Sharing our experience...

Dear SDWIG members

I have been looking at the outputs of the SDW working group and the SIG with great interest because of what we are up to...

We manage the UK's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs data sharing services which provide a broad range of access to environmental data through OGC web services and increasingly via linked data APIs. We have quite a lot going on including real-time access to flood warnings<http://environment.data.gov.uk/flood-monitoring/doc/reference> and river levels and flows<http://environment.data.gov.uk/flood-monitoring/doc/reference#measures>, access to c. 15TB of Lidar data<http://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/#/survey>, 50 million water quality<http://environment.data.gov.uk/water-quality/index.html> sample measurements, assets<https://environment.data.gov.uk/asset-management/doc/reference>, a wide range of regulation data<https://environment.data.gov.uk/public-register/view/api-reference> etc.

When we need to, we build our own applications on top of the APIs e.g. bathing waters<http://environment.data.gov.uk/bwq/profiles/>, catchment data explorer<http://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning/> and public registers<https://environment.data.gov.uk/public-register/view/index>; but there are some good examples of others taking our data and adding their own value e.g. Dsposa<https://dsposal.uk/>l, Red Cross Emergency App<https://www.redcross.org.uk/emergencyapp>

Up until recently our OGC web services and Linked Data services have been managed in too isolated a way, but we are currently working on major improvements and better integration of what we provide. As part of this we are gradually assessing our services against both Data on the Web and the Spatial Data on the Web Best Practices and using them to design how we develop and improve what we do.

The delivery model we follow is to contract out the technical development so we aim to be 'intelligent clients' rather than technical experts - but we are experienced in translating the technical delivery into business needs and in particular to environmental outcomes. (There are also 1 or 2 areas where we are reasonably strong around IP, derived data etc. that relate to some of the best practices e.g. provenance).

So - in essence take this first as our appreciation of the work of the Working Group and the SIG - it is incredibly useful to us.

Secondly, I hope that there may be something we can add from our practical experience so I am hoping I can join your group and look forward to contributing/meeting you soon...

Kind regards

Chris


Chris Jarvis
Data Sharing and Access Manager

FCRM Directorate
Environment Agency
Horizon House, Deanery Road, Bristol, BS1 5AH
(+44)7876 216777

iDo you need help with data sharing? Contact us: data.info@environment-agency.gov.uk<blocked::mailto:data.info@environment-agency.gov.uk>


Chris Jarvis
Data Sharing and Access Manager

FCRM Directorate
Environment Agency
Horizon House, Deanery Road, Bristol, BS1 5AH
07876 216777

iDo you need help with data sharing? Contact us: data.info@environment-agency.gov.uk<blocked::mailto:data.info@environment-agency.gov.uk>

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