ABSTRACT
One of the general foci of environmental research is currently the degradation of semi-arid and Mediterranean environments, as they are considered to be vulnerable and fragile ecosystems (Perez-Trejo, 1994; Imeson, 1995), which certainly are affected by socioeconomic driven perturbations (Leeuw, 1994, 1995) and possibly also by climatic change (Palutikof, 1994). In environmental research projects, such as in MEDALUS (Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use) large quantities of high quality data are gathered as these projects cover large areas and deal with complex interdisciplinary research questions (Brandt and Thornes, 1996). Working in large research teams also requires the possibility of exchange of large data sets between the research participants, and the dissemination of data into the scientific and public domains. The problem with most of the existing data sets is that they are usually difficult to access and are formatted in many different binary and non-binary forms. To be able to benefit fully from these resources, data need to be both accessible and transparent. It is obvious that data on environmental research should be stored or presented with their geographical reference (for example, connected to a map) or with their specific coordinates.
