GI Co-ordination within Defra
The use of GI in Defra is coordinated by the Defra GI Co-ordination Team, part of the Chief Information Officer Directorate. The Team provides strategic and technical support on the operational use of GI, co-ordinates analytical services to Defra policy divisions, and oversees interactive map information services, both internal and external to Defra. The Team does not undertake mapping work directly on behalf of Defra business areas, but instead co-ordinates requests for assistance from business areas in respect of the use of GI to achieve their desired outcomes.
The Defra GI Team manages a range of digital geographic information on behalf of the Department, including environmental data from related government bodies, data from research bodies such as the British Geological Survey and the National Soils Research Institute, and commercially sourced data such as aerial imagery and digital Ordnance Survey data. The Science Directorate is another key player in the use of GI within Defra, providing the co-ordination role for the use of earth observation data, including, for example, satellite imagery.
GI is made available to Defra staff through a number of means according to the level of the user and the requirements of specific business areas. Fundamentally, GI is made available to all staff, at a basic level, through a facility on the Defra Intranet which allows users to browse mapping and aerial imagery, and to overlay this with relevant business information such as data on environmental designations. This provides staff with basic GI functionality, allowing, for example, simple measurements to be made of geographic areas. This application is broadly replicated through the Internet based MAGIC application, which provides for universal access to environmental data maintained by a number of Government bodies. Defra has also begun to embrace the 'Geoweb' by starting to make available its GI as electronic files in kml / kmz format in order that the information can be picked up by anyone using a ‘Geoweb’ application, such as Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth.
At the more intensive individual user level, GI is made available through desktop Geographic Information Systems, for which editing and GI analyses are undertaken for a wide variety of purposes. A number of Defra business areas also maintain business-specific applications incorporating the use of GI to assist in meeting of their objectives. Examples of such applications include those in place as a contingency measure to monitor any outbreak of an animal-related disease, or monitoring the passage of any release of radioactivity originating at home or abroad.
Page last modified: 02 January 2008
Page published: 15 May 2007