has designated an institution
to co-ordinate the collection of environmental information at national
level. The NFP is the principal correspondent of the EEA in each
country.
Main Component Elements (MCE): each of the EEA member states
has identified institutions able to provide data in each field relevant
to the environment (water quality, nature & biodiversity, soils,
etc.).
National Reference Centres (NRC): In
each country one of the MCEs has been designated to co-ordinate,
synthesise and standardise at national level the data from the other
MCE working on the same topic. Thus, in each country, there is one
NRC for each main environment topic. The NRCs within each country
are co-ordinated by its NFP.
The circulation of information whithin Eionet is made possible by the
use of Circle and Eionet
Nature Protection and Biodiversity Circle Interest Group.
The ETCs work closely with the corresponding NRCs.
The MNHN (France) is both the coordinator of the ETC/BD consortium and
the French NRC for nature & biodiversity.