Passionate about improving energy efficiency in the UK, the Energy Saving Trust advises individuals and households on the best ways to reduce energy bills, conserve water and minimise carbon emissions. It also works with government, local authorities and commercial organisations to help them improve the effectiveness of their sustainable energy programmes.

Across the UK there are in excess of 27 million homes, a large proportion of which were built long before the availability of modern insulation materials, efficient heating appliances and domestic energy generation systems. If the owners of these properties were to retrofit loft or cavity insulation, upgrade their boilers or install solar panels, for example, they could not only lower their energy bills, but also reduce carbon emissions, benefitting the environment as a whole.

Many different organisations – from central government and local authorities to energy suppliers – are actively engaged in promoting energy efficiency measures to home owners. However, the Energy Saving Trust observed that these energy campaigns were rarely informed by an accurate understanding of the types of homes prevalent in specific locations and the best measures to install in each home. Consequently, information about solar panels was frequently mass marketed to all homes in an area, rather than to selected homes with south facing roofs, for example.

This problem stemmed from two specific challenges: firstly there was no single database of accurate home data, covering all of the UK; and secondly the limited amount of data that was available was not easily accessible to the people on the ground, who were implementing energy saving programmes. “Decisions frequently weren’t based on evidence, which can lead to the inefficient delivery of programmes, increased costs and, in some cases, unwarranted hassle for consumers,” comments Will Rivers, data insight manager at the Energy Saving Trust.

The Energy Saving Trust set about consolidating data on every home in the UK, including property type, size, age, wall construction, loft insulation, glazing, tenure and the sociodemographic profile of the householder. Then, the organisation used geographic information system (GIS) technology from Esri UK to work out the likely roof orientation of each property and its suitability for solar panels; measure the distance of each home from mains gas and supplies of biomass fuel; and analyse the potential for wind-energy. Through this sophisticated use of GIS, the Energy Saving Trust gained valuable knowledge about every single home in the UK and successfully built up a comprehensive database with energy-related data never captured before.

“Esri technology in combination with Ordnance Survey data has enabled us to target the installation of a number of sustainable energy technologies in a far more accurate way so that we can work to increase take up of these measures,” Rivers says.

In addition, the Energy Saving Trust engaged Esri UK’s partner Assimil8 to integrate GIS into its existing IBM business intelligence system using Esri Maps for IBM Cognos. With this GIS portal, called Home Analytics, the organisation and its many partners can now perform complex searches to find, for example, houses over a certain age, in a specific city, with unfilled walls and occupants on low income, to identify precisely those households that might qualify for funding for insulation. They can generate displays on a digital map, make selections and export a report with a list of just those qualifying addresses.

The Energy Saving Trust’s Home Analytics solution enables organisations to target the right homes and the right people with the most appropriate energy efficiency schemes. It is therefore playing a crucial role in the UK, helping to drive the adoption of measures to reduce energy consumption, minimise carbon emissions and alleviate fuel poverty.

Local authorities use Home Analytics to help them reduce the cost of implementing energy efficiency initiatives and improve their ability to meet government targets. Rather than knocking on every door in a neighbourhood or mailshotting an entire city, councils can focus their resources on precisely those homes that meet the criteria. “In some cases, as much as two thirds of the cost of delivering an energy efficiency scheme can be attributed to identifying and locating the right types of home,” Rivers explains. “By reducing this cost of delivery, we can help organisations to deliver more energy saving measures into the UK housing stock in a more cost effective way.”

Commercial companies, like solar panel providers, can also take advantage of Home Analytics to improve their sales success and install more solar panels – both improving their revenues and helping to reduce the country’s overall carbon emissions. Equally, the UK’s large energy suppliers can use the solution to target those households where they can achieve the biggest reduction in carbon for the least cost. “If we can help energy companies deliver their energy obligations more cheaply, we can make their investment go further and improve the success of government policies like the Green Deal,” Rivers says.

Millions of people across the UK are affected by fuel poverty, and Home Analytics can be used to help to alleviate this suffering. Local authorities in Scotland currently use this GIS portal to pinpoint those homes in specific locations, occupied by people over 75 or under 5 years old, with high energy bills and low incomes and no cavity wall insulation for example. “Fuel bills have more than doubled since 2005,” says Rivers. “Home Analytics helps local authorities identify people who are at most risk and provide targeted support.”

As one of the six schools within Bournemouth University, Applied Sciences contains three academic centres. One focuses on archaeology, anthropology and heritage, another covers ecology and geographical science while the third deals with forensic science. Teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses, the school has an International reputation for delivering high quality education while also pursuing excellence in research. Areas of research expertise include: Forensic archaeology and crime scene science where, for example, staff are currently investigating genocide in Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda and the implications of unearthing 40,000 year old human footprints in central Mexico.

In the past, only Ecology and Geography undergraduates were taught GIS for all three years as undergraduates, while Archaeologists attended GIS lectures in their third year. Recently, Forensic Science students also joined the GIS sessions from their second year onwards and other disciplines are soon to follow suit. Biology will be the next subject to take advantage of learning GIS skills from the second year on, for example.

Andy Ford, Lecturer in Geoinformatics, explained: “The growing relevance of GIS in various industries means it’s becoming ever more applicable to other subjects here at Bournemouth. Our aspiration is to make GIS available to all students within the school, giving them the benefit of learning new skills which are now in demand in the workplace. This means GIS will be accessible for Environmental Sciences and Biology students – in addition to those studying Archaeology, Geography; Forensic Science and Ecology.”

The main driver behind the new GIS initiative is that it can easily be applied to the various disciplines, to help solve relevant challenges and tasks and Bournemouth therefore believes it should be taught, to a wider audience.

The school is also set to benefit from greater economies of scale, as students from all disciplines will attend the same GIS sessions, rather than additional tailored modules which would not be economically viable. This gives staff more time to devote to research and generate the valuable income all universities need for long-term growth.

Bournemouth uses a mix of GIS software as part of its teaching programme, including Esri ArcInfo and ArcView. The campus-wide Esri licence acquired via the Eduserv CHEST programme supports the spread of GIS to new subjects, as it allows an unlimited number of users at no additional cost.

Bournemouth’s GIS teaching is already breaking new ground in the field of Forensic Science, where the capabilities of GIS are being realised for the first time. A prime example involves current Masters students, using Esri ArcView to create predictive models to help identify dump sites for murder victims.

Examining a range of spatial criteria, the models help users consider the type of decisions murderers make when hiding a body. This normally involves a thought process to find the right kind of landscape and vegetation, not too far from a road or car park and walking downhill rather than uphill. Using GIS, students create the different data layers and are able to understand all the different factors in context, to quickly reduce the area to be searched for a body.

Future plans for GIS-Forensics include students evaluating the vulnerability of 2012 Olympic sites to sniper fire, in a similar way in which proximity and viewsheds were used to identify the sniper’s locations in the Beltway shooting in Washington DC, which led to the individual’s capture.

The main benefit from increased exposure to GIS: The new skills being gained. “Graduates will be more employable and can consider jobs which specifically involve GIS. In Forensics for example, they will be able to apply emerging techniques which are relatively new to their discipline. In Europe this area of science is not as mature as in the US and is currently a growth area.” explains Ford.

Increasing the number of students being taught GIS across the School of Applied Sciences is no easy task but the benefits of students developing critical thinking skills through spatial analysis, outweighs any initial logistical challenge for Bournemouth. “As more students start to understand the concepts and potential power and utility of GIS, so other areas of science and industry will benefit. Soon there’ll be a lot more Biologists, Archaeologists Forensic Scientists or Geologists – not just Geographers – able to apply the power of spatial analysis in the real world,” concluded Ford.

The Crown Estate manages a multi-billion pound portfolio across the UK: urban, rural, Windsor and marine estates. It has a duty to enhance their value, minimise environmental impact, maximise revenue and give profit to the Treasury.

Marine assets include around half the foreshore, half the beds of estuaries and tidal rivers, and almost the entire seabed out to 12 nautical miles – almost three times the area of Great Britain, and including 22,000 km of coastline. It controls the rights to explore and utilise natural resources of the continental shelf (excluding oil, gas and coal), granting leases or licences for ports and harbours, conservation, offshore renewables (wind, wave and tidal), aggregate dredging, pipelines/cables, and aquaculture. Over the last decade, revenue has grown 70%, delivering £1.8bn profit.

The Crown Estate needed advanced knowledge management and decision support systems to analyse and manage increasingly complex marine activities and balance diverse interests of stakeholders. Most of the data had a locational element, and the number and type of parameters involved were unparalleled, so a geographic information system (GIS) was key. The challenge was to build a toolset to analyse multiple datasets. “We needed a more comprehensive understanding of the value of our marine estate in order to manage its future to the best of our ability”, explained Peter Lawrence, MaRS Programme Manager.

The Crown Estate invested almost £4m to create a sophisticated GIS analysis tool, Marine Resource System (MaRS), using ArcGIS to build a spatial database of every national dataset (currently 450). “Esri had the scalability and openness we needed to build what is one of the most comprehensive, integrated GIS data sources that the UK now possesses”, commented Lawrence. A desktop GIS tool for non-specialists was next: users connect to the spatial database, select data layers, view associated policies, and select inputs or constraints to do multi-criteria analysis.

MaRS is used to map existing demand and future potential of marine estates, helping pick areas to develop, while mitigating conflicting interests. “MaRS is a sophisticated decision-support tool which automates our constraint analysis. The results help us decide if building a wind farm is more suitable and sustainable than dredging for sand, for example, and what the monetary value is”, said Lawrence. “The resulting map is supported by the policies, rules and data analysed and used within the Estate’s business planning to make sure an activity fits our overall business strategy.”

The Crown Estate can better manage its marine estate in several ways:

Ensuring future energy supplies
The UK is the world’s largest producer of offshore wind energy, and wind is the fastest growing renewable – but more is needed. EU targets require 15% of the region’s energy from renewables by 2020, and UK government targets require an 80% reduction from 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 2050. “MaRS has helped de-risk the investment opportunity for international wind farm developers and has saved at least a year and millions of pounds… The information we now have available from MaRS helps show how the UK is one of the most attractive prospects for offshore wind development that exists today – great for both our economy and providing us with new sources of energy”, said Lawrence.

Balancing conflicting interests
“As more activities compete for the same space, MaRS analysis will be vital to help assess both short-term demands and long-term considerations”, Lawrence explains. For example, building an oil pipeline over an area licensed for aggregate dredging would have lost dredging revenue of almost £120m. Using MaRS, a compromise was implemented, safeguarding revenues.

Operational efficiency
A typical model to analyse consent issues has 90-120 data layers, and the analysis over 400 separate geo-processing steps. MaRS automates this, saving an estimated hour per layer, allowing the team to run models simultaneously or in quick succession. This saved over 300 days in six months, equating to £135,000 in staff costs.

New markets
“Ideally MaRS will become a global product to help establish best practice in cross-border marine resource planning. This would make collaboration and co-operation easier on joint initiatives, such as super grids or carbon capture”, said Lawrence. “Esri has helped us create a system which streamlines the complex GIS analysis of our marine assets, improving our ability to plan and direct our business. Being able to assess what’s best for our economy, the population and environment is of paramount importance both for today and for future generations”, concluded Lawrence.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is one of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, custodian of 240,000 hectares, equivalent to one per cent of the UK. Defence Estates has an annual budget of £2 billion to manage the land and its assets, balancing military requirements with social and environmental considerations. The estate includes over 45,000 military buildings, rural training grounds (30 per cent of it within National Parks), 179 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), 50 special protection areas, over 600 statutorily protected buildings, almost 1,000 scheduled monuments, and numerous archaeological sites. In addition, Defence Estates manages permanent overseas facilities in Germany, Cyprus, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, as well as resourcing military theatres such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defence Estates has successfully used Esri’s Geographic Information System (GIS) since 1995. However, the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) of 1998 required them to be able to query national data more effectively. A seamless and up-to-date “version of the truth” was required for both its internal and external users. This resulted in two requirements:

• Capture data in the field, ensuring the geodatabase was updated in a timely manner.
• Obtain and efficiently maintain third party datasets (from government and environmental organisations).

In addition, this data repository should be accessible to the whole organisation, with minimal instruction, not just to GIS specialists.

The Corporate Data Manager and his multi-skilled team consolidated and standardised the data captured by the eight regions. They defined and populated a spatial data model within an enterprise geodatabase that included Ordnance Survey’s baseline digital mapping. GIS applications include:

• Geographic data is disseminated via Esri’s desktop GIS viewer and Defence Estates’ web mapping portal, known as GEODE. The viewer is installed on every user’s computer, providing simple GIS to support ecologists and environmentalists working to manage activities, such as those in SSSIs. GEODE is used by the wider MOD community, with 60% of users outside Defence Estates.
• Surveyors use a GPS-enabled mobile solution to capture new data and upload it to the corporate repository. Analysts can quickly assess and communicate changes in the operational status of the estate.
• Data about historical sales and purchases of land is managed in a customised GIS called e Terrier.

Ensuring that staff understand and communicate the use and benefits of GIS is crucial to the success of the system. Over 500 staff have been formally trained in GIS by the Esri UK training team. Regular participation in the wider GIS user community is also encouraged, with regular attendance at Esri UK’s Defence Intelligence Special Interest Group (DISIG) meetings and the annual Esri International User Conference.

Defence Estates has realised a number of management benefits from the use of GIS:

Single, up-to-date view of data
Central data management and data repository ensures “one source and one version of the truth” for all Defence Estates’ geographic information. Users know they are looking at a valid version of the data. Consequently, the analysis they provide is accurate, consistent and current. This is particularly important for managing the land management lifecycle.

Lower costs, better resource usage
Holding a central copy of Ordnance Survey and other third party datasets has significantly reduced data management overheads. One team is now responsible for maintaining the corporate GIS data repository, freeing other GIS users for business-critical data capture, analysis, digital publication and cartographic map production.

Faster analysis
Mobile GIS enables environmentalists and surveyors to capture and maintain data in a timely manner. It can be used for immediate impact analysis, with any changes in the operational status of estate passed to the relevant departments. For example, when a nesting site for protected birds is identified, the surrounding training area must be decommissioned until the birds move on.

More informed decision making
GIS enables users to carry out analytical tasks such as the potential impact of wind farms on military activity or to advise where training trenches can be dug with minimal impact to surrounding archaeology, landscape and wildlife.

Enhanced management capability
Consolidating corporate data and metadata has resulted in the standardisation of data and skills, and defined stronger working practices. This has meant GIS, which was once perceived as a niche tool, to become a critical management decision-making resource – within Defence Estates and the wider MOD community.

Defence Estates aims to expand the functionality and range of services by using ArcGIS Server. For example, this will allow those planning training exercises and manoeuvres to determine the optimum locations, taking into account criteria such as supply depots, terrain, ground conditions, lines of sight and environmental sensitivity.

Outside the UK, one of the key challenges will be to expand the reach of the system to bases such as Germany and Gibraltar, as well as current military theatres.

Defence Estates also wants to share its GIS knowledge and experience with other business areas, so they can realise similar benefits from their geographic data.

Welsh Water is owned by Glas Cymru, a not-for-profit company. It provides drinking water and sanitation services to more than three million people in Wales, and some adjoining areas of England.

In November 2009, the water regulator OFWAT set tight controls over the prices that Welsh Water could charge customers. OFWAT also stipulated that the utility company must cut operating costs by one fifth to improve efficiency and enable the average household bill to fall by £30 before inflation. In a press release issued in February 2010, Welsh Water admitted that these were “the toughest efficiency targets” it had ever faced.

Welsh Water needed to consolidate its network and asset-related data, making it readily accessible to all of its 1,800 employees. In its vision for the future, everyone would be able to access precisely the information they needed to do their jobs – whether they were speaking to customers from a call centre, modelling the requirements for a new housing estate, or surveying a burst pipe in a remote village.

Welsh Water launched a wide-ranging programme of IT-enabled change, upgrading its Geographic Information System (GIS) technology as a key part of this programme. As part of its business transformation, Welsh Water decided to develop a more consistent, enterprise-wide approach that would enable it to exploit its location-based data across the organisation.

Kelvin Davies, ICT Change Manager at Welsh Water, saw a real opportunity for the business. He says: “We wanted to create a single, enterprise GIS that would present a clear view of our assets – and then take this information right out to the sharp end.” At Welsh Water, ‘the sharp end’ is what matters most. It is where customer service agents interact directly with customers and where mobile engineers interact directly with the company’s assets to survey, repair and replace them.

Welsh Water replaced three disparate legacy GIS applications with a single platform from Esri UK based on ArcGIS Server. This provided a master database for all of the organisation’s spatial data. Welsh Water deployed a utility-specific web application from Esri UK called UtilityView; allowing network maps to be easily accessed internally for office workers, and also remotely and securely for mobile engineers and partners.

Welsh Water also integrates ArcGIS with SAP business applications to create streamlined business workflows. Every notification raised in SAP against a property or an asset, is now spatially referenced.

Welsh Water can run reports in SAP to identify its worst performing assets and map them in ArcGIS to expose patterns. When ArcGIS reveals trends, such as a stretch of water main that bursts regularly, plans can be made to replace it as part of the company’s capital investment programme, ensuring that it focuses its money on precisely the areas of its network that need it most.

Using Esri technology and Esri UK solutions, Welsh Water has succeeded in making GIS capabilities more accessible and relevant to all of its 1,800 employees and 900 users at various external organisations, realising efficiency improvements right across its business. These improvements range from mobile workers accessing GIS on toughbook computers to reduce the duration of roadwork disruption and costs; through to improved safety when excavating by accessing electricity networks from partners straightaway.

Cost savings are also being made through faster network modelling using ArcGIS Desktop solutions to analyse information and identify current and future asset investment requirements. Gareth Paske from the Asset Strategy Team was one of the first employees at Welsh Water to use the new enterprise GIS. Commenting on the solution, he says: “Previously, it would take two hours to create a typical water quality drawing, but now the new system can produce ten in the same time. To identify above and below ground assets at risk of flooding might have taken five hours, but it can now be done in less than ten minutes.”

Welsh Water also recognises that its new enterprise GIS has a lower ongoing cost of ownership than its previous fragmented systems and that efficiency gains are sustainable because GIS-related maintenance costs have fallen. “There is a big difference between what the company is expending now to maintain its GIS, compared with what it used to expend,” says Davies.

GIS now plays a greater role in disaster planning and helps Welsh Water to understand and manage business risk. If there is a failure at a service reservoir or a contamination, the organisation can assess the impact of that failure more quickly and identify customers affected.

The Cheshire, Warrington and Halton Information Consortium (CWHIC) is a public service partnership formed to deliver customer facing services across the region and promote data sharing between members. Partners include Cheshire County Council, Chester City Council, seven borough councils, Cheshire Police, and Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Crime and anti-social behaviour affect agencies and groups including hospitals, councils, and police, as well as citizens. However, when one sought information from another, it could take days or weeks to arrive, and effort was sometimes duplicated, supplying the same information to different groups.

Phil Christian, a former police intelligence analyst, was seconded to Cheshire County Council to help the consortium build and implement its information strategy. He explains, “CWHIC wanted to create a central information hub to make up-to-date information more accessible to a range of different partners.”

The initial plan was a central database for sharing partners’ data. However, Christian had experience of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and recognised that most of the data had a location element. He convinced his colleagues of the advantages and added value that GIS would bring.

The consortium eventually chose a system developed by Cheshire County Council’s GIS Team, using an ArcGIS Server corporate, intranet-based system. “It is particularly intuitive to use”, says Christian. “Partners don’t need to know how functions work to be able to get value from using them. When they zoom in, ArcGIS automatically recalculates the crime totals for each different layer.”

The Community Safety Targeting Resources information hub (CO-STAR for short) was implemented in just three months, without needing specialist external consultants, though Christian values the council’s relationship with Esri UK: “Although it is a large organisation, Esri UK is always willing to engage with us on a one-to-one basis and help however it can.” CO-STAR currently includes data from the county council, police, fire and rescue service, ambulance service and four district hospitals, as well as Mosaic population profiling data and the Vulnerable Localities Index. Each partner can upload its latest data directly over the internet, minimising central data administration and ensuring that the system remains up-to-date.

Partners can select data on crime, injuries and arson, for example, and layer this on a map. They can then use drop-down boxes to view incidents on a specific date, within a certain time period or by different boundaries, and either display a map of the entire region or zoom in to street level. In most instances, partners can access the information that they need in no more than four mouse clicks.

Because CO-STAR uses pre-defined problem scenarios, users see data in a consistent format, reducing the likelihood of inaccurate interpretation. “You don’t have to be an expert in GIS to be able to access and use the system”, says Christian. “It brings the power of an Esri desktop solution to those who didn’t have access to it. It’s a very powerful, but incredibly friendly tool.”

Partners immediately noticed time and efficiency savings: they only supply their data once, and can quickly and easily access the latest data from any of the others. This makes the fortnightly tactical assessments much easier to produce and avoids consulting numerous spreadsheets and making separate data queries. “Now, the data analysts can use COSTAR to do it all and they can find the information that they need in just a few clicks of the mouse. We estimate that we will achieve savings of £20,000 per year from this use of COSTAR alone”, explains Christian.

However, the most important advantage is the improved insight into crime. Because COSTAR holds data over five years, users can explore trends. For example, Cheshire Police used CO-STAR to monitor patterns of criminal damage, crime and arson on bonfire night. By analysing at street level, over five years, it identified potential trouble spots and planned its policing strategy accordingly.

CO-STAR has also been used to identify areas with high vehicle crime where “decoy” cars can be placed. These have visible sat-navs to attract thieves, hidden cameras to film them, and ‘Smartwater’ technology, to spray invisible ultra-violet ink that has a unique DNA-like reference linked to the specific crime. CO-STAR is then used to analyse the success of such tactics.

Similarly, Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service uses CO-STAR to help partners identify communities most at risk from arson. Data from the last five years is layered with Mosaic data to highlight areas at risk. Partnerships then plan targeted prevention and educational programmes.

CWHIC plans to increase the number of partners and data sets, making CO-STAR available to a larger user community. It also intends to extend the supported output formats, so users can export maps to PDF. Christian concludes: “We want to continue to build the solution and add more features, data and layers over time. Our goal is for CO-STAR to become an embedded product that is used extensively in the Cheshire, Warrington and Halton areas.”

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is the longest running national geological survey organisation in the world. Since 1835, it has been sharing its knowledge of the geology of Britain with governments, industries, academics and the general public.

BGS has been conducting geological surveys and building a national geology record for more than 180 years, so it should come as no surprise to learn that it has amassed vast data assets. It maintains a national geological map of the whole country at 1:50,000 scale and publishes intricate scientific information on everything from Britain’s bedrock, groundwater and earthquake fault lines to boreholes and soil.

The organisation already made much of this data available free of charge via its web site, but wanted to improve access to these and other resources and encourage more people to make use of them. In 2009, it therefore launched ‘OpenGeoscience’ a new strategy to expand the use of its data assets and support the government’s Open Data agenda.

Patrick Bell, Information Systems team leader at BGS explains: “OpenGeoscience was about bringing all our free resources together, making them easier to find and use, and creating new channels for publishing open data in different ways to more people.”

BGS was one of the first organisations in the country to use Esri geographic information system (GIS) solutions in the mid-1980s. Since this time, it has remained both a loyal Esri UK customer and a true pioneer in the development of innovative GIS solutions. In pursuit of its OpenGeoscience goals, the organisation broke ground in the field of mobile GIS, becoming one of the first organisations in the UK to develop free GIS apps for smart phones.

BGS has developed four GIS-enabled solutions as part of OpenGeoscience, each one designed to deliver BGS data in a convenient format to a different audience:

Web-based map viewers – Anyone can visit OpenGeoscience online to view, pan, zoom and interrogate interactive maps on a range of topics including London’s soil geochemistry, groundwater levels over time and seabed samples. The organisation’s most popular map viewer is ‘Geology of Britain’, which today receives up to 40,000 visitors per month.

Mobile apps for iphone, ipad and android – At the forefront of mobile GIS development, BGS created the iGeology app, which allows people to find their current location using GPS and discover the geology literally under their feet. The app has been downloaded over 170,000 times; it has served up 70 million maps to date; and is used by 1000 people a day.

Web mapping services – For those familiar with GIS, BGS offers several of its data archives as web services that can be integrated into other systems. Third party organisations can take advantage of these services to combine geological data with their own data and gain fresh insight into their land and property assets.

A 3D data viewer – BGS’ newest solution is the augmented reality iGeology 3D for android. Highly innovative, this mobile app utilises the GPS, camera, tilt sensor, compass and motion detector functions on tablets to create a 3D scene of the landscape in which a person is standing – and then layer geological data on top of this scene. As the person moves, the data displayed synchronises with the changing view.

All four of these solutions have been developed using Esri GIS. BGS uses Esri’s ArcGIS Desktop solution to prepare its data and then employs Esri’s ArcGIS Server technology to publish the data to all of the web-based and mobile solutions in a standard, interoperable format.

The GIS apps and web-based GIS services developed by BGS make it easier for people to discover and use geological data. “ArcGIS allows us to give many different people, many different ways to access our geological data, whether they are at home, at work or in the field,” says Bell.

There has been a substantial increase in the number of people using BGS’ resources, and the organisation is confident that its geological data can now reach a wider demographic. The GIS-based iGeology app and online map viewers mean that people don’t necessarily have to have specialist knowledge and software to be able to view and use geological maps.

BGS anticipates that this increased use of its data resources will bring long term advantages for the whole country. “Ultimately, our hope is that our data will stimulate new commercial projects and businesses that will benefit the economy as a whole,” Bell says.

In addition, the innovative application of GIS, and web services in particular, help BGS to deliver a better quality of service to outside organisations. It used to take several hours for a BGS employee to copy required data sets onto CDs and post them out. Now organisations can access the most up-to-date data straight away by ‘self-serving’ from the Internet.

The Cabinet Office supports the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and ensures the effective running of government. It is also the corporate headquarters for government, in partnership with HM Treasury, and takes the lead in certain critical policy areas.

One of the defining policies of the current Coalition Government is to make data about its operations, services and assets more accessible. To support this agenda, the Cabinet Office has developed a web based geographic information system (GIS) to improve transparency specifically in the area of property management.

Across the country, there are hundreds of vacant buildings or offices and disused parcels of land owned by Central Government which are available for sale or rent. The Cabinet Office used to publish details about this available property on the website data.gov.uk in a series of data tables. However, it recognised that the information wasn’t easy for members of the public to access.

Chris Statham, Head of data services at the Cabinet Office, explains: “It was extremely tricky for people to find information about property in their area. They had to download a large file, convert it to Microsoft Excel and then trawl through extensive data tables to try to identify buildings and areas of land to suit their needs. Rather than just providing this raw data, we decided to provide an online application that would be quick and easy to use.”

The Cabinet Office already relied on Esri’s ArcGIS Server platform to manage its property data and was able to use the integral services and capabilities of this powerful GIS solution to build the new application, which it calls ‘Find Me Some Government Space’. The organisation has an Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) with Esri UK, so it was able to develop its new web-based GIS very economically, with no additional software costs.

Like well-known commercial property search websites, the ‘Find Me Some Government Space’ application allows members of the public, businesses and developers to enter a town name or postcode and then search for property within a specified radius. Users can select to view only property for sale or for rent, or both together, and view the results on interactive maps at a variety of scales. If, for example, a group wants to establish a new free school in a city, it can now easily enter the city name and see all available development land and vacant buildings that might provide suitable sites for the new school.

For this new GIS application, the Cabinet Office decided to take advantage of Esri UK’s Data Services for the first time. Esri UK therefore streams up-to-date background mapping from Ordnance Survey direct into the online application. The use of these data services saves the organisation a great deal of time, as its employees and contractors no longer have to manage and load data updates.

Such has been the success of Esri UK’s Data Services that the Cabinet Office now plans to gradually migrate current and future GIS applications to this service. Eventually, it will no longer have to store large mapping data sets onsite, so will be able to reduce its Storage Area Networks and associated software, hardware and rack space. “We haven’t done any specific calculations, but recognise that there will be a cost saving from the expanded use of Esri UK’s Data Services in the future,” Statham says.

‘Find Me Some Government Space’ is the first public-facing GIS ever developed by the Cabinet Office and, as such, it showcases a new way to improve transparency in the public sector. The online app makes data about over 600 Government-owned properties and land parcels far easier to find and thereby delivers a better quality of service for citizens. Every week, the application receives over 4,000 hits, which is a strong testimony to its success.

The Cabinet Office anticipates that the new online GIS could generate more requests to rent or buy unused property owned by Central Government. Indeed, in the long run, it believes that the solution could decrease the amount of under-utilised space in Central Government, creating added revenue for government departments and delivering a better ‘return’ on assets for the tax payer.

English Heritage exists to protect and promote England’s historic environment and ensure that its past is researched and understood. Officially known as the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, the organisation is the Government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment and an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

In order to protect and preserve England’s diverse historic buildings and landscapes, English Heritage conducts regular surveys, landscape investigations and research projects. The information that it gathers is used to create conservation and management plans.

English Heritage’s research department was starting to handle many more disparate datasets. Its existing IT systems were struggling to cope with diversity, and data often had to pass through several complex steps between collection and use. “We wanted to become more sophisticated in the way that we handled data and have a one-stop solution,” explains Trevor Pearson, Head of Technical Survey (Archaeology). “We needed a solution that could handle all the different types of data that we were being confronted with and simplify our processes.”

English Heritage was using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) elsewhere in its organisation, and some teams had been using Esri GIS software since the mid-1990s. “ArcGIS was being widely used corporately and was known for being straightforward to use,” recalls Pearson. In addition, many of English Heritage’s partner organisations – such as the National Parks Authorities and local authorities – had already deployed GIS and wanted to receive data in compatible formats.

Over a period of time, time twenty nine research department staff started to use ArcGIS for Desktop with the Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst extensions.

Spatial Analyst is used to investigate viewsheds of castles and lighthouses to understand how these sites were positioned in the surrounding countryside. Perspective views of sites and entire historic landscapes have been created using 3D Analyst, aiding interpretation and allowing sites to be seen from otherwise unobtainable points of view. The ground models used to create the perspective views are interpolated in 3D Analyst from spot height data; and are also used to analyse the gradient and aspect of hill slopes to explore how ancient settlements and field systems were distributed.

ArcGIS has also been used in a research project at Audley End in Essex, helping to validate the accuracy of old maps. A large number of fragile paper maps depicting the house and its estate from as far back as the sixteenth century have been scanned, geo-referenced and compared with modern data from recent geophysical and earthwork surveys, as well as archaeological features seen on aerial photographs.

This exercise highlighted a number of very significant changes that had occurred. For example, the maps geo-referenced in ArcGIS clearly illustrated how the natural course of the River Cam had been re-routed more than once. The information collected on the precise location of the river at different points in time is helping to ensure that future conservation work is historically accurate.

ArcGIS adds great value to the work carried out by English Heritage’s research department. “ArcGIS has a positive impact on every stage of a research project,” says Pearson. “It influences the way that we think about data collection; it makes data management more straight forward and comprehensive; it gives us new analytical capabilities; and it improves the way that we present, use and store our findings.”

ArcGIS delivers the ‘one-stop solution’ that English Heritage sought for managing its research projects from beginning to end. “At no point do we have to take the data out of the GIS for manipulation in CAD (computer aided design) packages or for analysis,” Pearson explains. “We can use ArcGIS to manage projects right from the field work to the end archive.”

Andrew Lowerre, an archaeologist specialising in spatial analysis, believes that the Audley End project would have been virtually impossible without the use of GIS. “It would have been very difficult to compare maps and match features using just digital images and the eye,” he says. “The result would have been far less satisfactory and difficult to share or use in the future.”

English Heritage is using ArcGIS to gain a deeper understanding of the properties and sites within its care and to help preserve them for future generations. Lowerre says: “ArcGIS allows everyone to see the different stages in the history of a property and its surrounding landscape. It shows very clearly how complex landscapes have changed over time and gives us a better understanding of important historical sites.”

Founded by the Romans, York is a vibrant city with a rich cultural heritage. The City of York Council is a unitary authority caring for a population of around 195,000, within the city’s ancient walls, and in the suburbs and rural areas beyond: an area of over 271 km².

Like most UK local authorities, the City of York Council developed online mapping capabilities in 2005, in response to government directives and guidelines. Esri UK’s LocalView was still meeting these needs, but the geographic information system (GIS) team wanted to develop its publicly accessible GIS capabilities to deliver enhanced services for citizens. Simon Lutman, GIS project officer at City of York Council, says: “Our aim wasn’t necessarily to produce fancier maps, but rather to make it even easier for people to use the online GIS service to find precisely the information that they needed.” The other challenge was to develop a new geospatial intranet application that was compatible with Internet Explorer 8.

Designed specifically for local authorities, LocalView Fusion is based on ArcGIS technology. It provides a straightforward way to publish geographic information as digital maps, using a single technology platform for both Internet and intranet. More than just a simple enhancement of LocalView, it is an entirely new platform, with a range of new capabilities and a contemporary look and feel. “I don’t think I realised quite how different it was until it was installed and up and running”, says Lutman.

For citizens, the council created separate, highly focused GeoWindows that display information relating to specific council services, including transport, business and economy, education and learning, environment and planning. For example, an interactive map within the transport section of the website just displays information pertinent to transport, such as bus stops and car parks. The council also retained their single, all-services, map with over 50 data layers; this is used for ‘where’s my nearest’ queries across the full range of council services.

For staff, a GeoTemplate was used to deliver display and analytical capabilities. “Everyone now has GIS on their desktop”, says Lutman. “LocalView Fusion provides customisable maps for everybody.”

Clearer, more accessible information
Interactive maps are embedded directly into the relevant web pages. Lutman explains: “In the future, if citizens are looking at a specific transport page on our website, they will see a map that shows bus stops, car parks and other relevant information. They won’t have the complexity of having to navigate away from the web page and activate specific map layers.”

Added value for citizens
Council data has been combined with relevant data from external sources. For example, citizens can click on a bus stop and see the routes and times of buses that stop there. “It’s about adding value for citizens, by providing links to information that people might not otherwise be able to find”, says Lutman.

Cost efficient customer service
It costs around £0.32 to service an enquiry via the web, as opposed to £2.90 via telephone. Since installing LocalView Fusion, the council has recorded around 700 daily hits for its online maps, and in 100 days between January and April 2011, it received over 115,000 hits, 45% of which were for the new transport GeoWindow. “LocalView Fusion tells me in black and white how many people are using the service, which is great”, Lutman enthuses.

Reduced development costs
The City of York Council now has the benefits of an in-house solution, without the time and expense of commissioning external development. “We don’t have the resources in-house to develop complex applications”, Lutman explains, adding “It worked out much less expensive to use LocalView Fusion than upgrade our existing system.”

Advanced GIS for staff
The council’s employees now have more advanced GIS capabilities than the previous intranet-based solution provided. They are equipped to answer complex business queries, such as “Which properties will we need to evacuate if we have to set up a cordon or buffer zone around a particular site?” As Lutman says, “In the past you would have needed a full-functioned GIS to do this kind of query. A lot of staff who would have previously needed access to an ArcGIS Desktop licence, now no longer require it. LocalView provides access to all the data and functionality users need. I believe it will prove useful in a range of ways.”

The GIS team plans to develop even more customised GIS applications to embed into specific pages of the council website and to introduce Ordnance Survey’s VectorMap Local as a dynamic and visual base mapping layer. This will make its GIS services even more user-friendly and accessible.