READ THIS FIRST

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Malcolm Gorton Senior Scientist Environment
Agency Science - Technology Group Lower Bristol
Rd Bath BA2 2QS United Kingdom malcolm.gorton_at_env
ironment-agency.gov
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This session will consist of
Part 1 WIYBY
Part 2 Other information services
Part 3 Next Steps
Part 4 Workshop
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the Environment Agency

• Non Departmental Public Body responsible to UK
  Governments Department of the Environment -
  (Defra)
• Wide range of duties and powers relating to
  environmental management
• 11,000 staff across England and Wales
• 8 Regional Offices, 26 Area Offices
• Approximately100 staff respond to gt350,000
  requests
• We place a high priority on the provision of
  information in achieving environmental goals

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Part 1 WIYBY
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Whats in Your Backyard
Whats in Your Backyard?- (WIYBY) a GIS, Internet
based national web application (www.environment-ag
ency.gov.uk). Users can find information from a
national level, right down to their local
environment locating areas of interest,
displaying data to a chosen scale, formulating
individual queries on the datasets, gaining
background on information of interest, and
downloading data for their own use off line.
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Whats in Your Backyard
51 of map requests are flooding related
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WIYBY One service fits all
Local communities Students Schoolchildren Teachers
Consultants Solicitors Business
Data
WIYBY
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Part 2 Other information services
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Public Registers
Purpose To provide public register
information in a modern electronic manner that
befits the environment, our customers and our
business
Driver Government modernising targets Defra
Legislative Review group Requirement to operate
openly Reduction of travel to our Area offices
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Public Registers the process
Application
Consultation Responses
Monitoring
Advert
Licence
Action
Public Register
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Public access does it work?

• Are people aware?
• Are paper files convenient?
• Is the information presented meaningfully?
• Is location in offices convenient?
• Do we reach a wide cross-section of society?
• Could we do better?!

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Property Search our old approach
Customer Contact
Up to 12 functions
Log and track
Distribute for answers
Send out and log
Compile response
request
Acknowledge
Finance
Re-allocation of resources
Confirmation of payment
Cheque
Reconciliation
Exceptions
Receipt

• it costs a lot of time and money
• to provide inconsistent information
• at the wrong time

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Property Search a new approach
Internet Analysis - Mapping
Application Server
Control Logic
Map Services
Feature Services
Geospatial Database
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Property Search system
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Property Search system
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Old Service New Service
Property Search system

• 6 week response 6 minute response

• Adhoc replies Tailored reports

• Resource drain Income stream

• Cost recovery 75 Service charge 37

• 30,000 requests Possible 1M requests

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Environmental Facts and Figures
Aims of EFF
National overview of the whole environment to
meet statutory duty under the Environment Act
1995 Live and up to date state of the environment
reporting on the web Steps back from Agency to
report state of the environment through facts and
figures
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EFF Content
130 pages covering a range of environmental topics
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A brief history of EFF

• 1996 - First release of Snapshot of environment
  coincided with launch of the Environment Agency
  to meet statutory duty to report on SoE and show
  breadth of areas that new Agency covered
• 1996 - Snapshot of environment on the web
  followed shortly after using view points/stresses
  strains framework
• 1997 to 2000 - SoE online developed expanded
  and Information Scientists take on update/author
  role
• 2000 - Indicators developed
• 2001 - Environment 2000 Beyond released
• 2001 - Environmental Facts Figures developed
  with a simpler structure style and
  incorporation of Indicators

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EFF Approach

• Outline the issue
• Plain English based on sound science
• Facts figures not opinion
• Results at top of page
• How it is changing over time
• What is being done, but avoid selling the Agency
• Brief details of legislation (if appropriate)
• Where to find out more

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Intended audience

• Interested lay people
• A-Level/GCSE students
• Undergraduates
• Journalists
• Agency staff

• Local authority officers
• Councillors
• MPs
• Environmental consultants
• Businesses

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Results of a user survey

• Reasons for visiting
• work 36
• personal interest 31
• study 23 (mainly higher education)

• Did you find what you wanted?
• yes fairly easily 59
• no 32
• yes with difficulty 9

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Part 3 Our next steps
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Our Way Forward

• Electronic access to actual documents
• Real time flagging of live decisions
• Research into social aspects of engagement
• Partnerships with local community groups
• Electronic open forums
• Record interests and provide relevant information
• Assess impacts on our own organisation

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Engaging Citizens

• Make information relevant to everyday lives
• Link Information Systems to Participation Systems
• Provide access without effort, where and when
  required
• Use novel techniques to reach all of society
• (Please tell us how to do it!)

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...from singular information systems
Data
Flood Warning
Data
Reporting
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...to Integrated Information Services
Company identifier
eDecisions
Documents
Education - Whats happening/have your say, local
data to analyse, etc.
Publications
Local Government
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Interoperability Interoperable GIS Data -
Standards
Architecture and Standards
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Interoperability - What is it?

• Interoperability
• capability to communicate, execute programs, or
  transfer data among various functional units in a
  manner that requires the user to have little
  knowledge of the unique characteristics of those
  units ISO 2382-1

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Interoperability - What is it?

• In other words
• the ability of systems to talk to one another in
  an agreed manner
• Adoption of standards is the keystone to
  interoperability (SOAP, WMS, WFS, SQL, HTML, XML)

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Interoperable GIS - What is it?

• Interoperable GIS
• Spatial components and standards that allow the
  communication described above
• A standardised manner of discovering, querying,
  retrieving, and disseminating digital geographic
  information.

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Interoperability-What does this mean
Local Government
Work
Local Maps (ESRI SDE)
Environmental Services
Standards
Mobile
Hazards (Intergraph)
Standards
Network
Home
Routes and Timetables (MapInfo)
Standards
School
Registers (ORACLE)
Transport Services
Standards
Central Government
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Why do we want interoperable GIS

• Greater access to decision support information.
• Opening-up isolated data islands.
• Better customer/citizen service.
• Real-time access and delivery of a wider range of
  data sources and services.

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Why do we want interoperable GIS

• More efficient system implementations
• No re-invention of the wheel
• Reduced reliance on proprietary/vendor specific
  platforms, data sources, and components
• Ability to swap-out components in best-of-breed
  architectures

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Drivers - Simple Accessibility

• Interoperability can be the glue that binds
  multiple, complex resources into more simple views

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Data - Standards
Data interfaces that conform to defined model
standards allow diverse systems to...
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Part 4 Workshop
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EA/UNEP Project Background

• EA/UNEP collaboration since 2000
• Building upon experience
• Senior Support

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Project Proposal

• Capacity Building
• Develop pilots/proof of concepts
• Deliver a framework
• common requirements
• engender consistency
• identification of funding streams
• identification of user needs
• linked to EU INSPIRE initiative

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Project Current Status

• Seedcorn funding
• Bid to UK FCO funding
• Seeking Partners
• and advice, comments, information ...

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EA/UNEP Project Framework
From Inspiration to practice ...

• Reference Data and Metadata
• Architecture Standards
• Environmental Thematic Data
• Implementation Structures Funding
• Impact Analysis
• Data Policy Legal Issues