 To manage resources for sustainability, environmental information must be obtained and made available to all parties involved. A vast amount of valuable environmental data resides in disparate databases and often few people beyond the data holders themselves have access to the datasets. A growing number of environmental monitoring projects now include a component to share datasets and data analyses with stakeholders. Battelle has responded to this need by developing a suite of Internet-based information sharing tools to meet the data access needs of three different types of stakeholders: resource managers, scientific investigators, and concerned citizens.
In general, resource managers need access to scientific reports that synthesize environmental monitoring data pertinent to the primary areas of concern. Scientific investigators often require access to individual sample data to perform a host of analyses. Additionally, concerned citizens want to view and query project data. Battelle’s Internet-based Information Exchange System can meet any combination of these needs for a wide variety of environmental monitoring data. Battelle developed a Web-based tool that delivers information in three distinct ways:
For the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Gulf of Mexico Program, Battelle developed a host of programs to facilitate the project data needs. Several public health issues in the Gulf of Mexico region threaten local ecology, human health, and wildlife, including the potential health risks posed by methylmercury in locally harvested seafood. For more than a decade, several state and federal agencies have sampled and analyzed edible muscle tissue from fish and shellfish for mercury. Access to these monitoring datasets varies widely among agencies, and little data sharing occurs in the region. Battelle designed and implemented the Gulfwide Mercury Analysis Project for the Gulf of Mexico Program, providing Internet-based access to:
The Gulfwide Mercury Analysis Project “allows the Gulf community to investigate the occurrence of mercury in fish and shellfish at a level that just wasn’t possible before,” says Gulf of Mexico Program Project Officer, Dr. Fred Kopfler. Battelle’s Internet-based Information Exchange System can be deployed using a variety of Web servers and database systems, with or without firewall and password access restrictions. In addition to the EPA, Battelle has delivered Internet-based data access to the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, and the St. John’s River Water Management District. For more information on Battelle’s Web-based technologies, please contact Ned Morse at (781) 952-5362, morsen@battelle.org. 
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The Interactive Data Mapper (IDM) allows any user to query the Gulfwide Mercury in Tissue Database, view the individual records from this query in a table, and create a GIS-based map of the query results. Zoom features allow users to closely view areas of interest. Several map analysis functions allow users to categorize sampling site data by user-defined intervals and spatially select and display data associated with each site using color ranges and bar charts.