CONCEPTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF A SYSTEM USED TO ORGANIZE AND FACILITATE ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION

In Sao Paulo State's ) coastal area, Brazil, for several years, a chemical company discharged, without any sort of environmental control, a blend of industrial waste composed of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). Lawsuits forced the company to identify and limit such deposits in order to perform the environmental recovery. A recovery project was developed demanding preparation and handling of a large amount of documents, satellite images, aerial photographs, maps and videos with the increase of the information and knowledge management issues. This condition became even more critical as the projects started to become cross-disciplinary, involving a growing number of experts, many of them established in different cities. These circumstances led to develop an Environmental Information System (BASGEO) enabling the organization and facilitation of access to such documents while increasing information safety. This work shows the development of this system and the difficulties related to the management and handling of environmental documents. The research method used was the direct observation of the system development and the semi-structured interview conducted with executives and administrative employees of the company. The results show several gains provided by the BASGEO, improving and accelerating access to information, significantly reducing the need for displacements to transport documents, thus reflecting increased safety.