Balaton Group Balaton Group The Balaton Group (The International Network of Resource Information Centers) is a global network of researchers and practitioners in fields related to systems and sustainability. The name “Balaton Group” refers to the Lake Balaton region of Hungary, where the Group was first constituted, and where most of the Group’s annual meetings have taken place. The Balaton Group aims to accelerate and deepen the world’s general understanding of systems, long-term perspective and commitment to achieving positive change. The Group believes that these factors are fundamental to sustainable development. The Balaton Group was founded in 1982 by Dennis Meadows and
Lake Balaton the late 19th century when landowners, ruined by "Phylloxera" attacking their grape vines, began building summer homes to rent out to the burgeoning middle classes. In Hungarian, the lake is known simply as "Balaton". It was called "lacus Pelsodis" or "Pelso" by the Romans. The name is Indo-European in origin (cf. Czech "pleso" ‘sinkhole, deep end of a lake’), later replaced by the Slavic *"bolto" (Czech "bláto", Slovak "blato", Polish "błoto") meaning 'mud, swamp' (from earlier Proto-Slavic "boltьno", , ). Slavic prince Pribina began to build in January 846 a fortress as his seat of power and several churches in