Pillar 2: *Harnessing new technologies*
We will harness the significant opportunities that stem from new and emerging approaches to capturing, storing, processing, making sense of and communicating data.
Cloud computing has revolutionised many areas of science, and we will extend the benefits of this to research within and beyond UKCEH. We are building our own in-house research cloud infrastructure to support open, transparent and integrative science; and will create seamless operation across this infrastructure and other key data analysis facilities such as JASMIN.
To overcome the specific data science challenges faced by environmental scientists, we intend to develop a data science toolbox offering a set of methods tailored for the natural environment, building on the skills and knowledge offered by CEEDS (ceeds.ac.uk), our Centre of Excellence in Environmental Data Science in partnership with Lancaster University.
We have developed an innovative web-enabled tool called YourMapsYourWay, drawing on the Google Earth Engine cloud-based satellite image processing system. The tool allows users to produce their own bespoke land cover maps in a matter of minutes. It can produce maps at any resolution and with any number of user-defined classifications. For example, YourMapsYourWay has been used by UKCEH in work for Natural Resources Wales to produce bracken maps for its National Parks.YourMapsYourWay
