1. BACKGROUND 
The Venezuelan Ministry of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources 
(Ministerio del Ambiente y de los Recursos Naturales Renovables - MARNR), 
is responsible for the collection, processing, storage, and communication 
of data and information* on the environment and natural renewable 
resources. The data and information falling in MARNR's jurisdiction have 
to be obtained for inventorying the natural renewable resources, 
monitoring the environmental conditions including environmental hazards 
and disasters, enforcement of environmental legislation, planning of 
rural, urban, and industrial development, planning and designing various 
projects, and monitoring the environmental effects of various developments. 
Basically, MARNR is responsible for obtaining data in the areas of air and 
water resources (meteorology, hydrology, hydrogeology, water quality), and 
land resources (topography, soil, vegetation, wild life and land use). 
MARNR has accumulated during its existence, and inherited from its 
predecessors, a considerable amount of data in the fields of interest. 
However, in view of the dynamic character of these surveys wich require 
continuous observations as in the case of meteorology, hydrology, water 
quality and vegetation, or periodical updating as in the case of 
topography, the needs of various users have not always been completely 
satisfied, in spite of very significant accomplishments of MARNR. Due to 
significant budgetory limitations experienced in the past years, 
significant amounts of data collected and inherited have not yet been 
processed in a manner satisfactory to the users. Furthermore, as many 
users become more and more sophisticated from the viewpoint of their 
capacity of data processing through computer automation, MARNR, in spite 
of recent improvements which include the introduction of computer centers, 
is lagging badly in the collection, processing, storage and communication 
of data in digital format. 
*) Data are defined as quantitative measurements of physical and other 
characteristics of processes of interest, information is the result 
of processing of data to obtain values that can be used in decision 
making and management. 
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