When the UK Government launched its Transparency Agenda and announced that data about public sector operations would be made ‘open’ to everyone, it unleashed an enormous technical challenge for local authorities. As Tom Brown, Geographic Information Manager at Lambeth Council says, “After years of funding cuts, we had no budget for additional on premise IT equipment or external IT services to enable us to create an Open Data system. We also lacked the technical expertise in-house to put in place a wide range of download options for citizens and third party organisations.”

To comply with the Local Government Transparency Code, the council initially just uploaded data sets to its website, all on separate web pages, which involved manually exporting and updating files. This process consumed a huge amount of time and didn’t necessarily result in the publication of data that was useful for citizens; a list of council expenditure that Lambeth Council had a mandatory requirement to publish only received a handful of views in two years. “We needed a better system for publishing Open Data that would be more cost effective and time efficient,” says Tom Brown. “Yet we also wanted to be able to publish the kinds of data that citizens would actually find helpful and present it to them, in context, in a range of formats that they could use.”

Lambeth Council achieved its goals using Esri’s ArcGIS Online and pre-configured ArcGIS Online Open Data templates. As a hosted, web-based solution, ArcGIS Online requires no investment in on premise hardware, no space in the council’s data centre and no complex software configurations. Furthermore, as the council has been using Esri’s ArcGIS geographic information system (GIS) platform for many years and already has an existing ArcGIS Desktop license, it can use ArcGIS Online without any additional costs.

From the outset, Lambeth Council found it very straightforward to set up the ArcGIS Online Open Data portal and integrate it with its own website. “It is incredibly easy to add, configure and standardise metadata for each web service and I don’t have to manually export data past the council’s firewall anymore,” Brown says. “The data is also live-linked to our internal corporate data, so I don’t have to constantly update it.”

A key advantage of ArcGIS Online for Lambeth Council is that the Open Data template provides a wide range of data download options, including creating spreadsheets, integrating with multiple API codes and exporting in .kml or .shp formats. The solution also allows multiple data sets to be visualised together on the same interactive map, for the first time. These features enable Lambeth Council to cater for the data needs of a much wider range of users, from those with very low IT skills to highly experienced, technical GIS professionals.

Significant time savings within the council
The new ArcGIS Online Open Data portal has freed up a substantial amount of time for council employees, working across multiple departments. In the IT department, at least one day per week has been saved as employees no longer have to export, convert and dispatch map-based data files to external organisations such as council-appointed architects and companies maintaining traffic light systems; these organisations can self-serve the information they need themselves. When data on business rates was made available on the Open Data portal, the number of freedom of information requests made to the council reduced by 75%, significantly reducing administration time in that area.

Better information available to citizens
Rather than just viewing isolated lists of information, citizens can now view council data in the context of an interactive map and integrate it with other data to help them better understand the services available in their areas. Likewise, local groups, like residents associations, can easily access information about everything from local planning policy to refuse services, and display all pertinent data in the same format, on the same map, in a format they can understand. Lambeth Council’s new Open Data portal has also been used within the council’s call centre, enabling employees to respond to citizens’ enquiries quickly and knowledgeably, delivering a high quality of service.

Greater support for third party organisations
The ArcGIS Online Open Data portal has been extremely well received by third party organisations, which can now download council data in precisely the format they need, to integrate it into their own business systems. SAT NAV providers regularly stream data from the portal to improve the accuracy of their routing information, while small graphic design agencies can obtain free, easy access to map images to illustrate their reports. Lambeth Council’s Open Data will be automatically harvested by regional and national data hubs, like data.gov.uk, making it readily accessible to many more organisations, far beyond the boundaries of the borough.

Leadership in the advancement of Open Data
With more than 100 data sets already available via ArcGIS Online, the council has become one of the UK’s leading advocates of Open Data in local government. “Lambeth Council publishes more spatial Open Data than any other local authority in the UK,” says Brown. “But it’s not just about publishing the most. Using ArcGIS Online we can also publish our data in the best range of formats to make it useful and relevant for the widest number of people. ArcGIS Online has definitely helped to push us to the forefront of the Open Data movement.”

A key part of Sport Wales’ work is to increase further the number of people who participate in sport and physical recreation on a frequent and regular basis, to have a positive impact on the physical health and happiness of people living in Wales. Recognising that people are more likely to engage in regular sporting activities if they have access to facilities close to their homes, the organisation sought to gain a better understanding of where sports facilities are available and how many people could potentially use them.

There are a large number and diverse range of sports facilities throughout Wales, but many are aging and in need of investment at a time when public funding for service improvements is severely constrained. Sport Wales hoped to gain a clear insight into the potential future usage of sports facilities, to help local authorities and sports associations make informed decisions about which amenities to develop, in which locations, to benefit the largest number of people.

The solution to this challenge was proposed and developed by Dr Mitchel Langford and Professor Gary Higgs based in the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) at the University of South Wales. With funding from Sport Wales as part of its Illuminate scheme, the university team created a bespoke Add-In for Esri’s ArcGIS Desktop and Network Analyst solutions to calculate the geographical accessibility of sports facilities.

Critically, the solution was designed to take users with absolutely no expertise in geographic information systems (GIS) through the analysis process in a series of simple-to-follow steps, making it possible for anyone to gain a clear, accurate understanding of the potential usage of sports facilities. The Add-In draws on Sport Wales’ own ArcGIS database of sporting facilities and uses open source Ordnance Survey road network datasets that allows the organisation to perform analysis by travel distance, age, gender and socio-economic status to different types of sporting facilities for the first time.

The development of the Add-In built on the success of previous research projects at the University of South Wales that have used ArcGIS and Floating Catchment Area models to examine spatial patterns of accessibility to a wide range of public services. The use of Floating Catchment Area analysis gives Sport Wales greater flexibility in how it analyses demand for each different category of sporting facility. For example, the maximum drive time can be adjusted for each search, as appropriate, to reflect the fact that some people may be prepared to drive further to get to a swimming pool than a gym, while people in rural areas may be more accustomed to slightly longer journeys than people in cities.

Greater insight into demand for sporting facilities
The ArcGIS-based solution will not only be used by Sport Wales, but could also be used by up to 40 separate sport governing bodies, providing all these organisations with greater insight into demand for facilities. It has, for example, been used by Welsh Gymnastics, to review the gymnastics facilities available across Wales and the range of coaching levels provided at each site. The solution revealed hot spots where the provision isn’t ideal for the local population, and this evidence can now be used to inform the introduction of new gymnastics facilities in key locations.

Improved allocation of sports funding
Significantly, Sport Wales can use the ArcGIS-based tool to advise the Welsh Government about where public sector funding should be invested in sports facilities, to deliver the greatest benefit. For instance, ArcGIS analysis has shown that although the database contains attribute data for 262 bowling greens in Wales, there is relatively poor provision in those areas of South West Wales within a 15km drive distance or 20 minute drive time for some demographic groups. “We can perform highly nuanced analyses with ArcGIS, quickly and easily, to gain real evidence of the best places to allocate funding to benefit the largest number of people and specific sections of communities,” says Dr Jonathan Radcliffe, Senior Data and GIS Officer at Sport Wales.

More collaborative approaches to long-term planning
Sports Wales anticipates that the clarity of the evidence presented in ArcGIS will help public sector bodies and private organisations collaborate more effectively on the provision of sports and recreational facilities. For instance, councils will be able to easily see where facilities exist in academies and FE colleges that could potentially be opened up to the public outside of school hours, making facilities available to the wider public. In this way, the solution strongly supports the Welsh Government’s Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, important legislation that requires organisations to work together on initiatives to improve health and other social issues.

A healthier, happier nation
Although the new ArcGIS-based tool for analysing sports facilities is still in its infancy, Radcliffe anticipates that it will have a profound impact on Sport Wales’ ability to lead the maintenance, enhancement and creation of sports facilities across Wales. “ArcGIS will help Sport Wales to ensure that sports facilities are accessible, fit-for-purpose, sustainable and in the best locations,” he says. “In this way, we can play a key role in encouraging people to become more active and help to improve the health and happiness of everyone in Wales.”

While Scotland is renowned for its spectacular coastal cliffs and scenic rocky coves, 19% of the country’s 21,000 km of shoreline is formed of beaches, sand dunes and saltmarshes. Government and university experts are concerned about the potential long-term implications of climate change on these soft landforms, because they are highly susceptible to erosion, as well as accretion from the build-up of sediments along the coast.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of the likely future impacts of climate change on Scotland’s soft coastal landscapes and joined forces with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the University of Glasgow to undertake the country’s first ever National Coastal Change Assessment. However, before researchers could begin to assess future risks, they first needed to understand what changes had taken place in the last 120 years, where they had occurred and the pace at which these changes had happened.

With funding from Scotland’s Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW), researchers used Esri’s ArcGIS Desktop to analyse geo-rectified historical maps from the 1890s and 1970s alongside modern maps and LiDAR surfaces. They used over a million data points in the soft, erodible sections of the Scottish shoreline and built up a fully interactive map, enabling them to not only depict a century of coastal change, but also calculate the rate of change for every 10 metres of the soft coast. The analysis showed an increase in erosion extent of 39%, a fall in extent of accretion of 22% and a doubling of erosion rates, above historic baseline levels.

Using this evidence base, the researchers then performed sophisticated spatial analysis to identify areas likely to experience future change. They highlighted the areas of anticipated future erosion in dark red on the map and included a ten metre erosion influence area, which together includes more than 50 buildings, 5 km of roads, 2 km of railway and 2 km of water pipes that may be threatened by erosion by 2050. Over £340m of assets are at risk if erosion continues, however, in total, £13bn of assets are protected by ‘natural defences’.

Finally, the project team used Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform to share its insight into coastal erosion via an accessible web map that everyone can easily view, interrogate and understand. Called DynamicCoast.com, it enables people to browse every beach in Scotland, zoom in to view potential erosion risks at any location, using any device, whether they are at home, at work or standing on a beach. Lachlan Renwick, GIS Services Manager at Scottish Natural Heritage says, “If we had been doing this project five years ago, before ArcGIS Online, we wouldn’t have been able to be as responsive to the original vision of the project and share our coastal change insight with everyone.”

Firm evidence of climate change along Scotland’s coast
Using ArcGIS Desktop, researchers have gained tangible evidence about climate change, which they can use to make secure judgements about the future. “As scientists, we are all inherently cautious about making future predictions, yet as advisors we need to give advice to help the Scottish Government, businesses and citizens prepare for the future,” says Dr Alistair Rennie, Dynamic Coast Project Manager, Scottish Government. “The GIS-led research approach we developed gives us accurate, statistical evidence and allows us to provide objective recommendations with confidence.”

Improved resilience to climate change
By accessing DynamicCoast.com, the public and organisations can now easily find out how the continuance of past coastal changes may impact their property and assets and, as a result, make better informed decisions to reduce their longer term risks and costs. For instance, electricity suppliers can use the information to plan the installation of new electricity cables with more confidence, to avoid those areas where their condition and safety may be jeopardised by erosion or changing sea levels in the future. The University of Glasgow’s Prof. Jim Hansom, Principal Researcher for Dynamic Coast, says: “Ultimately the information in DynamicCoast.com helps Scotland, its businesses and communities become more resilient to climate change.”

Greater public awareness of coastal change
As the data is displayed on simple-to-use, interactive maps via ArcGIS Online, people with absolutely no prior experience of GIS can easily understand the implications of continued erosion and climate change on the areas of coastline where they live, work or visit. “For many climate change is a vague and distant topic, but everyone can now see for the first time, precisely how much change has happened and what the future impacts may be on the specific beaches they love,” Renwick says.

A collaborative response to the challenges of coastal change
The versatility of the ArcGIS platform, and the breadth of the analysis available, is the cornerstone of future collaboration between government bodies in Scotland and will lead to more joined-up responses to the challenges of coastal change. Organisations like SNH, SEPA, Historic Environment Scotland and Local Authorities can work more effectively together to assess the implications for threatened sites of historical and environmental interest and put strategies in place to protect and preserve them for future generations.

Covering an area of 720 square miles, Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park comprises twenty one Munros (Scottish mountains over 3,000 feet), twenty two large lochs, two forest parks and the UK’s largest National Nature Reserve. The park authority has a responsibility to protect and conserve these outstanding natural environments, while allowing visitors to enjoy the area safely. To achieve these goals, it needs to collect a vast amount of information on everything from the locations of rare orchids to the conditions of footpaths.

Conservation specialists and park rangers used to collect data in the field on paper and then either file their notes to use in reports or input them into spreadsheets. As a consequence, the data collected in the field was inconsistent, incomplete and often inaccessible. Furthermore, the GIS team needed to spend a considerable amount of time cleaning and consolidating handwritten, printed and digital data in order to create the digital maps that the park authority needed to support its conservation planning.

Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority had the inspiration to use GIS mobile apps to address its challenges when it gained free access to Esri’s ArcGIS Online solution and apps, as part of its license agreement with Esri UK for ArcGIS Desktop. “When we saw the Collector App for ArcGIS we immediately recognised the potential that it had for our organisation,” says Sally Newton, the park’s GIS manager. “We then went and talked with other organisations in Scotland that were using the app, and the tremendous results that they had already achieved really backed up our business case.”

Using ArcGIS Online, the Collector App for ArcGIS and Survey123 for ArcGIS, Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority quickly created and rolled out over 12 bespoke data collection apps, for more than 30 members of staff, to support different business activities. For example, an ‘Orchid Habitats’ app allows staff to note the locations of rare orchids and complete surveys in the field to record their habitat and environment. “The more ArcGIS mobile apps we have developed, the more opportunities we have found to use them,” Newton says.

Data is entered on a variety of tablets and smartphones via dropdown boxes, making it very easy for people to collect all of the required information in a consistent format, as well as take pictures. Staff can work offline, as mobile coverage is poor in the more remote parts of the park, and upload all their data to ArcGIS Online when they reach a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Even though Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority is a relatively small organisation, with a small number of experienced GIS professionals, it has been able to develop its new apps very quickly and easily. Francis Corbett, the park authority’s GIS systems officer, says, “Once all the planning is done, and you know which survey questions need to be answered, creating the app and setting it up in ArcGIS Online can be achieved in a few hours.”

Faster interventions to preserve the park
As the data collected no longer needs to be inputted manually, with less post-processing and cleaning, the GIS team has been able to reduce the time required to create and share digital maps by as much as four weeks, for some of the mobile GIS apps introduced. Consequently, managers within the organisation have faster access to information on critical issues – such as the current whereabouts of rare species and damage to bridges and footpaths – and can make more rapid decisions about any necessary interventions. “By helping us to collect information in the field more accurately, and make it available to staff almost immediately, ArcGIS Online supports a broad range of the National Park Authority’s work including conservation, rural development and visitor experience,” says Simon Jones, Director of Conservation and Visitor Operations at Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority.

Improved monitoring of conservation schemes
The use of Collector App for ArcGIS helps the park authority to more precisely monitor the spread of non-native invasive species, as employees can capture their locations on digital maps simply by walking around the footprint of the invasive plants. “We can pick up changes in the distribution and spread of invasive species far more accurately with our mobile GIS apps,” says Newton. “We can also monitor the effectiveness of different types of treatment more closely, over time, which helps us to achieve targets for the reduction of invasive species.”

More cost-efficient park maintenance programs
Now that the park authority is able to collect better information about the condition of footpaths, footbridges, signs and information boards around the park, it is beginning to put new processes in place that will, in the future, improve the cost efficiency of its maintenance programs. Staff will be able to prioritise urgent repair requests and simultaneously identify other less-urgent maintenance tasks in the same vicinity, to undertake multiple nearby jobs on the same visit. As Newton says, “One of the park authority’s biggest costs is staff time, so if we can reduce repeat trips to remote areas, we can increase efficiency and reduce the number of vehicle journeys.”

With around 22,500 properties, Flagship Group is the largest housing association in the East of England, comprising Flagship Homes and repairs and maintenance company RFT Services. Since its inception, the organisation had relied on two or more subcontractors to carry out its grounds maintenance tasks, including mowing lawns, weeding driveways, trimming hedges and maintaining shrub beds. However, Flagship had little or no visibility of when and whether specific tasks were taking place and which areas were being routinely maintained. This lack of transparency hampered Flagship’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to customer queries relating to grounds maintenance.

Committed to delivering the highest possible quality of customer service, Flagship made the strategic decision to bring its grounds maintenance activities in-house, by expanding the remit of RFT Services and creating a new digital, integrated process for planning, implementing and managing the entire process. The immediate priority was to create a centralised source of accurate, up-to-date information on all aspects of the grounds maintenance service and make it accessible to employees across multiple departments.

Having recently acquired Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise solution from Esri UK, Flagship Group set about developing a customised grounds maintenance solution, based on ArcGIS Server. The organisation was able to very easily integrate ArcGIS with its existing Microsoft Windows 365 applications, Microsoft SQL Server and bespoke intranet platform to create a fully integrated and automated enterprise system.

The ArcGIS-based grounds maintenance solution was launched on the day that the supplier contracts terminated and, from the outset, it transformed the grounds maintenance process, providing complete transparency into all aspects of the service. “Now, we don’t just have a picture of a strip of grass that needs to be cut; we can click on the map to immediately see when it was last cut, when its next cut is due, what it costs to cut and which customers pay for it,” says Abi Tassie, GIS Developer at Flagship Group.

Up to 180 employees have instant access to the interactive grounds maintenance map while in the office and PDF map booklets (derived from ArcGIS) while in the field. Grounds maintenance operatives use the solution to see which areas are (and are not) owned by Flagship and when they need to attend each site. The Field Management Team uses the solution to plan visits, reduce drive times and increase productivity. The Finance Team accesses cost information via automated reports, embedded within the interactive map, to calculate the grounds maintenance charge per property. Meanwhile, call handlers and housing officers access the system to resolve queries at point-of-contact, for example, when lawns will be mown or what is included in service charges.

A tangible uplift in the customer experience
Since in-sourcing its grounds maintenance activities, Flagship has been able to provide better information to customers and provide a more effective service across its 22,500 properties. Indeed, since bringing the service in-house, Flagship now receive 50% fewer calls into its contact centre relating to failures in the grounds maintenance service, while at the same time it has been delighted to receive dozens of unprompted calls from happy customers, praising the improvements to the service. “Getting it right for our customers is what matters most to us at Flagship – and ArcGIS is enabling us to do exactly that,” says Morgan Manricks, IT Business Intelligence Manager at Flagship.

10% reduction in grounds maintenance costs
Flagship has projected an annual reduction of expenditure on grounds maintenance of at least 10% by bringing the service in-house. This cost saving not only endorses the organisation’s decision to implement such wide-ranging changes in its approach to grounds maintenance, but also gives it the opportunity to improve the quality of its service.

Significant time savings from process automation
In the development of the ArcGIS-based solution for grounds maintenance, Flagship Group either removed or automated 68% of individual steps creating a far more efficient and streamlined process. The service charges team, for instance, now saves many weeks of effort every year, as it can fairly allocate grounds maintenance costs to the right customers automatically. “Having great people, using great software with great data makes life a lot easier,” says Matt Brazier, Director of IT at Flagship Group. “If we had not deployed ArcGIS before in-sourcing our grounds maintenance, I’d hate to think how much time and money we would have wasted.”

A platform for business innovation
Such has been the success of Flagship’s in-house grounds maintenance service that the business is now considering tendering for other contracts for grounds maintenance work from other organisations in its region. Tassie says, “Our automated approach based on ArcGIS allows us to do more things in the time we have available. It therefore allows us to consider innovative new business ventures that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.”

The not-for-dividend business Aster Group is driven by the desire to ensure everyone has a home. Over the next seven years, the organisation aims to develop 10,000 new homes for sale and shared ownership, and will reinvest the profits into developing more homes for rent. It already owns and maintains over 28,000 homes across the South and South West of England and delivers services for 75,000 customers.

For over eight years, Aster Group had used Esri’s ArcGIS platform to collate, visualise and share information about all of the organisation’s homes and assets via interactive maps. This GIS had become invaluable to the business, but following a series of acquisitions and other organisational changes, Aster Group had ended up with four separate web maps, each containing different data sets. This fragmented approach sometimes made it hard for employees to find the information that they needed and prevented them from working with optimal efficiency.

When Esri launched Portal for ArcGIS, Aster Group realised that if it migrated to this new solution, it could create a single, interactive map to support employees across all business teams. Moreover, the organisation discovered that it could accomplish this systems enhancement with no additional expenditure on software, as the cost of the upgrade to Portal for ArcGIS was included in its annual ArcGIS maintenance package.

Recognising the importance of GIS to the business, Aster Group decided to engage consultants from Esri UK for three days, to guide the migration to Portal for ArcGIS and pass on their expertise to the in-house GIS team. “The consultancy from Esri UK was really worthwhile,” says Luke Angwin, GIS Administrator at Aster Group. “We certainly wouldn’t be where we are today without that knowledge transfer.”

The upgrade to Portal for ArcGIS enabled Aster Group to replace its four legacy asset maps with a single, enterprise-wide system, containing a far more extensive range of data sets – up to 50 layers of information in total from internal and external sources. At the same time, the upgrade enabled Aster Group to deliver improved capabilities for users, such as simplified printing, more professional report generation and the ability to mark-up areas and boundaries on maps.

From what appears, on the surface, to be a relatively simple upgrade from one Esri solution to another, Aster Group has achieved some remarkable business improvements. As Roger Taylor, Assistant Director (Property Investment) at Aster Group says, “ArcGIS has been vitally important to our business for many years, but now it plays an even more critical role by providing employees with easier access to the information they need to deliver quality customer services, support key strategic projects and make informed business decisions.”

More responsive customer service
Customer service agents can now respond far more quickly to customer enquiries, such as checking if the organisation is responsible for cutting a verge in front of a house. “As everything is contained in one map, customer service is more straightforward now,” Angwin says. “Employees don’t have to have historical knowledge of our properties to know where to look to find answers to questions.”

Improved employee efficiency
Throughout the business, teams can work more efficiently, as they can perform basic GIS tasks, such as producing and printing maps for themselves. The drainage team, for example, now uses Portal for ArcGIS to mark areas, such as car parks, calculate square meterage and produce accurate request for tender documents, with maps, to send to prospective suppliers. The team no longer has to request maps from the GIS team for this purpose, which saves time and significantly accelerates the tender process for new drainage contracts.

Stronger contractor and financial management 
As all of the information displayed in Portal for ArcGIS is not only up-to-date and complete, but also easy to interpret, employees can access contract maps and customer charges more effectively. The grounds maintenance team can better monitor whether contractors are meeting their contractual obligations, as contract maps can be accessed via hyperlinks embedded directly in the maps for the first time. Equally, the garages team can more easily spot discrepancies in garages classified as basic or prime, and ensure that all customers are charged appropriately for the services they receive.

Clear understanding of health and safety responsibilities
Aster Group takes its health and safety responsibilities very seriously, and through its upgrade to Portal for ArcGIS, it has been able to improve the visibility of information that is pertinent to fire safety regulations. For instance, it can now distinguish between properties that are leaseholder and freeholder, at a glance, for the first time. This distinction was particularly critical in the light of the Grenfell fire disaster, as the organisation could see instantly where it potentially had a responsibility to carry out additional fire safety checks.

A staggering 60% of species in the UK have decreased in number over the last 50 years, and many native plants, birds and animals are at serious risk of becoming endangered.  With an estate of over 250,000 hectares in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the National Trust wanted to play a greater role in protecting and nurturing biodiversity in the UK.

As part of a new strategy, called ‘Playing Our Part’, the organisation set out to implement new approaches to land management to help restore wildlife.  However, it didn’t have a comprehensive database of the many habitat types in its historic properties, monuments, countryside and coastal areas, in one centralised location.  “We were engaged in managing a number of particularly important wildlife sites, with a high nature value, but didn’t have a complete picture of the biodiversity across all our land and water, all around the country,” explains Huw Davies, Head of Conservation Information at the National Trust.

Using Esri’s ArcGIS Server solution, the National Trust pulled together habitats data from surveys undertaken at specific properties, and at regional-level, over the previous 30 years. “For the first time in its 120-year history, the National Trust now has a single, centralised source of information about habitats on its land, which it can use to plan, prioritise, implement and monitor wildlife conservation schemes,” Davies says.

GIS specialists at the National Trust analyse the data in the habitats database, using Esri’s ArcGIS Desktop solution, and identify the best opportunities to make habitats bigger, better and more joined up. The trust can identify opportunities for habitat enhancement and enlargement, working in partnership with other landowners beyond the trust’s boundaries.

Furthermore, National Trust is now beginning to use Esri’s Collector App for ArcGIS to verify, expand and enhance its centralised habitats database. Rangers working on the land can collect habitat and biodiversity data in the field on smartphones, to monitor the evolving condition of land, water quality and habitats. All data collected in the field is synchronised with ArcGIS Server, giving the National Trust what Davies describes as “the view from the ground” and constantly putting better information back into the trust’s central systems.

Firm evidence for prioritising conservation schemes
The new centralised habitats database gives the National Trust a firm evidence base for identifying, planning and prioritising conservation schemes. “ArcGIS is a pivotal tool that is helping the National Trust to identify priority habitats and then intervene appropriately to enrich and extend the biodiversity of its land,” Davies says. “It helps us understand where the best opportunities for nature are, so we can focus our resources in the right locations and work with partners to achieve the most positive impact on the natural environment.”

Improved implementation and monitoring of projects
ArcGIS also plays a key role during the implementation of habitat restoration programmes and in monitoring the success of the trust’s interventions. For instance, in the large tracts of degraded Blanket Bog and Upland Heathlands in the Peak District, the National Trust is using ArcGIS at the desktop and in the field to locate and block damaging drainage channels and conduct vegetation surveys. This is a particularly significant project because the organisation is responsible for 28% of England’s entire priority habitats in the uplands, and the bog mosses that decompose to make the carbon sink that is peat, are beginning to recover as a direct result.

Greater understanding of long-term threats to biodiversity
By using ArcGIS to perform detailed habitats analysis, the National Trust is gaining a far greater understanding of factors like land-use and climate change that may pose a serious, long-term risk for threatened species. For instance, the National Trust has modelled the impact of higher sea levels on its 775 miles of coastline using ArcGIS. It is now applying the intelligence it has gained to identify high-nature coastal habitats that may become changed, understand the implications for species and assess opportunities for coastal habitats to move inland.

New ways to encourage support and communicate success
In the future, the National Trust plans to make use of Esri’s ArcGIS Online to create engaging Story Maps to help it educate the general public about the threats to biodiversity and the vital importance of its conservation activities. Davies says, “Should we need to set up an appeal to help fund a scheme to protect a particular habitat type or wildlife area, we will be able to use the power of ArcGIS Online and Story Maps to do that. We will also be able to create Story Maps to demonstrate the success of our current initiatives and publicise the great work that the National Trust is doing to improve the fate of the UK’s amazing nature.”

Rivers are the healthiest they have been for over 20 years, but there is still more to do. That includes tackling river pollution, which is a key factor when it comes to improving water quality for the Environment Agency. One of the most commonly occurring causes of river pollution is the run-off of soil, fertilisers and nutrients from agricultural land. Indeed, in Herefordshire where soils are generally light in composition, 48% of rivers that fail to achieve ‘good’ ecological status under the EU’s Water Framework Directive are contaminated by soil and soil-based nutrients.

The Environment Agency has the resources to work with farmers to help them understand and address the problem, as well as the authority to penalise farmers who continue to cause pollution to nearby rivers. The challenge is identifying precisely which fields the soil and nutrients come from, in a potential catchment area of hundreds of square kilometres. Previously, environment officers only had past intelligence to help them identify places across Herefordshire that might pose water quality concerns. During heavy rainfall they would visit these areas for signs of soil run-off, at the same time looking out for visible signs which could indicate new areas of concern, but the fields that cause soil pollution are rarely accessible by vehicle and, depending on land gradients, may be some distance away from the rivers they contaminate.

In what has proven to be a highly successful trial in Herefordshire, the Environment Agency is now using Esri’s ArcGIS platform to analyse river catchment areas and identify agricultural fields that are likely to pose a high risk to water quality. It combines Sentinel satellite data and vegetation data to identify ‘brown’ ploughed fields that are more susceptible to soil loss, then adds LIDAR data, showing land gradients of 6% and above, to hone in precisely on those cultivated fields that are steeply sloped towards the river.

This analysis, performed in Esri’s ArcGIS Desktop solution, is uploaded to Esri’s cloud-based ArcGIS Online, where it is visible to all Environment Agency employees. Specialist environment officers then use Esri’s Collector App for ArcGIS on smart phones and tablets to find and survey the ‘high risk’ locations during heavy rainfall, which allows them to collect evidence in the field and upload it directly to the cloud in real-time.

Rapid identification of potential risks
Using ArcGIS, the Environment Agency can now identify potential river pollution risks with far greater precision. “Rather than having to hunt for potential sources of pollutants across the entire trial area of 140 km2, we could see that just 4% of the catchment posed a possible threat,” says David Throup, Area Environment Manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire. “In this case, 4% corresponded to just 50 fields, so we could focus our attention on inspecting these specific locations.”

Improved efficiency in the field
Environment officers are now not only more targeted in their approach, but are also able to work far more efficiently due to the use of Collector App. “Previously, environment officers would probably have gone out on a rainy day, looked at one or two locations, that may or may not have been causing a problem, and then come back to the office to write up their report,” explains Throup. “Now, they might inspect around 10 locations and upload all the data while in the field. It’s quicker and more relevant.”

Real-time resource allocation 
When environment officers are dispatched to conduct inspections during heavy rainfall, employees back at the office can use ArcGIS to track their progress and review the data collected as soon as it is uploaded. Managers can then make instant decisions to direct the officers to different fields, based on the evidence that they or their colleagues are gathering. As Throup explains, this use of mobile and cloud-based GIS allows the Environment Agency to “make the most of heavy rainfall events to gather the most evidence with a small team.”

More effective river conservation
Now, the Environment Agency is able to find problems quickly, engage in more conversations with farmers about river pollution and enforce regulatory controls where necessary. “Over time, I am sure that our use of ArcGIS will result in less soil going into Herefordshire’s rivers,” Throup says. “Since the trial began, there have been a number of successful interventions that have resulted in farmers changing their farming practices to reduce soil run-off.”

Better long-term conservation planning
Over time, the Environment Agency expects to be able to gain more and more insight by collecting and analysing information in ArcGIS to build up a picture of high risk locations and high risk activities. GIS Manager James Barnes, who helped develop the solution says, “We will be able to see how changes in land use have a changing impact on river pollution, year after year, and use this insight to plan future river conservation programmes.”

Rivers in the South West of England flow hundreds of miles, crossing county borders and traversing land owned or managed by as many as 2,000 stakeholders, ranging from local authorities and utilities, to water sports operators and farmers. These organisations, groups and individuals have a shared responsibility to work together to protect their nearby river environments for wildlife and future generations, but can often have widely differing points of view.

Like other rivers trusts throughout the UK, the not-for-profit organisation Westcountry Rivers Trust works with large groups of such stakeholders as part of a catchment-based approach to managing river courses in its region. It aims to facilitate open communication and gain agreement from all groups involved to pave the way for river conservation schemes. “Everyone has their own language for talking about rivers,” observes Sarah Wigley, Data and Evidence Officer for Westcountry Rivers Trust. “Commercial organisations, government bodies and community groups all use different terminology and have very different priorities for river use. Our challenge is to find a way to help everyone understand each other’s needs and to see the bigger picture.”

In 2013, the national, umbrella organisation, The Rivers Trust, was assigned by Defra the role of supporting river catchment partnerships across the country (as part of the Catchment-Based Approach initiative). Part of this role was to encourage the use of data and evidence in river catchment management.  Since then, The Rivers Trust has gathered and published a wide range of datasets using Esri’s cloud-based ArcGIS Online platform, including information on river flooding, commercial activity, biodiversity, water quality, land character and soil typology.  All this data is attributed with river catchment boundary information, so it is easy for catchment partnerships nationwide to use. This online data portal is a valuable resource and has already promoted the use of ArcGIS Online amongst many local partnerships.

The Westcountry Rivers Trust uses Esri’s ArcGIS Online and the data from The Rivers Trust to analyse issues of particular environmental concern, comprehend river ecosystems and present the information clearly to river catchment partners.  It uses interactive, digital maps during workshops and meetings, and produces high quality maps for reports to help multiple stakeholders, from any background, better understand and appreciate key issues.  The trust is also beginning to use ArcGIS Online to create persuasive Story Maps that help to highlight issues and explain conservation projects in a highly visual and engaging format.

Clearer communication of environmental issues
The Westcountry Rivers Trust has been able to significantly improve the effectiveness of catchment-based partnerships in the South West by using ArcGIS Online to present complex information, exceptionally clearly, on maps. Groups and individuals, who may not previously have realised that their commercial, agricultural or leisure activities were having an impact on water quality or biodiversity, can now better understand the environmental consequences. As Wigley says, “ArcGIS can open peoples’ eyes to the broader issues.”

More collaborative, multi-party decision making
Critically, the use of ArcGIS Online helps all of the diverse organisations and individuals involved in catchment-based partnerships to reach collective agreement. “Interactive, digital maps give people from varied backgrounds a common language for collaboration and communication,” Wigley says. “It’s an effective way to bring people together, at the same level, to understand different points of view and work together to make decisions.”

Implement more targeted conservation projects
By using ArcGIS to analyse data on river catchment areas more systematically, the Westcountry Rivers Trust is now able to easily identify issues of concern and can better prioritise conservation projects. In Cornwall, for example, the Westcountry Rivers Trust was able to use ArcGIS to identify declining fish populations and instigate a project to remove barriers at strategic sites along two key rivers to improve access to up-stream breeding areas. “Over time, ArcGIS Online will play a key role in helping river catchment partnerships to improve river quality and biodiversity,” Wigley says.

Raised awareness of the need for river conservation 
Finally, by creating Story Maps, the Westcountry Rivers Trust now has a new means of raising public awareness of river conservation issues and the impact of poor land practices alongside rivers. “Story Maps are a good way of presenting scientific data to members of the public in a way that they can easily understand,” Wigley says. “We plan to use Story Maps increasingly in the future to engage the wider community in river conservation programmes.”

In the UK, there is currently a significant shortage of homes, contributing to rising house prices, high rental costs and even, in rare cases, homelessness. In response, the Government has committed to a range of reforms to increase the supply of new housing. As it points out in its February 2017 white paper ‘Fixing our broken housing market’, there is an urgent need to plan for “the right homes, in the right places” and, critically, “build homes faster.”

Local planning authorities have a pivotal role to play in driving the success of this Government policy. They are required to produce a Local Plan that sets a vision and framework for the future development of the area, including identifying areas suitable for housing developments and making sufficient land available to meet ambitious targets for new homes. In what is a highly complex process, they have to evaluate thousands of parcels of land throughout their administrative areas, taking into account dozens of factors ranging from flood risk and agricultural value to environmental protection and local services such as schools and transport. They also need to consider data from neighbouring local authorities and partners, as part of a fully auditable process that can produce consistent evidence for decision making.

LUC recognised that it could help local authorities to identify and assess potential development land more effectively, by creating a new automated tool to analyse housing growth options. The company has been using Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions from Esri’s ArcGIS for 20 years, so instinctively turned to ArcGIS to design, build and deliver a brand new service for its local government customers.

Using Esri’s ModelBuilder, LUC created an advanced geospatial analysis system that can systematically and automatically analyse parcels of land against hundreds of data sets and categorise them according to their relative levels of suitability for new housing. The solution automatically assesses factors such as flood risk, proximity to historic monuments and existing local services, drawing on data from local authorities and government advisory bodies, such as the Environment Agency and Natural England.

A key advantage of the approach is that analyses can be repeated easily, on demand, allowing LUC to test different weightings for certain planning constraints and explore a number of different options, without having to start again from scratch. Free from human error, the analysis results will always be consistent, so if LUC undertakes projects for neighbouring councils, the outputs will be directly comparable.

LUC used its geospatial analysis system to help Central Bedfordshire Council identify and assess realistic options for the development of up to 20,000 new homes and related infrastructure by 2035. The benefits that the ArcGIS-based solution delivered include:

Substantial time savings 
LUC’s approach, using ArcGIS to analyse the council’s area against three assessment strands (primary constraints, secondary constraints and access to services), using more than 150 datasets, ensured tight project deadlines were met. This complex evaluation process would have taken around 35 working days of manual GIS work for five iterations, whereas it took just two days for five iterations using the prepared automated models.

Repeatable, modular and flexible processes
As LUC’s geospatial analysis process is both fast and repeatable, specialist planners at LUC and Central Bedfordshire Council were able to explore different options for site assessment. They could easily make changes to their land selection criteria, change the weighting of constraint factors and re-run the analysis to model different scenarios in just a few hours. This enabled the planners to evaluate issues more thoroughly and find the right balance between meeting the needs of a growing population and protecting the environment.

Robust and defendable evidence base
The integrity and accuracy of the new GIS-based approach created an auditable process that enabled Central Bedfordshire Council to justify the selected land parcels in preparation of its Spatial Strategy, which will form part of its emerging Local Development Plan. As Lendak says, “ArcGIS generates a robust evidence base which underpins Growth Options Assessments and enables decisions to be made with greater confidence.” Rather than having multiple reports and data sources to study, planners could see at a glance, on colour-coded maps, which parcels of land may be most appropriate for sustainable development and drill down to understand why.

LUC’s GIS team is currently extending the capabilities of the Growth Options Tool, to provide even greater flexibility and speed when testing different scenarios for housing site selection. The solution forms part of a suite of tools aimed at identifying sustainable development opportunities for renewable energy and housing and will be used on projects for councils across the UK.