Intelligent Support to Retrieving Hydric Resources Data

Involved people: Liliana Ardissono, Cristina Gena

Public Web sites play a central role in the dissemination of information at low cost, but they frequently fail to present it in a satisfactory way. For example, most data is presented in static Web pages hardly satisfying individual information needs. Moreover, qualitative and quantitative data is typically presented in a format that cannot be directly exploited for processing purposes, so that users cannot directly exploit the retrieved data.

Advanced user modeling and content generation techniques have the potential to enhance the interaction capabilities of these Web sites, but these techniques cannot be easily adopted at the current stage, because of serious scalability and maintenance requirements. Therefore, in the AQUA project, we have investigated the exploitation of minimalistic Adaptive Hypermedia techniques to enhance the interaction with the user without overloading the Web sites too much.

The result of this project is the ACQUA system, which employs lightweight Adaptive Hypermedia techniques to personalize the presentation of data about the hydric resources of the Piedmont Region. The system provides the information requested by the user in pictorial and machine processable formats. Moreover, the system complements the search results with related data usually searched for, in order to speed up the search task. We have developed the AQUA system following a user-centered approach, by involving domain experts and final users starting from the first design phases. Moreover, we have tested the final prototype with real users representative of the users the Web site is devoted to.

The ACQUA Project was funded by Regione Piemonte, Direzione Risorse Idriche. We thank G. Negro, G. Amadore, S. Grisello, A. Giannetta, M. Governa, E. Quinto, M. Demeo and V. Pellegrino, who assisted us during the system development and provided the domain specific knowledge.

• The ACQUA system is now accessible from the Web Pages of Regione Piemonte: Territorio e Ambiente by following link Monitoraggio delle acque
• In the event that the system is down, you can view a
     frozen demo of the ACQUA prototype
• Moreover, the local version of the ACQUA system is available at the following link

For more information about this project, please contact
Liliana Ardissono, or Cristina Gena