Environmental Science: shaping European regulation with e-Science and UK expertise

The environment plays a crucial role in the UK economy. Climate change, soil erosion and the depletion of marine stocks threaten jobs, employment and economic growth. The government has therefore made the natural environment and its resources both a duty of care and an important part of economic policy.

Environmental science informs these policies. Scientists and satellites collect measurements on the Earth’s surface, sea and atmosphere. This information must be stored and also integrated, as atmospheric conditions, for example, are linked to ocean circulation.

Europe imaged by the Envisat satellite
Credit ESA

By using ‘e-Science’ to manage and process vast amounts of data, scientists across disciplines can exchange information, test new theories and run simulations of single, large Earth system models. The results, when analysed and evaluated, can forecast future environmental change and inform policymaking.

STFC's Centre for Environmental Data Archival at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory hosts the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) British Atmospheric Data Centre, the NERC Earth Observation Data Centre and the lead data delivery site for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, funded by DEFRA.

STFC e-Science expertise is being applied across Europe, defining how the data may be accessed to provide an evidence-base for policies on environmental issues.

In 2007, the European Parliament issued a directive creating INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community). Set up to provide policy makers and the public greater access to environmental data, the European commission selected Dr Andrew Woolf, from the STFC e-Science Centre, as one of the scientists to help develop the standards. “This reflects the world-leading expertise of the e-Science Centre in data and information modelling in web-based environments,” said Dr Woolf. “It will enable the interoperability of environmental data between agencies right across Europe.”

e-Science Information

• e-Science produces international scientific collaboration
• STFC’s e-Science is contributing towards European data regulation
• The information infrastructure of e-Science informs environmental policymakers
• INSPIRE will cost more than 1 billion Euros with benefits expected to be ten times that amount