Dr Matthew Stiff CEH Director Environmental Informatics Presentation to CRM SIG NeSC Edinburgh 12 July 2007 The Environmental Informatics Programme

A “flagship” programme for CEH

The Environmental Informatics Programme A new programme for CEH An integrated approach to knowledge management encompassing digital, paper and object archives Delivery to be achieved through revised management structures with increased emphasis on data management and informatics Improved service and delivery

Informatics leadership Working with the core science programmes to Establish/facilitate data management Develop strategy Coordinate informatics development Facilitate data integration Meet the needs of external partners and stakeholders

Key objectives of EI01 Development of an integrated framework for the long-term management of CEH’s environmental data Data archaeology and capture of corporate knowledge Provision of a secure environment for the curation of CEH’s physical archives, integrated with CEH digital data archives Development of a defined commercial policy for exploitation of CEH data holdings

Key objectives Development of a geospatial gateway providing comprehensive access to CEH spatial and temporal data Evaluation and/or development of domain ontologies for semantic integration of environmental data Support for and development of CEH corporate and science project Web sites and implementation of Web standards for these sites

Semantic Integration

Data Integration Domain Ontologies Contextual Metadata Resource Discovery Metadata Integration and Analytical Tools

Geo-spatial Integration Geospatial integration Land cover map of Great Britain CEH digital terrain model 50m × 50m resolution (upper Eden catchment) 1: scale mapping (Ordnance Survey) CEH 50 × 50 m resolution hydrologically- corrected digital terrain model overlain with derived river network National soil series from NSRI (250 × 250 m resolution). CEH land cover map (25m x 25m resolution) Modelled critical loads for acidity of soils (1km resolution) Modelled spatial variation in soil organic Carbon National river flow information from the CEH National Water Archive English Nature Sites of Special Scientific Interest – SSSI boundaries. Combining ecological and hydrological data Bringing together CEH tools with those of partners and commercial suppliers Adding value with CEH knowledge and expertise

Environmental Informatics developing better access to consistent data sets EI is bringing together CEH’s numerous data holdings into standard corporate structures Enabling better integration of these and other third party data sets And providing better access to consistent data at both national and local level This will allow researchers to investigate complex environmental issues across a range of consistent data sets Hydrology Land cover Cartography Stewardship Areas

Environmental Informatics support for corporate information management EI has created a network of information specialist to support science teams They are fostering Web-based collaborative working methods to track scientific data through projects and from CEH staff leaving and moving from different sites They will assure proper data cataloguing and storage in new, long- term corporate facilities This is raising science information management standards across CEH and securing unique environmental records for future research Lancaster Long-term Archive CEH Dorset Decommissioning

Environmental Informatics support for CEH science projects EI is supporting national-scale monitoring projects such as the Countryside Survey Developing rugged digital data capture systems for field survey And comprehensive Web-based data delivery This is significantly improving quality and speed of data capture, analysis and delivery

Facilitation role Existing: IT Strategy Group Planned working groups Modelling Statistics Field data capture GIS Standards Semantics and data integration

Key collaborative projects Managed by EIP through the IT Strategy Group Storage Infrastructure Project Access Grid High-performance cluster at Edinburgh In collaboration with People and Skills/Knowledge Transfer Intranet/Internet redevelopment

Thoughts?