POINTER PROJECT
Report on Environment Case Studies
Environmental Terminology in Italian
State of the art
By
B. Felluga, F. Mazzocchi, S. Lucke, P.Plini, M. Pàlmera
© Reparto Ricerca e Documentazione Ambientale
Istituto Tecnologie Biomediche
CNR, Rome
1995
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Editing and translation by Aquilegia S. r. l., Rome
Copyright @ EU - EC DG-XIII, Brussels, 1995
Environmental Terminology in Italian
i
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Content
1.
2.
2.1.
2.1.1.
2.1.2.
2.1.3.
2.1.4.
2.1.5.
2.1.6.
2.1.7.
2.1.7.1.
2.1.7.2.
2.1.7.3.
2.1.7.4.
2.1.7.5.
2.1.7.6.
2.1.7.7.
2.1.7.8.
2.1.8.
2.1.9
2.2.
2.2.1.
2.2.2.
2.2.3.
2.2.4.
2.3.
3.
4.
5.
Page
Foreword
1
Environmental terminology
2
Environmental terminology in Italian
2
CNR activities
4
The Inventory of the CNR Environmental Research Projects
7
The Bilingual Descriptor System
10
The Bilingual Glossary of Environmental Terms
16
The Thesaurus Ambientale
16
The “Trilingual” and “Quadrilingual” Thesaurus for the Environment
16
The INFOTERRA Thesaurus of Environmental Terms
23
The Italian Terminological Reference System for the Environment and its links
27
with EEA CDS
The Italian Thesaurus for the Environment
27
The NBOI-CNR Multilingual Thesaurus for the Environment, for EEA CDS
31
The Classification Scheme for SINA
32
The CNR-NBOI Classification Scheme of the Multilingual Thesaurus for the
32
Environment, for EEA CDS
The Descriptor System for the Managament of Information on Nature
34
Conservation
The Descriptor System for the Management of Information of the Alpine
34
Convention
The Annex of Italian Geographical Names
35
The Annex of Italian Organisms (Birds)
35
CNR activities in Milan: the Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences
36
ANDREA, a project of the CNR Institute of Psychology on Environmental
37
Education
Environmental terminology in Italian: other activities
37
AGROVOC
39
FAO Terminology Bulletins
40
The of Logos
41
PROGETERM, the terminological data base of SNAMPROGETTI
41
Environmental terminology in Italian at European level: EURODICAUTOM
43
Conclusions
43
Notes
43
References
44
Environmental Terminology in Italian
ii
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
List of acronyms
Ass.I.Term :
CDS:
CIRT:
Associazione Italiana di Terminologia, the Italian Terminology Association
Catalogue of Data Sources
Centro Italiano di Riferimento Terminologico, the Italian Reference Centre for general
Terminology of Ass.I.Term
COGEODOC: Commission of Geological Documentation of the International Union of Geological Sciences
CORINE:
Co-ordination of Research and Information Network on the Environment, of EEA-TF
CNR:
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche / National Resarch Council, Rome
EC:
European Commission
EEA:
European Environmental Agency, Copenhagen (after October 1994)
EEA-CDS:
Catalogue of Data Sources of EEA
EEA-ETC:
EEA Environmental Topic Centre
EEA-TF:
European Environmental Agency - Task Force, Brussels (until October 1994)
EET:
European Environmental Thesaurus
ETC/CDS:
European Thematic/Topic Centre for the CDS of EEA
EU:
European Union
ENREP:
Directory of Environmental Research Projects in the European Communities
FAO:
Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations
GEOINFORM: The common geoscience information project of the countries of the Council of Mutual Economic
Assistance
ICSTI:
International Council for Scientific and Technical Information
ITBM:
Istituto Tecnologie Biomediche / Institute of Biomedical Technology, CNR, Rome
IUGS:
International Union of Geological Sciences
MDS:
Multilingual Descriptor System
MOPU:
Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Urbanismo, former name of MOPTMA, Madrid
MOPTMA:
Ministerio de Obras Publicas, Transportes y Medio Ambiente, Madrid
MT:
Multilingual Thesaurus of Geoscience
NBOI:
Nederlandse Bureau voor Onderzoek Informatie, the Netherland Agency for Research Information
NFP:
National Focal Point, a reference office / person for INFOTERRA, EC, EEA, etc.
RRDA:
Reparto Ricerca e Documentazione Ambientale / Environmental Research and Documentation
Unit, ITBM, CNR, Rome
SBD-BDS:
Sistema Bilingue di Descrittori - Bilingual Descriptor System
SIAM:
Servizio Informatico Area di Milano / Informatic Service, CNR, Milan
SINA:
Sistema Informativo Nazionale per l’Ambiente / National Information System for the
Environment, Ministry of the Environment, Rome
SIRA:
Sistema Informativo Regionale per l’Ambiente / Regional Information System for the
Environment, Piedmont Region, Turin
SIRTA:
Sistema Italiano di Riferimento Terminologico per l’Ambiente / Environmental Terminological
Reference System for Italy
SNAM:
SNAMPROGETTI S.p.A., Milan
TIA:
Thesaurus Italiano Generale Multilingue per l’Ambiente / Italian General Multilingual Thesaurus
for the Environment
UBA:
Umweltbundesamt, Berlin
UDC:
Dewey’s Universal Decimal Classification
UNEP:
United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi
Environmental Terminology in Italian
iii
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
List of Figures
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 7.
Fig. 8.
Fig. 9.
Fig. 10.
Fig. 11.
Fig. 12.
Fig. 13.
Fig. 14.
Fig. 15.
Fig. 16.
Fig. 17.
Genealogy of environmental general thesauri and other pertinent systems of terms: terminology in
Italian.
The Italian Terminological Reference System for the Environment.
CNR Scientific Committees in 1988.
Example of comparison between the keywords of the original record and the new descriptors extracted
from the context (Indice analitico tematico delle attivita' di ricerca delle Unita' Operative del Consiglio
Nazionale delle Ricerche ad uso degli operatori del settore ambiente, 1988).
List of environmental categories (SBD-BDS, 1988).
List of environmental categories and subcategories (SBD-BDS, 1989).
Outline of the subcategories (facets) (SBD-BDS, 1989).
Matrix for the classification of terms (SBD-BDS, 1989).
“Trilingual” thesaurus: alphabetical list of the names of the groups in English alphabetical order (third
column), English mnemotechnical acronym corresponding to the name of the group (first column) and
correspondance between code number and groups, based on the original Dutch alphabetical order
(second column).
“Trilingual” thesaurus: relationships between groups (second and third columns).
Outline of categories and subcategories of the INFOTERRA Thesaurus, proposed for the 1995 edition.
A conceptual and operational frame for the Italian General Thesaurus for the Environment.
Italian General Multilingual Thesaurus for the Environment: list of the names of the groups.
Outline of super-categories and categories of the Descriptor System on Nature Conservation.
Thesaurus of Geosciences: list of the field codes and their explanations
List of categories of AGRIS/CARIS
List of categories used in PROGETERM (SNAM).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
iv
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Foreword
In the present Report, the state of the art of environmental terminology in Italian is presented.
Italian is the official language of Italy, one of the official languages of Switzerland and one of the
official languages of the European Union. It is the native language of approximately 60 million
people, but its linguistic areal is more extended since the latter covers geographical regions
outside Italy’s terrestrial and overseas borders and areas of overseas countries where Italian
migration waves created important communities.
Until more or less ten years ago, the need for a controlled environmental terminology in Italian
was not recognised. Later, the institution of the Ministry of the Environment (1986),
environmental emergencies, the European Community directives and terminological
requirements in institutions and private corporations, triggered an interest for environmental
terminology. General and specific dictionaries, all of them monolingual, appeared. In 1987, the
Reparto Ricerca e Documentazione Ambientale of the Istituto di Tecnologie Biomediche of the
CNR in Rome (RRDA-ITBM-CNR) started its studies on environmental terminology. Since
then, the RRDA has been the major research centre for controlled general environmental
terminology in Italy. Through the work of the past years, the RRDA has developed a
Terminological Reference System for the Environment in Italy. Its activities and products are
exposed below and can be classified as:
• Terminological activities for research purposes;
• Terminological activities for the environmental management;
• Terminological activities for the link with European and international initiatives in the field
of the environment.
Obviously, there is no clear separation between these functions and the related products.
In the present Report, the activities of CNR in the field of environmental terminology, both
general and specific, are presented. The Report will follow a chronological perspective in order
to describe the evolution of environmental terminology in Italian, in parallel with the project of
EEA for the development of a general multilingual thesaurus for the environment, to be applied
to the CDS.
Furthermore, the Report describes the most relevant terminological resources published or
developed in Italy in the course of various initiatives carried out by other institutions (FAO, etc.)
in specific fields of the environment (Agriculture, Projects, etc.), as well as other collections of
terminology in Italian, like EURODICAUTOM.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
1
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
1. Environmental terminology
In the meaning of the present Report, environmental terminology aims at the definition and
optimal use of concepts related to the activities connected to the environment, both practical,
like environmental management and planning, nature conservation, the relation between
environment and development, the relation between environment, health and safety, as well as
theoretical, like environmental sciences, in particular ecology. It can therefore contribute in
filling the gap existing between the facts and the present scientific knowledge on some
fundamental environmental problems.
The bases for the development of environmental terminology consist first in the actual,
sometimes and somewhere poor state of the environment at all levels, from local to global;
secondarily, in the increasing awareness of related problems by both the communities and the
productive sector (Stockholm Conference, 1972; Rio de Janeiro Conference, 1992) (Fig. 1) and,
finally, in the necessity of establishing measures for the protection of the environment, the
optimal utilisation of resources and the promotion of environmental quality. The consequent
production, often hasty and chaotic, of environmental information and documentation, has
shown the necessity of suitable terminologies.
2. Environmental terminology in Italian
Environmental terminology in Italian will be considered from a chronological perspective.
In 1981 CNR, the main public research institution of Italy, ended a three-year nationwide
“Finalised Program” on the environment. The Program provided excellent results in various
environmental sectors like water, fauna, flora, etc., but did not develop terminological activities.
Thus, for long time, the only relevant terminological activity of CNR, in a specific domain, was
the Thesaurus of Geosciences of the CNR Centre for the Alpine Geology in Milan.
After 1981, CNR did not show much interest for environmental activities in general and,
although pursuing important research on different environmental aspects (water, atmospheric
pollution, etc.) in several of its Institutes, did not coordinate its environmental research until
1988, when a Consulting Committee for Environmental and Habitat Sciences was established.
The first core of a structured general environmental terminology in Italian dates back to 1983. In
that year the Multilingual Descriptor System (MDS) was published, which had been created for
handling the information in the data base ENREP of the research projects for the environment of
the DG-XIII of EC. MDS contained, in a multilingual context, a rather sound italian terminology,
provided by the Italian National Focal Point for INFOTERRA and EC. Unfortunately, in the
following years the activities of the NFP, at that time in charge at the Ministry of Health, were
not encouraged and the work on MDS was not continued. Eventually, in 1988, the EC
discontinued the data base ENREP and MDS activities were continued only at national level, in
the Netherlands and Italy, as reported below.
The Reparto Ricerca e Documentazione Ambientale of the Istituto di Tecnologie Biomediche of
the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (RRDA-ITBM-CNR) started its interest for
environmental terminology in 1987, when working on the inventory of the CNR research
projects for the environment. After the end of ENREP activities in 1988, the RRDA inherited the
materials of the Italian NFP, which in the meantime had been replaced by a new NFP at the
Environmental Terminology in Italian
2
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Ministry of the Environment. Through the work of the past years, the RRDA has developed a
Terminological Reference System for the Environment in Italy. This system includes for the the
time being a thesaurus of 5000 terms, a classification scheme of 2000 terms, a glossary, some
descriptor systems and a certain number of specific lists.
Insofar it maintains a Terminological Reference System for the environment, pinpointed on a
general multilingual thesaurus and a classification scheme, the RRDA is de facto the centre of
the general terminological activities for the environment in Italy. The RRDA has a yearly
experience in this field and, during the years, has maintained a network of contacts at
Environmental Terminology in Italian
3
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
international level with most of the operators in the field of environmental terminology. It has
been and is still engaged in a collaborative interaction with the Italian Ministry of the
Environment, with the task of developing a controlled terminology and classification scheme for
the national Catalogue of Data Sources, SINA (Sistema Informativo Nazionale dell’Ambiente)
and for the regional Catalogue of Data Sources, SIRA (Sistema Informativo Regionale
dell’Ambiente).
Other terminological activities dealing with environmental issues are at present carried out in
different Italian institutions, both public and private, as reported below.
Needless to say, the terminology in this sense is a controlled general environmental
terminology (for “special purposes”), which is not the same thing as environmental
terminology in general, managed with other suitable criteria and informatic means, usually in a
context which is not directly and totally involved with the environment, such as a large
corporation. In Italy, while the RRDA manages most if not all the controlled terminology, other
institutions manage general terminology, like the SNAM company, wich appears to keep the
most advanced terminological data base. In this data base, an estimate of 2000 terms of general
interest for the environment, are embedded in a bulk of 9000 technical terms dealing with the
development of large scale projects having potential environmental impact.
It has been and is still a task of the RRDA to maintain the contacts with other Italian operators,
mainly through the Ass.I.Term, the Italian Terminological Society.
2.1 CNR activities
There are three CNR institutions which carry out research and development of environmental
terminology: the ITBM in Rome, the Centre for the Alpine Geology in Milan and th the Institute
of Psychology in Rome. The activities of the Centre for the Alpine Geology on the specific
terminology of the Earth Sciences, will be reported at § 2.1.8.; the activities of the Institute of
Psychology on Environmental education will be reported at § 2.1.9.
The following text will report on the activities of RRDA at ITBM.
The activities undertaken by the RRDA during the past years led to the production of a certain
number of documents, which represent organised terms collections:
Indice analitico tematico delle attivita' di ricerca delle Unita' Operative del Consiglio
•
Nazionale delle Ricerche ad uso degli operatori del settore ambiente (Felluga, Lucke,
Pàlmera, Sardoni, 1988);
• SBD-BDS, Sistema Bilingue di Descrittori per l'Indicizzazione, la Categorizzazione e la
Codificazione dei Termini Ambientali / Bilingual Descriptor System for Indexing,
Categorizing and Codifying Environmental Terms (Felluga, Pàlmera, Lucke, 1989);
• Glossario Bilingue di Termini Ambientali / Bilingual Glossary of Environmental Terms
(Lucke, 1990);
• Thesaurus Ambientale (Felluga, Pàlmera, Lucke, de Lavieter, 1991);
• Thesaurus Trilingue per l’Ambiente / “Trilingual” Thesaurus for the Environment (Felluga,
Pàlmera, Lucke, 1991);
Environmental Terminology in Italian
4
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Appendice di Termini Geografici Italiani / Annex of Italian Geographical Names (Plini,
1994);
Appendice degli Organismi per l’Italia (Uccelli) / Annex of Italian Organisms (Birds) (Plini,
1994);
Thesaurus Quadrilingue per l’Ambiente / “Quadrilingual” Thesaurus for the Environment
(Felluga, Pàlmera, Plini, Lucke, 1994), CD-ROM edition;
Thesaurus INFOTERRA di Termini dell’Ambiente / INFOTERRA Thesaurus of
Environmental Terms, revised bilingual 1990 edition (Plini, Felluga, Pàlmera, Lucke, 1994);
Sistema di Descrittori per la Gestione delle Informationi sulla Conservazione della Natura /
Descriptor System for the Management of Information on Nature Conservation (Mazzocchi,
Felluga, 1994);
Sistema di Descrittori per la Gestione delle Informazioni relative alla Convenzione per la
Protezione delle Alpi / Descriptor Systrem for the Management of Information of Alpine
Convention (Mazzocchi, Barberi, Alonzi, Felluga, Lottersberger, Budin, Plini,
Fiorenza,1995);
Schema di Classificazione per il SINA - Sistema Informativo Nazionale per l’Ambiente/
Classification Scheme for SINA - Italian Information Sistem for the Environment). (Felluga
B., Pàlmera M., Plini P., Mazzocchi F., Lucke S.,1994);
Classification Scheme for the Environment (Felluga, Pàlmera, Plini; Mazzocchi, Lucke, De
Lavieter, Bendahmane) (CNR-NBOI for EEA, 1995);
Multilingual Thesaurus for the Environment (de Lavieter, Deschamps, Hughes, Lucke)
(NBOI-CNR for EEA, in press);
TIA, Thesaurus Italiano per l’Ambiente / Italian Thesaurus for the Environment (Pàlmera,
Plini, Felluga, Lucke, Mazzocchi, bilingual edition IT-EN) (in press).
So far, the strategy of the RRDA was that of concentrating on the analysis and harmonisation of
existing general terminologies for the environment, more than on creating a new terminology for
Italy. After all, the Italian moiety of MDS, certainly limited but unjustly considered obsolete,
was already providing an established terminology in Italian.
During the past nine years, the RRDA, starting from MDS and other relevant terminologies in
Italian, has built the Italian Thesaurus for the Environment (henceforth shortened in
Thesaurus Italiano and Italian Thesaurus) a thesaurus of 5000 terms, whose original sources are
stored in the master file and whose genealogy can be traced in Fig. 1. Nearly one third of these
terms were already present in MDS and, as such, are “travelling” in the more recent documents.
More than another third corresponds to an original contribution of the Dutch Milieu-thesaurus
(1990, 1994), while the remaining third is represented by terms from other sources, chiefly
INFOTERRA and CNR.
The Italian Thesaurus has been developed within a conceptual and operational frame which will
be illustrated below (see § 2.1.7.1.). In defining the shape and structure of the thesaurus, the
shape and structure of the Dutch Milieu-thesaurus represented an excellent example and was
therefore followed, not only in the general design of the document, but also in the technical
details of presentation.
Furthermore, it has not been easy to define the basic needs of the institutions involved in the
project, basically the Ministry of the Environment, some Regional Administrations and the
CNR. Nevertheless, an effort has been made to reach this aim, taking into account the
international aspects and some relevant experiences like, for the handling of a CDS, the
Environmental Terminology in Italian
5
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
INFOTERRA system and, for the construction of general thesauri, the experiences of Netherland
institutions, of INFOTERRA, of the German UBA and of the Spanish MOPTMA.
During the past two years the RRDA, having defined its tasks and intentional limits at national
level, has been involved in the develpment of a Classification Scheme and of a Multilingual
General Thesaurus for the Environment for EEA. In this context, it has developed an Italian
Terminological Reference System for the Environment, whose structure and relations can be
seen in Fig. 2, basically made of a Thesaurus, a Classification Scheme and a series of links with
exisiting terminologies and of interactions with national, foreign and international institutions.
In 1988, the RRDA has also fostered the GITA, a “Gruppo di Studio Italiano per la Terminologia
dell’Ambiente”, Italian Study Group for Environmental Terminology, in order to check the
exactness and coherence of terms pertaining to specific categories of the Italian Thesaurus and to
follow the application of its terminology. From 1993, the GITA is related to AssITerm, the
Italian Association for Terminology. At present, it counts several members: co-workers for
specific fields related to SIRTA, scientists and operators belonging to academic and scientific
fields, as well as to public institutions.
The following text will first present the history of the CNR activities in environmental
terminology, mostly based on the RRDA activities, and then the activities carried out outside
CNR. Particular emphasis will be given to the historical development of the individual
documents, which will be describet in detail, thus outlining the chronological evolution of CNR
activities, the conceptual work performed to organise the terminology in a classification scheme
and, eventually, the attempt to adopt for Italy a homogeneous general environmental
terminology, tuned with the developments at the EU (EEA) level.
During the last years, the RRDA has completed a Terminological Reference System for the
Environment, specific for Italy. This Terminological Reference System is finalised to
environmental management and environmental protection, to the most favourable utilisation of
resources and the promotion of environmental quality. It has been conceived for the national
environmental operators; being an open and updated system it can be utilised for indexing,
classifying, codifying and searching various environmental information in data bases:
information sources, documents and bibliography, research projects concerning the environment,
etc..
The project of a Terminological Reference System for the Environment is the result of thorough
research undertaken in this field by the RRDA which is active in the field of environmental
terminology since almost ten years. The project was started as the research of a mean for
cataloguing and handling the data base of environmental research projects of CNR.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
6
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.1.1. The Inventory of the CNR Environmental Research Projects
In 1986, the RRDA started to analyse the CNR research projects, with the aim of identifying the
CNR activities concerning the environment and thus providing a mean for a better institutional
coordination of the research activities for the environment in the CNR. The working material
consisted in more than 2000 records containing the projects of the Research Units of the
Institutes and Centres of CNR, collected and published by the Servizio Informatico Area
Milanese (SIAM, CNR Informatic Service, Milan). The projects of the Research Units referred
Environmental Terminology in Italian
7
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
to eleven Scientific Advisory Committees, corresponding to the various related disciplines, from
Mathematics to Technological Researches (Fig. 3).
01 - Mathematical Sciences
02 - Physical Sciences
03 - Chemical Sciences
04 - Biological and Medical Sciences
05 - Geological and Mineral Sciences
06 - Agricultural Sciences
07 - Engineering and Architectural Sciences
08 - Historical, Philosophical and Philological Sciences
09 - Juridical and Political Sciences
10 - Economical, Sociological and Statistical Sciences
11 - Technological Research and Innovation
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Note. Further four Scientific Advisory Committees, including the Committee for the Environment, were added in
1989:
12 - Information Science and Technology,
13 - Environment and Habitat Science and Technology,
14 - Biotechnology and Molecular Biology, and
15 - Cultural Heritage Science and Technology,
Fig. 3. CNR Scientific Committees, 1988.
More than 600 records meeting the requirements were selected, but it soon became evident that
the keywords offered by the persons in charge of the research projects could not be used as such,
for environmental purposes, insofar they referred to a context of general scientific research,
following a disciplinary viewpoint. On the other hand, from the point of view of the selection of
the research projects concerning the environment, some keywords appeared too generic, others
too specific. The selected records were thus carefully read and their keywords adequately
extracted. The re-elaboration of keywords was accomplished following a faceted interpretation
of each record aiming at the extraction of three main information:
• The object of the research;
• The conceptual or technical instruments employed and, finally,
• The sector or geographical area of application.
A relatively high number of keywords or descriptors, whose essential concepts were permuted
for the indexing process, was thus employed for each record (Fig. 4). Synonimity was excluded.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
8
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
original keywords:
remote sensing; volcanoes; geothermy
adopted descriptors:
(o) geothermics, survey, thermographic remote sensing
(o) volcanoes, surveillance, thermographic remote sensing
(s) thematic maps, surveillance, volcanoes, geothermal survey
(s) thermographic remote sensing, volcanoes, geothermics
(s) thermography, remote sensing, volcanoes, geothermics
(a) Travale (Grosseto province), geothermics, thermographic remote sensing
(a) volcanoes surveillance, thermographic remote sensing
(a) Vulcano Island (Messina province), surveillance, thermographic remote sensing
Fig. 4. Example of comparison between the keywords of the original record and the new descriptors extracted from
the context: o = object; s = instruments, methods; a = applications; the complete list of the extracted terms may be
read along the ordinate (Indice analitico tematico delle attivita' di ricerca delle Unita' Operative del Consiglio
Nazionale delle Ricerche ad uso degli operatori del settore ambiente, 1988).
Thus, the original keywords
geothermy
remote sensing
volcanoes
were replaced by:
geothermal survey, geothermics (instead of geothermy)
remote sensing
surveillance
survey
thematic maps
thermographic remote sensing, thermography
Travale (Grosseto province)
volcanoes, volcanoes surveillance
Vulcano Island (Messina province),
showing that, even after excluding the geographical names of the application sites, the number
of extractable, meaningful keywords, more than doubled the original number.
In 1988, as a result of this preliminary study, two documents were published: an Analytical
Thematic Index of the Research Activities of CNR Research Units, for Environmental Operators
and a Categorial Inventory of CNR Organs Involved in Environmental Research Activities,
derived from the Index and supplied with data on personnel and funds. The descriptors,
including geographical names, were more than 2450.
2.1.2. The Bilingual Descriptor System (A)
Environmental Terminology in Italian
9
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Having thus completed the examination of the research projects of 1985, the updating of the
records of the following years was started. Nevertheless the extraction of descriptors, although
performed with care, reflected a certain degree of arbitrariness. It appeared therefore necessary to
proceed in two directions: to try to adopt a standardised terminology and to create a categorial
classification structure corresponding to the different environmental sectors (not necessarily to
disciplines).
Beside many sectoral terminologies (such as the Earth's Science Lexicon edited by the CNR
Centre for Alps Stratigraphy and Petrography in Milan and others), two multisectoral documents
were found. The first one was the Multilingual Descriptor System (MDS), published as a pilot
edition in 1983 by the European Community (EC) for indexing the environmental research
projects of the ENREP data base of EC DG-XIII, providing translations of each descriptor in six
Community languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German and Italian. While most of the
terms were descriptors, a minor percentage was represented by non-descriptors and postcoordinated terms. Each of the 1400 descriptors was identified by a numerical 6-digit code,
which functioned both as a concept code and as an interlinguistic code. The descriptors were
assigned to a classification scheme of three hierarchical levels: 21 categories, 109 sub-categories
and 48 sub-sub-categories; furthermore, each descriptor was assigned a two letter identifier
derived from the English acronym of the category, followed by a two-digit notation which
corresponded, albeit in a non systematic way, to a system of facets and tended to ease the
clustering of terms according to particular user needs. MDS was published as six separate
alphabetical lists of terms, one for each language, preceded by the classification scheme of
categories and sub-categories. The six listings were followed by a list of terms ordered by the
English alphabetical sequence of the category acronyms and by the numerical sequence of the
concept-interlinguistic codes.
The second document, likewise developed for the management of records of environmental
directories, was the INFOTERRA Thesaurus of Environmental Terms, produced in 1984 in
English, French, Spanish and Russian, which consisted in about a thousand terms classified in 23
hierarchical categories. Obviously, a certain number of terms was identical to the terms of MDS.
On the basis of the descriptors obtained from the analysis of the CNR environmental research
projects, of MDS and of the INFOTERRA thesaurus, a pilot edition of a Bilingual System
(English-Italian) of Environmental Descriptors (SBD-BDS) was developed in 1988 by RRDA.
SBD-BDS retained all the descriptors of MDS, adequately controlled and corrected and was
complemented with the Italian and English equivalents of about 500 keywords of the Index of
CNR Research Projects, which were not present in MDS and of almost 150 terms from the
INFOTERRA thesaurus, also missing in MDS. In SBD-BDS, the languages were reduced to
two, Italian and English, and between them a direct linguistic correspondence was established by
means of alphabetical indexes in the two directions. The synonymity was reduced to a minimum
by strict, although arbitrary criteria. In the end, SBD-BDS contained about 2000 descriptors
organised, unlike the original documents, in a system of 22 categories (Fig.5).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
10
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
N.
SYMBOL
CATEGORY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
AG agriculture and food
AI
air
CC chemical compounds, material and substances
CP chemistry and physics
DI
disasters
EC animal and plant biology (ecology)
EF
effects
EN energy and natural resources
GE geography
GM general measurements, monitoring and assays
HE health and occupational safety
IP
information and politics
IT
industry and technology
NS noise and vibrations
PL
planning
RA radiations
SC sciences, disciplines
SL
soil, geological formations
SP
space (interplanetary)
WA waters
WH waste heat
WS wastes
Fig. 5. List of environmental categories (SBD-BDS, 1988).
When SBD-BDS was applied to the analysis and updating of the inventory of the CNR
environmental research projects, it appeared inadequate in a few points:
• a perfect correspondence between the descriptors and the reference categories was lacking;
the system of categories and subcategories had a disciplinary cut, useful for documentary
•
purposes but inadequate for describing the environment and its problems in terms of
environmental management.
To solve this problems, since in a terminological work it is difficult to proceed in absence of a
conceptual reference system, it was decided to focus on the concept of environment and on the
system of categories.
The concept of environment, used for the analysis was based on the following assumptions:
a. The two major components of the global environmental system are represented by the natural
environment (categories SL, WA, AI, CL, SP, EC) and by the human environment (all the
remaining categories);
Environmental Terminology in Italian
11
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
b. The natural environment is considered in an evolutionary perspective; thus, the categories
related to the abiotic environment (SL, WA, CL, SP, AI) precede the one related to the biotic
environment (EC);
c. For the same reason, the categories related to human environment follow the complex of
categories related to natural environment;
d. In the human environment, whose pivot is represented by the SO category, the following
aspects can be identified:
• Activities, mostly productive, which man develops in order to satisfy both basic
(fundamental) and secondary (induced) needs (categories EN, AG, FD, IT);
• Aspects connected with land use (categories SR, TR, TU, LD);
• Aspects dealing with management in general (categories SO, IN, LX, EK, MG);
• Aspects related to health and safety (categories HE, RA, NS, WS, DI).
Consequently, the categories were classified following their kind: it appeared that at least three
types of categories were available, corresponding to an equivalent number of supercategories:
1. Categories of "structural and functional" type, corresponding to static and dynamic
components of the environment;
2. Categories of "socioeconomic-productive" kind, corresponding to the human community and
its activities in natural environment (e.g.: agriculture, planning);
3. Categories of "disfunctional-pathologic" type, referring to all degenerative aspects of the
environment.
This classification was in agreement with the advices outlined by UNESCO MAB Project for
environmental management, in particular for urban planning.
On the above described basis, a simplified scheme was first adopted:
environmental components ... human activities ... degradation/pollution.
Nevertheless, in this scheme other relevant aspects such as those referring to natural phenomena
which are potentially negative only in the case of human presence, and such as those connected
with measures and means of prevention and reclamation, undertaken as general procedures of
environmental management, were not included. The latter activities, although dealing with
human presence in the environment, had to be kept separated from those related to the
production and consumption of goods.
It was thus necessary to adequately adjust the system of categories and subcategories.
The resulting scheme consisted in a sort of matrix, containing in abscissa four types of
supercategories: Natural Environment, Use of Resources, Social and Management Aspects and,
finally, Risk, Health and Safety (Fig. 6).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
12
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
SL00 SOIL
WA00 WATER
AI 00 AIR
CL00 ATMOSPHERE, CLIMATE
SP00 SPACE
EC00 ECOSYSTEMS (NATURAL ENVIRONMENT)
USE OF RESOURCES
EN00 ENERGY
AG00 AGRICULTURE, SILVICULTURE, ANIMAL BREEDING
FD00 FEEDING, FOOD PRODUCTION
IT00 INDUSTRY AND TECHNOLOGY
SOCIAL AND POLICY ASPECTS
IN00 INFORMATION
LX00 LAWS, DIRECTIVES, RULES, NORMS
EK00 ECONOMICS, TRADE, LABOUR
MG00 INSTITUTIONAL POLICY
SO00 SOCIETY, DEMOGRAPHICAL ASPECTS
TR00 TRASPORTATIONS, TRAFFIC
TU00 TOURISM, LEISURE, FREE TIME
LD00 LAND PLANNING, BUILDING
RISKS, HEALTH, SAFETY
HE00 HEALTH AND SAFETY
WS00 WASTES AND POLLUTION IN GENERAL
NS00 NOISE AND VIBRATIONS
RA00 RADIATIONS
DI00 DISASTERS
Fig. 6. List of environmental categories and subcategories (SBD-BDS, 1989).
Each descriptor represented a concept referring to one or more categories, which in turn
pertained to one or more supercategories. Each descriptor could be assigned to one or more
subcategories/facets, following the same scheme, but organised along the vertical coordinate,
beginning with sciences and disciplines dealing with that specific concept (subcategories 01),
and ending with the recovery activities (subcategories 40 ... 49) (Fig. 7).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
13
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
01
10...14
15...17
18, 19
20...24
25...29
30...34
35...39
40...44
45...49
- sciences, disciplines, research;
- structural and dynamic components of the system;
- resources (components used by man);
- potentially negative (risky) components and processes, connected both with natural
components and human activities (natural dynamics of the environment);
- policy, protection and control activities, including Environmental Impact
Assessment;
- use of resources; productive activities;
- conditions, events, adverse effects (damages) for man and the environment, caused
both by natural processes, and inadequate management of national environment
and human activities;
- same as above, caused by man and his productive activities;
- recovery activities from damages caused by mismanagement of the environment;
- recovery activities from damages caused by man and his productive activities.
Fig. 7. Outline of the subcategories (facets) (SBD-BDS, 1989).
The identifying symbols corresponded to the original MDS ones: a two-letter mnemotechnical
identifier (e.g. SL for soil), combined with two-digit numbers specifying the subcategory (e.g.
SL01, sciences, disciplines and research dealing with soil).
The organisation of the series of category identifiers characterising each descriptor was the
following:
• Each descriptor was assigned to a given number of categories or, conversely, a variable
number of categories could identify or characterise a descriptor ;
• In listing the terms, each descriptor was followed by four couples of columns of categories,
corresponding to the four supercategories:
1. The first couple contained only categories referring to natural environment (SL, WA, AI, CL,
SP, EC);
2. The second couple contained categories referring to the use of natural resources by man and
to productive activities (EN, AG, FD, IT);
3. The third couple contained the categories related to socio-economic, institutional, legislative
and management aspects (SO, IN, LX, EK, MG);
4. The fourth couple contained the categories related to safety and health protection (HE, RA,
NS, WS, DI);
•
Each descriptor was characterised by a maximum of two identifiers for each of these four
groups of categories, so that a descriptor could have a maximum of eight identifiers, even
though in practice this never occurred (Fig.8).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
14
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Supercategories
NATURAL
USE OF RESOURCES
ENVIRONMENT
SL
WA
AI
CL
SP
EC
TR
TU
LD
SOCIAL AND POLICY
RISKS, HEALTH, SAFETY
ASPECTS
EN
AG
FD
IT
SO
SR
Categories
IN
LX
EK
MG
DI
HE
WS
NS
RA
Subcategories
01
10
15
18
20
30
40
Examples
drought:
CL18 CL30
AG30 ------
------ ------
DI18 ------
anti-pollution incentives:
------ ----------- ------
EK20 MG20
WS40 ------
productive surpluses:
------ ------
AG30 IT30
EK30 ------
------ ------
radioactive fallout:
AI36 ------
------ ------
------ ------
RA30 DI30
Fig.8. Matrix for the classification of terms (SBD-BDS, 1989).
The system of descriptors could therefore be considered under different perspectives,
corresponding to facets, depending on the requirements and on the use of the identification
system. For example, a simplified perspective could be the following:
01
10 ... 17
18, 19; 30 ... 39
25 ... 29
20 ... 24; 40 ... 49
- sciences, disciplines, research;
- components, resources;
- risks and damages;
- productive activities and consumption;
- management and restoration.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
15
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
In another example, the terms related to “pollution” could be retrieved “vertically” from the WS
category, and 'horizontally' from the subcategories 30 .... 39 of all categories; and so on.
The updated version of SBD-BDS was published at the end of 1989.
The structure of SBD-BDS allowed a very precise allocation of a term within the subcategories
system, but SBD-BDS still presented some inconsistencies, the major of which was its nonalignment with a standard terminology of the environment with exact definitions of terms
bearing different environmental meanings.
2.1.3. The Bilingual Glossary of Environmental Terms
As a step towards the use of a standard terminology, the Italian and English definitions of more
than 1000 terms of SBD-BDS were collected in a bilingual Glossary. This work is at present
being modified and extended, both because the RRDA base of terms has been extended, and also
because there may be more than one standard definition for a single term. For this purpose,
contacts with national and international institutions have been established, in order to carry out a
permanent and systematic control of the terms.
The Bilingual Glossary of Environmental Terms was associated to SBD-BDS as a working
instrument.
2.1.4. The Thesaurus Ambientale
The first proposal of a thesaurus for the environment in Italian, was published by the
CNR/ITBM/RRDA in April 1991. It consisted of a monolingual version with the Italian
linguistic equivalents of the Dutch Milieu-thesaurus. This working document was rapidly
replaced by the later trilingual version, released at the end of 1991; it will be considered in detail
in the following paragraph.
2.1.5. The “Trilingual” and “Quadrilingual” Thesaurus for the
Environment
The EC contract for ENREP data base was discontinued in 1988; the EC was apparently no
longer interested in a multilingual system of descriptors, but was willing to finance partial
initiatives of the members Countries. Therefore, an updating of MDS as such was not financed
by the EC and the available environmental terminology in Italian was limited to the terminology
of MDS and of its derivative SBD-BDS.
At the end of 1990, an international working group was established between the RRDA, the
Centre for Information and Documentation on Environmental Research of TNO (MDS Dutch
group) with coordinative functions, and the Department of the Environment of United Kingdom
(INFOTERRA Focal Point and Working Group for the INFOTERRA thesaurus), for the
continuation of the activities of MDS Group of the EC.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
16
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
The rationale for the project was the need of a homogeneous, controlled language for handling
environmental information handling of several institutions dealing with environmental problems
at different levels (public, private, municipal, regional, national and so on).
At that time, four basic thesauri containing general environmental terminology were available:
• The Milieu-thesaurus of VROM-CIMI-TNO (1990), in Dutch;
• The INFOTERRA Thesasurus of Environmental Terms, in English, French, Spanish;
• The Umwelt Thesaurus of Umwelbundesamt, Berlin, in German and
• The Tesauro de medio ambiente of Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Transportes, Madrid, in
Spanish.
The necessity of a structured terminological basis, meeting the requirements of environmental
management in the ninetees, led the Working Group to choose the Milieu-thesaurus as a base
document, for an attempt of updating MDS. There were also other reasons for this choice: the
willingness of the Authors to collaborate and their previous experience with MDS and with the
INFOTERRA thesaurus; the availability of the thesauri both in printed and machine-readable
form; the size of the Milieu-thesaurus, neither small nor large; the structure of the thesaurus
(coverage, post-coordination, depth, annexes); the tested application to environmental data
bases.
The Milieu-thesaurus was a structured, complete and tested terminological document for
handling environmental data. It contained about 3000 terms (more than 1800 preferred terms and
a cospicuous number of non preferred terms) assigned to 30 groups which could function as
categories; a number of terms was poly-hierarchical; the terms were scattered down to 7
hierarchical levels, were highly post-coordinated while retaining a certain degree of functional
pre-coordination and were identifiable by a numerical notation (code). The document followed
the ISO norms for monolingual thesauri.
The Milieu-thesaurus was composed of:
• A systematic section, where terms were classified in the 30 groups and each group was
presented with its hierarchical structure;
• An alphabetical section, where for each term the semantic relations existing between the
terms were shown.
• A short alphabetic list of the controlled terms (descriptors).
In addition, the document was endowed with a number of appendices for handling
environmental data of the Netherlands: Netherland geographical terms; Netherland
environmental laws, etc., thus providing a very handy and thorough example of national
terminological reference system.
The main principles of the compilation of the thesaurus were the selection of terms, the use of
post-coordination and the definition of the specificity level.
1. Choice of the terms relevant for the environment;
The terms were clustered in a number of groups which deal with the pathway and fate of
environmental pollutants:
- the human activities which affect the environment (polluting sources);
- the components causing pollution or disturbance (chemical compounds, radiations, noise, etc.);
- the environmental compartments where these agents end up;
Environmental Terminology in Italian
17
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
- the diffusion in the environment;
- the produced/induced effects;
- the biotic and abiotic elements affected by these effects;
- the technical measures adopted for controlling the effects;
Additionally, there were other groups dealing with related topics:
- the juridical aspects;
- the administrative aspects;
- the economical aspects;
- the planning aspects;
- the social aspects.
Obviously, beside these "environmental" terms, some "general" terms had also to be included in
the thesaurus.
2. The use of post-coordination.
In order to make the thesaurus more flexible, an attempt was made to favour post-coordination
as much as possible; therefore, the controlled terms in the base-thesaurus were usually simple, in
order to be post-coordinated in the construction of compound concepts.
3. Depth, i.e. specificity level of the thesaurus;
As already said, the Milieu-thesaurus was a meta-thesaurus, wich made use of suitable
appendices not only for lists of national terms such as the Dutch geographical terms, but also for
specific terminologies, like the chemical substances, which in other thesauri overload the relative
category.
As already mentioned (§ 2.1.4.), based on the equivalent version of the Milieu-thesaurus, the
first monolingual Italian thesaurus for the environment, “Thesaurus ambientale”, was published
as a pilot edition in April 1991. Soon after, the English equivalents were defined and a trilingual
version of the thesaurus “Thesaurus per l’ambiente/Thesaurus for the Environment/Milieuthesaurus” was published by the RRDA in December 1991. The “Trilingual” thesaurus was the
first multilingual thesaurus of environmental terms in Italian. In comparison with the original
Milieu-thesaurus it contained some substantial changes: a code notation for the identification of
the concepts/descriptors, in the form of a hierarchical alphanumerical notation with
mnemotechnical acronym (English), as well as other improvements which are mentioned below.
Obviously, as such, the Milieu-thesaurus could not completely meet the requirements of the
Italian environmental data bases, insofar the Dutch origin of the document had fixed the
following features which needed to be discussed:
1.
2.
3.
•
•
•
The number of groups of terms, 30 altogether (Fig. 9).
The hierarchical structure, with a maximum of 7 levels in the “group biology".
The alphabetical order:
Of the groups and of the corresponding numerical notations for the code;
In the systematic list, of the order of terms and of the corresponding code;
In the alphabetical list, of the order of terms inside any kind of relation with the heading
term.
4. The type of code, chosen for its flexibility; as already said, the numerical notation has been
completed with a mnemotechnical prefix, obtained by the first three letters of the English
name of the group: the English language was chosen as a representative switch language.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
18
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
5. The type and number of annexes: geographical, geological, laws, substances.
It is noteworthy that in the Milieu-thesaurus, the Dutch terminologists have given priority to the
terms of the Dutch natural (common) language, instead of the erudite terms, foreign terms,
specialistic terms. Thus, e. g.:
"ongewervelde dieren" > "evertebraten", "invertebraten";
"verdampen"
> "vervluchtiging", "vervluchtigen", "evaporatie".
This choice was reflected also in the Italian terminology of the “Trilingual” thesaurus: common
terms have been preferred to learned terms, such as
"asportazione"
> "asporto",
"inondazione"
> "esondazione".
The “Trilingual” thesaurus presented the lists of the original Dutch Milieu-thesaurus and the
Italian and English equivalents of all the terms, including some non-preferred Dutch terms,
synonyms and quasi-synonyms, which not always have a corresponding term in Italian or/and in
English.
Taking into account that the thesaurus was not only developed to meet national requirements,
but was also addressed to a multilingual environment, such as that of the European Community,
the totality of the original terms of the Dutch Milieu-thesaurus has been retained, including some
non-preferred Dutch terms, which at that time were redundant or useless in the Italian (and/or
English) linguistic context. Nevertheless, for the work on the Italian and English equivalents and
the re-elaboration of the thesaurus, the preservation of the totality of the non-preferred terms has
proven to be very helpful and frequently essential to reduce the level of ambiguity.
A relevant innovation, with respect to the original Dutch edition, was the separation of the terms
occurring in more than one group, and of the terms occurring more than once in the same group,
as well as the replication for all the co-occurring terms of their respective semantic relations and
Scope Notes.
Due to both program and methodological constraints, many descriptors, typical of the Italian
situation and several synonyms and quasi-synonyms, also essential for the Italian user, were not
included in the 1991 edition: these terms formed a waiting list which has been taken into account
and used in 1995 for the elaboration of the Italian General Multilingual Thesaurus for the
Environment (see below).
In the “Trilingual” thesaurus, the groups in which the terms are classified, are 30 (Fig. 9).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
19
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
ADM -05AIR -16BIO -06BUI -13CHE -08CUL -09EAR -01ECO -10ENE -11ENV -18EQU -27FIR -04GEN -03JUR -15MED -17NAT -19NOI -14PHY -12PLA -21PRC -22PRD -23RAD -26RES -20SAF -28SOC -24SOI -07SUB -25TRA -29WAS -02WAT -30-
administration
air
biology
built environment
chemical aspects
culture and education
earth sciences
economical aspects
energy
environmental compartments
equipment
firms
general terms
juridical aspects
medical aspects
nature and landscape
noise
physical aspects
planning aspects
processes and techniques
products and materials
radiations
research
safety
social aspects
soil
substances
traffic
wastes
water
amministrazione
aria
biologia
ambiente edificato
aspetti chimici
cultura e educazione
scienze della terra
aspetti economici
energia
compartimenti ambientali
apparecchiature
aziende
termini generali
aspetti giuridici
aspetti medici
natura e paesaggio
rumore
aspetti fisici
aspetti pianificatori
processi e tecniche
prodotti e materiali
radiazioni
ricerca
sicurezza
aspetti sociali
suolo
sostanze
traffico
rifiuti
acqua
bestuur
lucht
biologie
gebouwde omgeving
chemische aspecten
cultuur en educatie
aardwetenschappen
economische aspecten
energie
milieucompartimenten
toestellen
bedrijven
algemeen
juridische aspecten
medische aspecten
natuur en landschap
geluid
fysische aspecten
planologische aspecten
processen en technieken
produkten en materialen
straling
onderzoek
veiligheid
sociale aspecten
bodem
stoffen
verkeer
afval
water
Fig. 9. “Trilingual” thesaurus: alphabetical list of the names of the groups in English alphabetical order (third
column); English mnemotechnical acronym corresponding to the name of the group (first column); correspondence
between code number and groups, based on the original Dutch alphabetical order (second column).
In order to meet the requirements of a faceted structure, the terms could be located more than
once inside the same category and also located into different categories, to show that a
concept/term may be important from various environmental viewpoints.
As already mentioned, in the choice of terms, the environmental problems occupy the central
point. The various aspects, such as the origin and the prevention of pollution, its diffusion,
effects and coping measures, are expressed in different groups and may be structured in a
semantic net (Fig. 10).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
20
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
____________________________________________________________________________________________
ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECT
GROUPS
RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE GROUPS
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Pollution
substances (SUB)
products & materials (PRD)
noise (NOI)
radiations (RAD)
wastes (WAS)
(CHE, PRD, WAS, Annex Substances)
(ENE, EQU, FIR, SUB, WAS, Annex Substances)
(EQU, PHY, PRC)
(ENE)
(EQU, FIR, PRC, PRD, SUB, Annex Substances)
Sources
equipments (EQU)
(AIR, BUI, FIR, NOI, PRC, PRD, SOI, WAS, WAT)
processes & techniques (PRC)(BIO, CHE, ENE, EQU, FIR, SOI, SUB, WAS, Annex Substances)
firms (FIR)
(ADM, BUI, ECO, EQU, PRC, PRD, TRA, WAS)
energy (ENE)
(PRC, PRD, RAD)
traffic (TRA)
(FIR)
safety (SAF)
(------)
Environment (compartments)
earth sciences (EAR)
soil (SOI)
water (WAT)
air (AIR)
nature & landscape (NAT)
env. compartments (ENV)
built environment (BUI)
general terms (GEN)
Analysis
physical aspects (PHY)
chemical aspects (CHE)
research (RES)
(AIR, ENV, RES, SOI, WAT, Annexes: Geographic terms, Geological terms)
(EAR, ENV, EQU, NAT, PRC, Annex Geological terms)
(EAR, ENV, EQU, NAT, PRC)
(EAR, ENV, EQU, PRC)
(BIO, BUI, ENV, PLA, SOI, WAT)
(AIR, BIO, EAR, NAT, SOI, WAT)
(EQU, FIR, NAT, PLA)
(CUL)
(NOI, PRC, RES)
(PRC, RES, SUB, Annex Substances)
(EAR, CHE, PHY)
Diffusion and fate
processes & techniques (PRC)(BIO, CHE, ENE, EQU, FIR, SOI, SUB, WAS, Annex Substances)
Effects
soil (SOI)
air (AIR)
medical aspects (MED)
general terms (GEN)
(EAR, ENV, EQU, NAT, PRC, Annex Geological terms)
(EAR, ENV, EQU, PRC)
(BIO)
(CUL)
Organisms
biology (BIO)
(ENV, MED, NAT, PRC, Annex organisms)
Measures:
- administrative
administration (ADM)
economical aspects (ECO)
juridical aspects (JUR)
(ECO, FIR, JUR, PLA, Annex Laws)
(ADM, FIR)
(ADM, Annex Laws)
- technical
equipments (EQU)
(AIR, BUI, FIR, PRC, PRD, NOI, SOI, WAS, WAT)
processes & techniques (PRC)(BIO, CHE, ENE, EQU, FIR, SOI, SUB, WAS, Annex Substances)
safety (SAF)
(---)
Environmental Terminology in Italian
21
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
____________________________________________________________________________________________
FURTHER ASPECTS
GROUPS
RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE GROUPS
____________________________________________________________________________________________
- administrative
administration (ADM)
(ECO, FIR, JUR, PLA, Appendix Laws)
- economical
economical aspects (ECO)
(ADM, FIR)
- planning
planning aspects (PLA)
built environment (BUI)
traffic (TRA)
(ADM, BUI, NAT)
(EQU, FIR, NAT, PLA)
(FIR)
- juridical
administration (ADM)
juridical aspects (JUR)
(ECO-10, FIR, JUR, PLA, Appendix Laws)
(ADM, Appendix Laws)
- social
social aspects (SOC-24)
culture & education (CUL)
(CUL)
(GEN, SOC)
___________________________________________________________________________
Fig. 10. “Trilingual” thesaurus: relationships between groups (second and third columns).
For the “Trilingual” Thesaurus, use has been made of some terminological banks such as
EURODICAUTOM, which contains the Italian translation of a certain number of general terms
and is distributed by ECHO. The Eurodicautom terms related to the environment, although
allocated in groups identified as environmental categories, are not organised in a specific
metastructure and must therefore be recovered and utilised separately.
The Milieu-thesaurus followed the ISO norms for multilingual thesauri; the “Trilingual” and
“Quadrilingual” thesauri followed the ISO norms on multilingual thesauri.
Since 1994, the “Trilingual” thesaurus is used at the Ministry of the Environment for the
classification of the documentation of SINA. An application to the SIRA system is in progress.
The thesaurus has been also used for the edition of the Italian version of the Dictionary of the
Ecology and the Environment, Dizionario di Ecologia, by Vizigno, L., Sperling & Kupfer
(1994).
Through an interaction with Infoterm, the project Comett of EC, the German Umweltbundesamt
and the Austrian Ministry of the Environment, the German equivalents were added to the
“Trilingual” thesaurus: a quadrilingual version was developed and produced on CD-ROM by the
SIAM, Servizio Informatica Area di Milano and the Publications Office of CNR in June 1994.
The “Quadrilingual” thesaurus was presented at the Conference on Environmental Knowledge
Organization and Information Management in Bratislava (September 1994).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
22
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.1.6. The INFOTERRA Thesaurus of Environmental Terms
The INFOTERRA Thesaurus was published in 1984 and revised in 1990 by the Environmental
Information System of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in English, French,
Spanish and Russian. It represents one of the major tools in the INFOTERRA program, which
acts in the perspective of harmonisation between technological development and environmental
protection in developing countries.
The thesaurus was primarily conceived as a tool for INFOTERRA National Focal Points in
describing the expertise of environmental information sources and for identifying the appropriate
sources when they have to answer queries.
The INFOTERRA thesaurus is a mixed system, thematic and faceted , although the facets are not
identified as such, since they are part of the terminology.
The comparison with other available general thesauri of environmental terms (Milieu-thesaurus,
1990; Tesauro de Medio Ambiente, 1990; Umwelt Thesaurus, 1991; Thesaurus for the
Environment, 1991) had evidenced a certain degree of incompleteness of the 1990 INFOTERRA
Thesaurus, by all means due to the need of simplifying the consulting procedures for untrained
users. Thus, the thesaurus was changed in structure, its Italian equivalents were defined and it
was published in 1994 in bilingual form, Italian-English, for the Italian users of INFOTERRA
system and as Italian contribution to the INFOTERRA thesaurus Working Group of the
INFOTERRA PAC, Programme Activity Centre.
The CNR proposal maintains the complete original terminology (base of terms) and provides the
user with consistent integration to the original code, significant structural changes and a
bilingual-multilingual format.
The main change, compared to the original text regards the attempt of reorganising the material
on a hierarchical basis, showing all the implicit and hidden hierarchical relations between the
terms, which in the original version were implicit but not expressed and sometime also
misleading. For this purpose, a new codifying system has been used, which maintains the
original code, but is adequately integrated, thus allowing the identification of the term on a
conceptual basis, a precise identification of the pertaining category and sub-category, as well as
of the specific hierarchical level of each term.
In this way it has also been possible to identify the polyhierarchical terms and to mark them with
a specific notation code, which identifies them as different concepts when they belong to
different sub-categories, making at the same time their hierarchical position evident.
The other main innovations compared to the original version are:
• In all the lists of terms, the names of categories and sub-categories have been introduced also
as descriptors together with their codes and adequate typographical characters and symbols.
• The Categorical list of Terms is now arranged in increasing order of code and, consequently,
following the hierarchy and not in alphabetical order, unlike the original edition, where the
original list presented the terms organised in alphabetical order inside the specific subcategories, apparently used as facets.
In the original version, the hierarchical relations of a term have been expressed by the BT/NT
relations, aside from the fact that such BT/NT are present as descriptors in the current subEnvironmental Terminology in Italian
23
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
•
•
•
•
category or are BT/NT presented as descriptors only in other sub-categories (extracategorical
descriptors). In this edition, the problem of the extracategorical BT/NT has been solved by
identifying the extracategorical Broader Term with the new code notation and by temporarily
marking them with the BTx symbol. The same procedure has been adopted with the
extracategorical NT, marked with the NTx symbol.
In the Categorical list of terms, for each descriptor the sub-categories to which it belongs are
systematically given, except the current one, as well as their code. The sub-categories are
preceded by the BBT symbol (Broader Broader Term), which is progressively ordered
(BBT1, BBT2, etc.), and they are followed by an arrow and their own code. This helps the
user in the search of information and avoids the need of consulting the Alphabetical list of
terms of the thesaurus in order to know how many times a term is repeated and in which subcategory it occurs.
Both in the Categorical list of terms and in the Alphabetical list of terms, the codes of the
USE, BT/NT and RT relations are given, in order to allow the user to continue the navigation
in the text avoiding the double passage categorical→alphabetical→categorical listing.
The Alphabetical list of terms is presented in the two Italian-English and English-Italian
alphabetical orders, with the French and Spanish linguistic equivalents; in addition, the
English-Italian alphabetical listing presents the permuted terms.
The Alphabetical List of Terms presents each descriptor repeated, with a different code
notation, as many times as the number of sub-categories to whom the descriptor belongs.
Since 1992, the RRDA is carrying out the function of organisation and operational function of
the Italian National Focal Point of INFOTERRA system and since 1995, in the context of the
Working Group on the thesaurus, is working, together with the Department of the Environment
of UK, to the 1995 edition of the thesaurus. The publication by INFOTERRA of the updated
edition in English of the thesaurus is foreseen by the end of 1995.
The INFOTERRA thesaurus, 1995 edition, is one of the documents containing general
environmental terminology, used for the production of the Italian General Multilingual
Thesaurus for the Environment (see 2.1.1.1.6.)
The classification scheme proposed for the 1995 edition of INFOTERRA thesaurus includes 27
categories and 74 sub-categories (Fig. 11).
__________________________________________________________________________
10000
11000
12000
ATMOSPHERE
10100 Atmospheric composition
10200 Atmospheric processes
10300 Air pollution
10400 Climate, climatic change
LITHOSPHERE
TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
12100 Soils
12200 Arid lands, desertification
12300 Tropical forest ecosystems, woodland ecosystems
12400 Temperate ecosystems, cold zone ecosystems
12500 Mountain ecosystems, highland ecosystems
Environmental Terminology in Italian
24
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
13000
14000
15000
16000
17000
18000
19000
20000
21000
22000
23000
12600 Wetlands ecosystems
12700 Biological diversity, protected areas
12800 Biotechnological issues
FRESHWATER
13100 Freshwater resources
13200 Freshwater ecosystems
13300 Freshwater pollution, freshwater degradation
13400 Drinking water supply
OCEANS, COASTAL AREAS
14100 Marine environments
14200 Coastal environments, small islands
14300 Living marine resources
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING
15100 Resources management
15200 Environmental planning
15300 Environmental economic issues
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
16100 Human settlements management
16200 Buildings, structures
16300 Infrastructure, utilities
16400 Socio-economic aspects of human settlements
16500 Environmental aspects of human settlements
AGRICULTURE
17100 Agricultural practices
17200 Agro-industry
17300 Agrochemicals
INDUSTRY
18100 Industrial processes
18200 Industrial materials, industrial products
TRANSPORTATION
19100 Air transportation
19200 Land transportation
19300 Water transportation
ENERGY
20100 Energy sources
20200 Energy production, energy use
CHEMISTRY, BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
21100 Inorganic substances
21200 Organic substances
21300 Biochemical processes
POLLUTION, WASTES
22100 Pollutants
22200 Pollution sources
22300 Pollution abatement
22400 Waste disposal, waste use
HUMAN HEALTH
23100 Hazards of pollutants
23200 Environmentally related diseases
23300 Working environment
Environmental Terminology in Italian
25
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
23400 Nutrition, health care
24000
DISASTERS
24100 Catastrophic phenomena
24200 Emergency relief measures
25000
MONITORING, ENVIRONMENTAL DATA
25100 Pollutant monitoring
25200 Environmental criteria, environmental data
25300 Monitoring techniques, monitoring equipment
26000
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW (GENERAL)
26100 National legislation
26200 International environmental relations
27000
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION
28000
SUBJECT DISCIPLINES
29000
ORGANISATIONAL ATTRIBUTES
29100 Nature of the source
29200 Terms of access
29300 Working Languages
30000
GEOGRAPHIC ATTRIBUTES
31000
AFRICA
31100 North Africa
31200 Central Africa
31300 West Africa
31400 Southern Africa
31500 East Africa
32000
AMERICAS
32100 North America
32200 Central America
32300 Caribbean Area
32400 South America
33000
ASIA
33100 Western Asia
33200 Central Asia
33300 Southern Asia
33400 Southeast Asia
33500 Eastern Asia
34000
EUROPE
34100 Western Europe
34200 Eastern Europe
35000
OCEANIA
36000
OCEANS, SEAS
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Fig. 11. Outline of categories and subcategories of the INFOTERRA Thesaurus, proposed for the 1995 edition.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
26
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Besides the Outline of Categories and Subcategories, the thesaurus consists of:
• A list of terms in code sequence, where the terms are listed in code sequence showing the
general logic and subject content of the categories and sub-categories. Each term is diplayed
only once within a category or sub-category to which it primarily belongs;
• The categorised list of terms, where the terms are alphabetically listed under categories and
sub-categories. The terms are displayed with their complete relational structure. A term may
appear under several sub-categories; codes show to which category-subcategory the term
belongs primarily;
• The alphabetical list of term, displaying each term in alphabetical order and in its complete
configuration, including the complete relational structure (only under the base form of the
term).
2.1.7. The Italian Terminological Reference System for the
Environment and its links with EEA-CDS
In its present form, the Environmental Terminological Reference System for Italy (SIRTA,
Sistema Italiano di Riferimento Terminologico per l’Ambiente) is composed by the Italian
General Multilingual Thesaurus for the Environment (TIA) (CNR- in press) and by a number of
appendixes/annexes concerning specific subjects related to the environment or the Italian reality
(Fig. 2). The SIRTA is currently managed as separate documents linked by an adequate system
of navigation. From this coordinated system, depending on specific needs, descriptor systems
and thesauri can be extracted.
The SIRTA is conceived as a bilingual system (Italian-English and English-Italian): the English
language is used as a switch language with other languages, but also as reference language for
the terminological normalisation and standardisation procedures (in the SIRTA, produced for
Italian users, the other languages are not essential but they can be very useful for finding the
correct meaning of the single terms).
2.1.7.1. The Italian Thesaurus for the Environment
The conceptual frame for the construction of the thesaurus is shown in Fig. 12.The following
operations have been carried out for the creation of TIA:
1. An analytical comparison of the structure of the three editions of the Milieu-thesaurus,
namely the monolingual pilot edition of 1989, the edition of 1993, which corresponds to the
quadrilingual version on CD-ROM, and the monolingual Dutch edition of 1994, which
provides the basic terminology and structure.
2. A critical analysis of the structure of the Milieu-thesaurus, in order to detect asymmetries and
incoherences and to formulate suitable changes. Like other general thesauri for the
environment, the Milieu-thesaurus is the product of a working group and thus it reflects the
values, defects and compromises of a multidisciplinary work.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
27
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
3. Reprocessing of the thesaurus structure;
4. Merging of the Milieu-thesaurus with the INFOTERRA thesaurus and reorganisation of the
terms contained in the two documents, following the new structure;
5. Analysis of the terminological content of other documents such as “Europe’s Environment The Dobrís Assessment” and the “OCSE Report on Environmental Performance”.
6. Inclusion of new terms in order to allow the hierarchical allocation of terms derived from
original documents.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
28
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
The structure of the thesaurus, in its final form, is conceived as a base of about 5000 terms
organised in 3 supercategories and 26 categories plus a group of general and/or generic terms
(Fig. 13).
In order to make possible the handling of SIRTA, the lowest level cannot be very specialised. It
has to be defined at a level of functional groups rather than at the level of the numerous
specialised terms.
It can be considered a metasystem: the limited depth of the basis must be completed with a
certain number of annexes, such as specific structured lists (i.e. environmentally significant
organisations of Italy, national or regional geographical names, national environmental laws,
Italian red lists of animals and plants, etc.) or special thesauri and descriptor systems with their
specific classification schemes; these annexes are appointed for containing the terms of specific
rather broad sectors that, if allocated in their respective categories, would render the basis itself
cumbersome and crowded with terms.
The annexes will represent an extension of the SIRTA nucleus, to whom they will be linked by a
limited selection of widely used known special terms that will be incorporated in the metasystem.
As far as its aims are concerned, the SIRTA can be considered as an example-prototype of a
national reference terminological system of controlled, general environmental terminology. Its
main features are the following:
• The mandatory bilingual correspondence with English and the possibility to add other
linguistic equivalents;
• The possibility to organise the terms in different thesauri or descriptor systems, according to
different used needs, with different classification schemes and coding notations;
• The tendency to the standardisation of the terminology;
• The flexibility in producing, for specific sectors, both specific descriptor systems and
suitable annexes.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
29
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT, ANTHROPIC ENVIRONMENT
SPA
ATM
LIT
HYD
BIO
LAN
SPACE
ATMOSPHERE, AIR, CLIMATE
LITHOSPHERE, SOIL, EARTH SCIENCES
HYDROSPHERE, FRESHWATER, MARINE WATER, WATER
BIOSPHERE, ORGANISMS, ECOSYSTEMS, LIFE SCIENCES
LAND, GEOGRAPHY, LANDSCAPE, ENVIRONMENT (IN GENERAL)
HUMAN ACTIVITIES, EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT
CHE
PHY
PRD
AGR
IND
ENE
SER
REC
BUI
TRA
WAS
CHEMISTRY, SUBSTANCES, PROCESSES
PHYSICS, NOISE, RADIATIONS
RAW MATERIALS, PRODUCTS, MATERIALS, EQUIPMENTS
AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY, ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, FISHING
INDUSTRY, CRAFTS, TECHNOLOGY, EQUIPMENTS
ENERGY
TRADE, SERVICES
RECREATION, TOURISM
BUILT ENVIRONMENT
TRAFFIC, TRANSPORTATION
WASTES, POLLUTANTS, POLLUTION
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY MEASURES
ECO
LEG
PLA
ADM
CUL
RES
HEA
SAF
SOC
ECONOMICS, FINANCE
LEGISLATION, NORMS, CONVENTIONS
PLANNING, ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT, LAND USE
ADMINISTRATION, MANAGEMENT, POLITICS, INSTITUTIONS, ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
CULTURE, EDUCATION, INFORMATION, ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
RESEARCH, SCIENCE
HEALTH, MEDICAL ASPECTS, NUTRITION
RISKS, SAFETY
SOCIAL ASPECTS, DEMOGRAPHY
MIS MISCELLANEOUS TERMS
Fig. 13. Italian General Multilingual Thesaurus for the Environment: list of the names of the groups.
The SIRTA reflects the evolution of the above mentioned documents which have been merged in
the Italian Thesaurus for the Environment; it could provide an homogeneous language for
handling information to Italian CDS. At present the Regional Information System of Piedmonte
Region is verifying the possible employment of TIA for handling the Catalogue of Data Sources.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
30
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
SBD-BDS and the “Trilingual” Thesaurus for the Environment have been already employed by
the Ministry for the Environment for classifying the environmental information sources (data
base on Environmental Education, Ministry for the Environment, 1991) and National
Environmental Information System, by the Italian Statistical Board for indexing the quantitative
environmental data sources (Sinfonia Data Base) (Barcaroli et al., 1990), by the CNR for the
inventory of research projects related to the environment and by other users for the management
of environmental data.
Further development of SIRTA will be linked to other international initiatives concerning the
environment in general or particular sectors which may be relevant for the environment (es.:
AAT, Art & Architecture Thesaurus, published in the U.S. (Petersen, 1990, 1994)); nor other
general terminological systems can be ignored such as EURODICAUTOM (which contains
more than 500 000 terms), the Canadian Termium (with about a million terms in French and
English) and UNTERM of United Nations cc.) since they contain high numbers of
environmental terms, often organised in categories and subcategories. Unfortunately the Italian
language, except for a few cases, is not present in several multilingual terminological systems,
both because it never had international diffusion and the Italian academic establishment up to
now attached little importance to environmental terminology.
2.1.7.2. The NBOI- CNR Multilingual Thesaurus for the Environment,
for EEA CDS
This thesaurus, in eight languages, was developed by the NBOI-CNR Working Group under
contract of the EC, for EEA-TF (Brussels). It presents the terminology of the Dutch Milieuthesaurus, 3500 terms, with the linguistic equivalents in eight languages, the six main languages
of the EU as well as the Danish and Norwegian, added spontaneously:
- Danish;
- Dutch;
- English;
- French;
- German;
- Italian;
- Norwegian;
- Spanish.
The RRDA has provided its Italian equivalents. It is expected to be published as a working
document for EEA during the second part of the present year.
The terminology of this thesaurus is fully represented in the TIA, although its classification,
hierarchical structure and semantic relations have been changed in the latter.
The NBOI-CNR thesaurus is expected to be one of the basic documents for the development of
an European Environmental Thesaurus for the CDS of EEA, as anticipated by the activities of
the Topic Centre for EEA-CDS.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
31
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.1.7.3. The Classification Scheme for SINA
A proposal of a classification scheme has been developed for the managing function of the
documents of the Italian Information Sistem for the Environment (SINA, Sistema Informativo
Nazionale per l’Ambiente).
This classification scheme represents a working hypothesis as the first result of the comparison
of the classification schemes of the Thesaurus for the Environment with those of the other main
European general environmental thesaurus, and with the classification scheme used, at that time,
by the Catalogue of Data Sources of the European Environmental Agency.
The structure of the classification scheme is basically thematic. It is articulated in 36 categories
(13 simple categories, that is represented by simple terms, and 23 compound categories, that is
represented by compound terms) that are freely ascribed to three structural groups (supercategories). An additional super-category (Environment in general) has been created, in order to
be used for the classification and research purposes with documents of general character.
The scheme includes other 84 descriptor of category coming from different hierarchical levels of
the original documents, together with further essential terms, as synonyms, quasi-synonyms,
subordinate terms.
The further development of this work will be explained in the next paragraph.
2.1.7.4. The CNR-NBOI Classification Scheme of the Multilingual
Thesaurus for the Environment, for EEA CDS (B)
In 1993, after the completion of the CORINE project, EEA-TF decided to develop a general
multilingual terminology and a classification scheme, for the acitvities of CDS. After having
taken into account various possibilities, in 1994 EEA-TF started a project with NBOI and CNR,
for the development of a multilingual thesaurus and a classification scheme. A number of
operations were carried out in the Netherlands and in Rome, more in an intertwined way, than in
a pre-defined sequence. The updated version of the Dutch Milieu-thesaurus (1994) was chosen
as the basic working document.
The definition of the interlinguistic equivalents of the original Dutch terms in the remaining five
languages was carried out in the Netherlands. In order to simplify this task, the British English
has been chosen as pivot, reference language and experienced colleagues of English-speaking
institutions were acting as environmental terminology experts. In the meantime, the work for the
definition of the linguistic equivalents in the remaining four languages was carried out.
The RRDA worked on the structure of the thesaurus and on a classification scheme to be used by
EEA for the management of its CDS. The classification scheme included also a series of
operations, which were carried out at the same time.
The first step consisted in a comparison of the top structure of the Milieu-thesaurus with the top
structures of the INFOTERRA Thesaurus, of the Umweltbundesamt Umweltklassifikation, of
the MOPU Tesauro de medio ambiente (1990) and of other relevant documents. Top structure
indicates the so-called super-groups (super-categories, super-classes, etc.,), usually 3 to 5, the
groups or categories, usually ranging between one and three dozens and the sub-groups or subcategories, usually in the order of a few hundreds.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
32
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
The choice of the super-groups provides a conceptual frame for a broad description of the
environment, as traditionally adopted by the Reports on the State of the Environment of several
countries and other documents which consider the environment as a whole.
The comparison at group level is definitely more useful: it has been performed so far on the
following documents:
• Milieu-thesaurus prototype 1989 (33 groups);
• Milieu-thesaurus 1990 (30 groups);
• Milieu-thesaurus 1994 (31 groups);
• INFOTERRA Thesaurus 1990 (19 out of 21 categories);
• Umweltbundesamt Umweltklassifikation 1994 (14 environmental areas);
• Tesauro de Medio Ambiente 1990 (11 areas);
• European Agency CDS provisional classification scheme (39 subjects, 11 functions, 4
computer tools);
• NASA classification scheme 1993 (24 parameters);
• CNR Bilingual Descriptor System 1989 (24 categories)
as well as on other pertinent documents. It will provide both the basis for a final integrated
proposal and some hints for a connecting system between such proposal and the original
documents.
A separate analysis is performed at the level of the Top Terms of the Milieu-thesaurus, which are
accepted (confirmed) or moved in the hierarchy, or (rarely) deleted, according to the final
objective.
The structure of the Milieu-thesaurus is basically thematic, while other thesauri show a mixed,
thematic and faceted structure. The UBA Umwelt Thesaurus, like the CNR Bilingual Descriptor
System have, in addition to a thematic structure, a well defined faceted structure.
The proposal of the classification scheme for EEA presents:
• A systematic list of 26 categories grouped in 3 super-categories according to the OCSE
compendium (1993). An extra group is represented by the miscellaneous terms;
• An alphabetical list of categories ordered by category acronym in English, plus one extra
group of miscellaneous terms;
• A systematic list of top term (90 descriptors);
• An extented systematic list of top term and high rank descriptors (125 descrptors), in total
215 descriptors;
• A complete systematic and alphabetic list of 2032 term and descriptors.
The classification scheme reflects the structure of the Italian thesaurus and is applied in Italy as
such. Once adapted to EAE needs, the scheme might represent the central nucleus of an
European Thesaurus.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
33
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.1.7.5. The Descriptor System for the Management of Information on
Nature Conservation
Nature conservation, a basic sector of environmental policy, represents a specific area still
lacking a specific terminology in Italian.
This problem was the object of an experimental thesis, at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”,
carried out at RRDA, collecting several documents (mainly the documents published by IUCN)
on nature conservation and proceeding to an accurate terminological analysis of their content.
The final product consists of a system of about 2500 terms presented as two lists arranged both
alphabetically and following a thematic classification scheme, consisting of 3 supercategories
(on the basis of the OECD classification in OECD Environmental Data,1993), 21 categories (on
the basis of the classification scheme of the Thesaurus for the Environment, 1991), and 166
subcategories. The system is enriched by specific terms concerning PERSONNEL, MAPS,
DISCIPLINES AND SCIENCES.
Although this system is still in the form of a prototype, it already represents a mean for the
retrieval and cataloguing of documents related to nature conservation. Moreover it represents the
first step towards the construction of a bilingual thesaurus (Italian-English) specific for nature
conservation.
2.1.7.6. The Descriptor System for the Management of Information of
the Alpine Convention
In the field of specific terminologies, in order to organise a reference terminological system for
the Osservatorio delle Alpi a research has been conducted on the terminology used in the Alpine
Convention. The project was carried out by CNR, ANPA-AMB in Rome, Infoterm in Vienna
and the Lombardia Region.
The founding act of the Alpine Convention was used as source of terms; a bilingual system of
descriptors Italian-german of about 700 terms was produced together with a categorical list and
an alphabetical list.
The classification scheme used for organising the terms for the Alpine Convention is the
classification scheme developed for SINA. A single term can be assigned to a maximum of two
groups of categories. The only novelty with respect to the classification scheme for SINA
is the introduction of terms concerning ACTS, DATES, EVENTS, GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES, NAMES
OF INSTITUTIONS, LANGUAGE AND PERSONNEL.
The descriptor system includes additional information on the terms: an interlinguistic code
notation and, when available, identification of specific Alpine terminology and general and
specific environmental terminology, including reference to the quadrilingual version of the
Thesaurus for the Environment.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
34
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
1
STATE OF THE ENVIROMENT
ATM ATMOSPHERE
ECO
ECOSYSTEMS
SOI
SOIL
WAT WATER
2
PRESSURES
AGR
AGRICULTURE
ENE
ENERGY
FOD
FOOD
IND
INDUSTRIES
REC
RECREATION
SER
SERVICES
WA
WASTES AND POLLUTION
3
RESPONSES
ECO
ECONOMY
ENW ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
HLT
HEALTH
LEG
LEGISLATION
MNG ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND INSTITUTIONS
PLA
LAND PLANNING
RES
RESEARCH
SOC
SOCIETY
Fig. 14. Outline of super-categories and categories of the Descriptor System on Nature Conservation.
2.1.7.7. The Annex of Italian Geographical Names
This annex shows the Italian geographical names of the 20 regions, 200 provinces and 8000
municipalities. Like in the Milieu-thesaurus, the terms are related to each other in a semantic
meaningful structure.
2.1.7.8. The Annex of Italian Organisms (Birds)
This annex contains a systematic and an alphabetical list with Latin, Italian and English names
of all the species of Italian birds and some information about their corology, status, euring code
and presence/absence in the Italian and IUCN red lists. It was devised as a sample of a larger
annex, containing the lists of Italian organisms, a large project being carried out in the Italian
university domain. The terms are related to each other in a semantic structure. The Rubin coding
notation used in the Nordic Centre for Coding is applied throughout. There is no corresponding
annex in the Milieu-thesaurus.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
35
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.1.8.
CNR activities in Milan: the Multilingual Thesaurus of
Geosciences
Another specialised thesaurus which represents an important structured terminological resource
in its specific field, is the Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences (1988), developed by the
International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) and the Commission of
Geological Documentation (COGEODOC) of the International Union of Geological Sciences
(IUGS).
In 1970, the French, West Germany and Czech Geological Surveys cooperated to build and
update a joint database. A common indexing vocabulary was utilised and direct contacts between
the documentation centres led to a common indexing practice. In the same years, GEOINFORM
(the common geoscience information project of the countries of the Council of Mutual
Economic Assistance) started to elaborate a multilingual thesaurus for the analysis of the
geoscience literature to be covered by the participating countries.
The major outcome of the multilingual thesaurus project is the increase of this international
cooperation: Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Hungary, Italy,
Poland, Romania, Spain and United States participate in an information network contributing in
the updating of the two operational international databases, GeoRef and PASCAL-GEODE and
using a common indexing language entirely compatible with the Multilingual Thesaurus of
Geoscience (MT).
The Multilingual Thesaurus of Geoscience represents a common conversion tool in the
international network of Earth Sciences. For its implementation, the necessary connections have
been found which allow the dialogue between different linguistic groups and methodologies; for
this purpose the methodological approach was adopted on a posteriori compatibility between the
different concepts used by the various systems operating in different languages.
The definition of hierarchical or relational structures has been left to national thesauri, each of
which represents a structured extension of the multilingual nucleus, to whom it is connected by
the MT terms. The MT can therefore be subdivided in structured monolingual thesauri, although
it is does not result by a simple addition of national thesauri.
The TM database was created at the Bundesanstalt fur Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe
(Geological Survey of West Germany). After 1981, the database management was taken in
charge by the Centre for the Alpine Geology of CNR in Milan with a member of COGEODOC
acting as coordinator of the database and publisher of the thesaurus.
The MT database contains about 5000 terms (descriptors and non-preferred terms) in 8 linguistic
versions. The Working Group included members from the linguistic groups Czech, English,
Finnish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian.
The classification scheme is made by 36 groups:
• 20 groups correspond to the main subdivision of Earth Sciences;
• 11 groups refer to the systematic part of classificatory domains (stratigraphy, elements, rock
names);
• 5 separate fields (facets) describe concepts which are common to all subdivisions (properties,
methods, etc.)
Environmental Terminology in Italian
36
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
The printed version of TM (1988) presents the terms in the following languages:
- English;
- French;
- German;
- Italian;
- Russian:
- Spanish.
It includes a main list, alphabetically ordered in English; to each term are associated, besides the
other linguistic equivalents, a notation code, in the form of a reference sequential number and
some suitable typographical indications for the different kinds of terms: descriptors, nonpreferred terms, terms with no equivalent, etc..
The system contains also a series of accessory terms, adjectival forms and general terms, which
are used together with the descriptors in the syntactical relations used in some systems.
An updated version is going to appear by the end of 1995.
2.1.9. ANDREA, a project of the CNR Institute of Psychology on
Environmental Education
The CNR Institute of Psychology in Rome, Psychopedagogical Unit, with the assistance of the
Ministry of the Education and under contract of the Ministry of the Environment, has developed
the information system ANDREA, Archivio Nazionale di Documentazione e Ricerca per
l’Educazione Ambientale, on environmental education in Italy.
The system includes archives on:
• Subjects;
• Activities;
• Materials and
• Experiences.
The archive uses the RRDA-ITBM-CNR Italian Thesaurus for the Environment and its
classification scheme for terminology, classification and harmonisation purposes; it takes into
account the EUDISED and CEDEFOP thesauri for the educational aspects.
ANDREA is working on an experimental thesaurus on Environmental Education and
collaborating with the RRDA for the assessment of its specific terminology.
2.2. Environmental terminology in Italian: other activitives
There are at present in Italy some dictionaries and glossaries, which contain definitions of
general environmental terms (Boltri, 1980) or of specific environmental issues as pollution
(Floccia et al.), ecology (Di Fidio, 1986; Collin, 1994), environmental health (Dodero, 1983).
These products are only available in printed form and only in Italian.
Other terminological systems concerning specific sectors (Agriculture, Earth Sciences, etc.) have
been published by international organisms, research institutes and by public or private
institutions; these term collections are usually available on diskette, but, except for a few cases,
only for internal circulation.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
37
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
The most relevant documents are expected to be employed for the Italian Thesaurus and the
SIRTA appendixes and are given below.
APPL
CHEE
CHES
COMS
ECON
ENGI
ENVI
EXTR
EXTS
GEOC
GEOH
GEOL
IGMS
IGNE
IGNS
INST
ISOT
MARI
MATH
METH
MINE
MING
MINI
MISC
PALE
PALS
PHCH
SEDI
SEDS
SOLI
STRA
STRS
STRU
SURF
SUSS
TEST
Applied geophysics
Elements
Chemical compounds
Commodities
Economic geology
Engineering geology
Environment
Extraterrestrial geology
Meteorites, planets
Geochemistry
Hydrology
General geology
Metamorphic rocks - systematics
Petrology
Igneus rocks - systematics
Instruments - equipment
Isotope geochemistry / Absolute age, geochronology
Marine geology
Mathematical geology
Methods
Minerology
Mineral groups
Mining
Miscellaneous
Paleontology
Paleontology -systematics
Physical and chemical properties, processes
Sedimentology
Sedimentary rocks - systematics
Solid Earth geophysics
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy - systematics
Structural geology
Geomorphology - Quaternary geology
Soils - systematics
Textures - structures
Fig. 15. Thesaurus of Geosciences: list of the field codes and their explanations
Environmental Terminology in Italian
38
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.2.1. AGROVOC
FAO has published some documents concerning some specific environmental sectors
(agriculture, fishing, food, etc.). Among the most important initiatives is AGROVOC, the only
available multilingual thesaurus for agriculture, which has been conceived as a tool in the
informatic systems for agriculture AGRIS and CARIS, a global network of centres from all over
the world and coordinated by FAO.
The second edition of AGROVOC has been published by the FAO Library and Documentation
Systems Division, in collaboration with more than 200 AGRIS and CARIS centres and with the
support of a group of linguists and documentation experts.
AGROVOC, in English-French-Spanish, contains 14714 descriptors (technical terms related to
the agro-alimentary sector) for all versions, 8495 non-preferred terms for the English version,
7602 for the French version and 11408 for the Spanish version. It has been adapted to the Italian
language in 1992 by the Ministry for Forestry and Agriculture in collaboration with FAO,
ISMEA and APIMONDIA. The Italian edition contains 14714 descriptors and 6750 non
preferred terms. AGROVOC is a structured collection of terms without a systematic
organisation.
In each liguistic version only one alphabetical list is presented, comprising the descriptors, the
non-preferred terms, the hierarchical and semantic relations and the permuted forms of
compounds terms (the permuted terms do not appear in the Italian version).
The multilingual character of the thesaurus is revealed by the fact that in each linguistic version,
at the bottom of the relational structure of the descriptors, the equivalents in the other languages
are given; in the Italian version, only the English equivalents are given, because a quadrilingual
volume complementary to AGROVOC, has been separately published, which contains the
equivalents in Italian, English, French and Spanish.
The Italian version of AGROVOC allows the access to the most important agricultural data bank
and is the basic thesaurus for the Sistema Informativo Nazionale per la Documentazione
Agricola.
The software employed has limited the length of terms to 35 characters. Longer terms have been
abbreviated or represented with acronyms or initials, explained by a Scope Note. The software
has allowed the introduction of a maximum of 7 hierarchical levels for each relational structure
of terms (microthesaurus). Some hierarchies have thus been splitted at a point significant for
their retrieval; the relation between the two segments is given by an associative relation.
The coverage degree of AGROVOC can be measured by the classification schemes
AGRIS/CARIS ; the list of AGRIS/CARIS categories is the following:
Environmental Terminology in Italian
39
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.2.2. FAO Terminology Bulletins
FAO has published some documents concerning the environment in general, such as “Terms on
environment related to agriculture / Termes de l’environnement intèressant l’agriculture /
Terminos del medio ambiente relacionados con la agricultura / Terminologia sull’ambiente in
relazione all’agricultura”(FAO Terminology Bulletin 22/It, 1991), in English, French, Spanish
and Italian. It is a non-structured collection of about 1000 terms derived from FAO or UN
Agricoltura in generale
Geografia e storia
Insegnamento, divulgazione e informazione
Amministrazione e legislazione
Economia, sviluppo e sociologia rurale
Scienze delle piante e produzione
Protezione delle piante
Tecnologie post-raccolta
Silvicoltura
Scienze degli animali, produzione e protezione
Pesca e acquacultura
Macchinari agricoli e ingegneria
Risorse naturali e ambiente
Trasformazione dei prodotti agricoli
Nutrizione umana
Inquinamento
Metodologia
Fig. 16. List of categories of AGRIS/CARIS
documents, issued by FAO Terminology and Reference Section of Rome, with the aim of
creating an homogeneous terminology inside the UN system. The alphabetical order is based on
the English terms, which are sequentially numbered and associated with their linguistic
equivalents in the other languages. The system is also provided with complementary indexes,
whose terms alphabetically arranged in each language refer to the corresponding English
equivalent and number.
Concerning the Italian terminology, among all the potential variants, the most commonly used
forms have been employed for representing the concepts. As a referral, the terminology derived
from the documents of the Ministry for the Environment has been mostly used. When both the
forms are widely documented, both of them are listed, the first one being the more specialistic
form, the second term being considered totally equivalent.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
40
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.2.3. The Dictionary of Logos
Logos is a private international translation company, founded in 1979 and with headquarters in
Modena, where 120 professionals work full time in order to provide technical translation and
terminology services in many fields. In addition to this centre, Logos has other offices, located
both in Italy and throughout Europe, and a network of over 1000 translators and terminologists.
Logos has for fifteen years been developing a multilingual terminological data bank, with the
aim of assisting its network of translators and terminologists. Logos’ terminology is an
electronic processing system for multilingual terminology containing a total amount of about 1,5
million entries, including acronyms. This so-called Dictionary presents the terms in 14 or more
languages, 11 of them being access languages, among them Latin. Logos Dictionary is the result
of an analysis of more than 150.000 translation projects, more than 1000 masterpieces of
international literature and 1000 scientific and technical texts. Contextual information is also
provided by the system.
The terms are classified using the Dewey system (UDC) in 251 thematic areas which include the
environmental sciences. It is estimated that the environment-related terminology sums up to
more than 2000 terms in five languages.
2.2.4. The PROGETERM data base of SNAMPROGETTI
The SNAMPROGETTI Spa is a company belonging to ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi),
involved in large scale development projects. SNAMPROGETTI has created the terminological
data bank PROGETERM, which aims at sistematically collecting and distributing multilingual
terminology concerning SNAM fields of interest.
PROGETERM, although not directly concerned with environmental terminology, represents an
important initiative mainly for the aspects concerning the handling of terminology.
The classification of terms has been performed from a functional point of view: SNAM
disciplines of terminological interest have been adopted as categories (sectors) to whom the
pertaining terms have been assigned. Some terms are polycategorial. The list of categories is
shown in Fig. 17.
These sectors must not be considered as organizing units of SNAM structure, but as disciplines
or issues in a broad sense. The base unit of PROGETERM is the terminological record.
PROGETERM contains about 9000 records; each one concerns only one concept and contains
essentially the following fields:
•
•
•
Domain, the category to whom the term belongs;
Subject, the topic;
Sub-Subject, the specific topic.
The above mentioned fields refer to the whole record and not only to one language.
• Starting language (italiano/English/français/Deutsch) or main term: the terminological unit
and its synonims, to whom the record refers;
• Reliability: three levels are given for the terms which must be used with caution, for the
reliable terms and for the standardised term;
Environmental Terminology in Italian
41
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
•
•
•
•
•
Definition: description of the concept;
Source of the definition;
Context: sentence indicating how the term is currently employed (syntagmatic context).
An image can be associated with the record, displaying graphically the main term.
Moreover, within the record there may be indication of connections with other records.
At present the content of PROGETERM is basically bilingual, Italian and English; the extension
to French and German is foreseen.
Acoustics
Business
Civil Engineering
Confernce
Corporate Organization
Ecology
Economics
Electric Engineering
Electronics
Filing
Financial
General Language
Graphic Arts
Information Technology
Instrument Engineering
Insurance
Legal
Marine
Mechanical Engineering
Medicine
Metallurgy
Offshore
Painting
Personnel
Piping
Politics
Process Engineering
Procurement
Project Engineering
Quality Assurance
Safety
Textiles
Fig. 17. List of categories used in PROGETERM (SNAM).
Environmental Terminology in Italian
42
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
2.3. Environmental terminology in Italian at European level:
EURODICAUTOM
EURODICAUTOM is the well known terminological data base of the Translation Office of the
European Commission. It contains about one million of terms with definitions from various
sources, a reliability score and other accessory information, in all the languages of the EU. Being
subjected to desultory extension of the number of EU languages, there is no exact
correspondence between the information in the various languages. Nevertheless,
EURODICAUTOM represents the most important general purpose terminological resource at
European level. The Italian environmental terminology, although not structured as such, can
profitably be retrieved from EURODICAUTOM through the ECHO data base.
3. Conclusions
Environmental terminology in Italian is in rapid growth. In spite of the difficulties in
coordinating the activities of the various developments and applications, there is a large interest
for the harmonisation of environmental terminology, both general ans specific and its
harmonised application. The participation of the RRDA to the Topic Centre for the
Terminology, thesaurus and CDS of EEA is expected to provide a link with the European and
international initiatives in the field of environmental terminology. A national coordination
initiative is expected to be implemented in the context of CIRT, the Italian Reference Centre for
general Terminology.
4. Notes
(A) The essential part of this paragraph has been published in the article “From a System of Descriptors to a Thesaurus for the Environment”
(Felluga, B., Lucke, S., Pàlmera, M.), in Documentary Languages and Databases, Negrini G., Farnesi T., Benediktsson D. Eds., Frankfurt/Main,
Advances in Knowledge Organization, 1991, pp. 73-84.
(B) The essential part of this paragraph has been published in the article “A Classification Scheme for General Multilingual Thesaurus for the
Environment” (Felluga, Pàlmera, Lucke, Plini), in Environmental Knowledge Organization and Information Management, Supplement volume,
Proceedings of the First European ISKO Conference, 14-16 September 1994, 1995, pp.5-13.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
43
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
5. References (in alphabetical order)
1.
Barcaroli G., D’Angiolini G., Di Giuseppe R.: Banca dati fonti di informazione ambientale - Manuale di
utilizzo. Versione 1.1. Istat, Roma, 1990, pp. ii + 119.
2.
Boltri R., Levy A.: Dizionario dell’ambiente. Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1980, pp. x + 353.
3.
Carimati R., Potenza R., Testa B.: Lessico internazionale di scienze della Terra. CNR, Milano, 1984, pp. 234.
4.
CEC - Commission of the European Communities. MDS, Multilingual Descriptor System (MDS) for the
European Inventories on the Environment. Peter Peregrinus Ltd. Publ./Commission of the European
Communities, Unwin, Old Woking, Surrey, England, 1983. Pilot Edition, EUR 8638 EN, pp. iv + (DA-v + 38;
+ NE-v + 38; + EN-iv + 44; + FR-v + 43; + DE-v + 34; + IT-v + 44; + MDS 212) (total: iv + 453).
5.
Collin P. H.: Dictionary of the Ecology and the Environment, 1988. Translation: Vizigno L.: Dizionario di
Ecologia, Sperling & Kupfer, Milano, 1994, pp. 118.
6.
de Lavieter L., Deschamps J., Felluga B.: A Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus: past, present and future.
Proc. Third Infoterm Symposium “Terminology work in subject fields”, Vienna, November 1991. M.
Krommer-Benz and A. Manu, Eds./Infoterm-Termnet, Vienna, 1992, pp. 37-44.
7.
Di Fidio M.: Dizionario di ecologia. Pirola Editore, Milano, 1986, pp. 447.
8.
Dodero G.: Glossario di ecologia, inquinamento, igiene ambientale. Edizioni Universitarie Scientifiche,
Roma, 1983, pp. 684.
9.
FAO - Terms on environment related to agriculture / Termes de l’environnement intèressant l’agriculture /
Terminos del medio ambiente relacionados con la agricultura / Terminologia sull’ambiente in relazione
all’agricultura, Terminology Bulletin 22/lt, 1991, vi + 194.
10. Felluga B., Lucke S., Pàlmera M., Sardoni A.: Indice analitico tematico delle attivita' di ricerca delle Unita'
Operative del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche ad uso degli operatori del settore ambiente. C.N.R.-I.T.B.M.,
Rapp. Sci. n. 1987/1, Roma, 1988, pp. 183.
11. Felluga B., Pàlmera M., Lucke S.: Sistema Bilingue di Descrittori per l'indicizzazione, la categorizzazione e la
codificazione dei termini ambientali.Bilingual Descriptor System for Indexing, Categorizing and Codifying
Environmental Terms. Roma, CNR-ITBM, 1989, pp. xxiii + 278.
12. Felluga B., Pàlmera M. Lucke S., de Lavieter L.: Thesaurus ambientale (Versione monolingue per l'Italia).
Roma, CNR-ITBM, 1991, pp. v + 459.
13. Felluga B, Lucke S., Pàlmera M.: From a System of Descriptors to a Thesaurus for the Environment. In:
Documentary Languages and Databases, Negrini G., Farnesi T., Benediktsson D. Eds., Frankfurt/Main,
Advances in Knowledge Organization, 1991, pp. 73-84.
14. Felluga B., de Lavieter L., Deschamps J., Lucke S., Pàlmera M., Eds. (GITA-IGET, Gruppo di lavoro italiano
per la terminologia dell'ambiente - Italian Working Group for Environmental Terminology): Thesaurus per
l'ambiente - Versione trilingue per l'Italia. Edizione pilota, Vol. 1/3, pp. i-xiv + 700; Thesaurus for the
Environment - “Trilingual” Edition for Italy. Pilot Edition, Vol. 2/3, pp. xv-xxviii + 684; Milieu-thesaurus Drietalige vertaling voor Italiè. Proefuitgave, Vol. 3/3, pp. xxix-xxxiv+672, totale pp. i+xxxiv + 2056, 1991,
Roma, CNR-ITBM.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
44
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
15. Felluga B., Pàlmera M., Lucke S.: Terminologie de l’environnement: un système de référence pour l’Italie.
Terminologies nouvelles, n. 8, RINT, Dec. 1992, pp. 36-43.
16. Felluga B., Pàlmera M. Lucke S.: Terminologia dell’ambiente: un sistema di riferimento per l’Italia. In: Ricerca
e terminologia tecnico-scientifica, CNR, Roma, novembre 1992, Adamo G., Ed., Lexicon Philosophicum, 7
(1994), pp. 129-142.
17. Felluga B., Lucke S., Pàlmera M.: Environmental Information in Italy: a Report for 1993. FID News Bulletin,
43: pp. 93-94, 1993.
18. Felluga B., Lucke S., Pàlmera M., Plini P., de Lavieter L., Deschamps J., Eds.: Thesaurus per l'ambiente Versione quadrilingue / Thesaurus for the Environment - Quadrilingual Version / Milieu-thesaurus - Viertalige
vertaling / Thesaurus für die Umwelt, CNR-SIAM & CNR-UPIS edition on CD-ROM, Milan, 1994.
19. Felluga B., Pàlmera M., Lucke S., Plini P.: A Classification Scheme for General Multilingual Thesaurus for the
Environment. In: Environmental Knowledge Organization and Information Management, Supplement volume,
Proceedings of the First European ISKO Conference, 14-16 September 1994, 1995, pp. 5-13.
20. Felluga B., Pàlmera M., Plini P., Mazzocchi F., Lucke S.,: Schema di classificazione / Classification Scheme
for the Data Bases of SINA, Sistema Informativo Nazionale dell’Ambiente. CNR-ITBM Sc. Rep. 1994.3,
December 1994, pp. 22.
21. Felluga B., Pàlmera M., Plini P., Lucke S., Mazzocchi F.,: Thesaurus italiano per l’ambiente/Italian Thesaurus
for the Environment. CNR, 1995 (in press).
22. Felluga B., Pàlmera M., Plini P., Mazzocchi F., Lucke S.: Thesaurus italiano per l’ambiente/Italian Thesaurus
for the Environment - Schema di classificazione/Classification Scheme (per il SINA - Sistema Informativo
Nazionale per l’Ambiente/for SINA - Italian Information Sistem for the Environment). Data/State 1994-12-06.
Rapporto Scientifico/Scientific Report CNR-ITBM 1994.3, Rome, pp. 22, 1995.
23. Felluga B., Pàlmera M., Plini P., Mazzocchi F., Lucke S., de Lavieter L. & Bendahmane H.: Thesaurus italiano
per l’ambiente/Italian Thesaurus for the Environment - Schema di classificazione/Classification Scheme (for the
CDS, Catalogue of Data Sources of the European Environmental Agency, Copenhagen). Data/State 1994-12-06.
Rapporto Scientifico/Scientific Report CNR-ITBM 1994.3, Rome, pp. 22, 1995.
24. Floccia M., Gisotti G., Sanna M.: Dizionario dell’inquinamento - cause, effetti, rimedi, normativa. NIS - La
Nuova Italia Scientifica, Roma, 1986, pp. 397.
25. ISO, International Standard Organisation: International Standard 2788, Documentation - Guidelines for the
establishment and development of monolingual thesauri. (Principe directeurs pour l’établissement et le
développement de thesaurus monolingues). 2nd Edition, UDC, 1986, pp. iii + 34.
26. ISO, International Standard Organisation: International Standard 5964, Documentation - Guidelines for the
establishment and development of multilingual thesauri. (Principe directeurs pour l’établissement et le
développement de thesaurus multilingues), 1985. (Norma Internazionale ISO 5964. Documentazione - Linee
guida per la costruzione e lo sviluppo di thesauri multilingui. Transl. M. Trìgari, Firenze, BDP, Biblioteca di
Documentazione Pedagogica, 1990, pp. xi + 104).
27. Lucke S., Pàlmera M., Candeloro A., Felluga B.: Sistema Bilingue di Descrittori per l'indicizzazione, la
categorizzazione e la codificazione dei termini ambientali, ad uso degli operatori del settore /Bilingual
Descriptor System for Indexing, Categorizing and Codifying Environmental Terms. Edizione pilota / Pilot
Edition., CNR-ITBM, Rapp. Sci. 1988/1, Roma, 1988, pp. xi + 296.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
45
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
28. Mazzocchi F., Alonzi A. (ANPA), Timucin-Barberi M. (Infoterm), Felluga B., Lottersberger F., Budin G.
Terminologia della Convenzione per la Protezione delle Alpi. Atto istitutivo. CNR-ITBM, Rapp. Sci. 1995/13,
Roma, 1995, pp. iii + 113.
29. Min. Ris. Agr. Alim. e Forestali, ISMEA, FAO, CEE: AGROVOC - Thesaurus Agricolo Multilingue. Seconda
edizione, versione italiana. 1992, pp. xvi+652+B14.
30. MOPU, Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Urbanismo: Tesauro de medio ambiente. MOPU, Madrid, 1990, pp.
xxxii + 319.
31. NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NSSDC, National Space Science Data Centre.
Directory Interchange Format Manual (DIF Manual) 93-20.
32. NASA NSSDC Goddard Space Flight Center, Version 4.1, pp. 50 ca., April 1993.
33. Pinbourg U.: Catalogue of Datasources for the Environment. Joint project EEA/Europ. Com. and NTR/N.
Counc. Min.,1993.
34. Plini P., Felluga B. (Coord.), Lucke S., Pàlmera M., Eds.: INFOTERRA Thesaurus di termini per
l’ambiente. Thesaurus of Environmental Terms. Versione quadrilingue italiano-inglese con
equivalenti linguistici in francese e spagnolo della Terza Edizione. Ministero dell’Ambiente - CNR,
Rapporto Scientifico CNR-ITBM 2/94. Roma, 1994, pp. l + 72 + 286 + 282 + 324 = 964 tot.
35. Pàlmera M., Lucke S., Felluga B: Elenco categorico degli Organi del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
impegnati in attivita' di ricerca di interesse per l'ambiente. C.N.R. I.T.B.M., Rapp. Sci. n. 1987/2, Roma, 1988,
pp. 159.
36. Rassam G.N., Gravesteijn J., Potenza R. (eds.): Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences. Pergamon press., 1988.
pp. lii+516
37. Tagliabue A.: PROGETERM (provisional title), ECOS n. 5 (in press), 1995; La Banca Dati Terminologica
PROGETERM. Doc. interno SNAMPROGETTI, dic. 1994, pp. 1-24.
38. UBA - Umweltbundesamt: Umwelt-Thesaurus und Umwelt Klassifikation. Umweltbundesamt, Berlin, 1994, pp.
v + 11 + 347 + 495 + 150 + 133 + 9, total 1145.
39. UNEP - INFOTERRA: Thesaurus of Environmental Terms. UNEP, Nairobi, 1990, pp. xi + 190.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
46
Pointer Project - Report on Environment Case Studies
Acknowledgements
The contributions by
• CNR Centro per la dinamica alpina e quaternaria, Milan;
• CNR Istituto di Psicologia, Reparto di Psicopedagogia, Rome
• FAO, Rome;
• SNAMPROGETTI, Milan;
• Logos, Modena
are gratefully acknowledged.
Environmental Terminology in Italian
47