Envilex: An Integrated Environmental Law Expert System

Abstract

This paper illustrates an initial implementation of an integrated expert system on environmental law. It is a system that, apart from having the performance of a typical expert system, offers the user the possibility of using additional non formalised knowledge through an advanced information retrieval system. The system, based on Italian regulations relating to air pollution, uses the FLEX LPA shell implemented in Prolog, a hybrid expert system toolkit, providing features and functionality normally associated with high cost expert systems. It represents a natural evolution after lengthy experimentation of expert systems in the legislative domain. This implementation is also not aimed merely at lawyers who are the user group our research is usually addressed to, but, given the domain here, at large sectors of the community.