EARSS is an interactive information and assessment system, designed to support state of the environment reporting at a global, regional, and national scale. It integrates a large set of environmental and related socio-economic data bases, a geographical information system, and a rule-based expert system for the assessment of environmental issues. These issues and related indicators are derived from Agenda 21 which is available within EARSS in hypertext format.

EARSS is initially implemented for the Asia-Pacific region and intended to support the ESCAP SoE Reporting. In addition to its interactive use, the system supports a number of data export facilities to support external text processing and layout systems, used in the preparation of SoE reports.

EARSS is also one of the starting points for the GAIA Project supported under the EU Framework 4 INCO-DC Programme, and a sub-national to European case study for Lower Austria.