Digital Coastal and Marine Resources Atlas Website Feedback Request: www.magic.gov.uk

 

Feedback is requested on awareness of the atlas, usability/functionality and additional dataset requirements. (Deadline for feedback 21^st September 2007)

 

The digital Coastal and Marine Resource Atlas provides an audit of sensitive environmental habitats and species in the UK¡Çs coastal zone and further offshore. The Energy Institute has been involved in a recent project to improve this mapped information, helping to pull together a number of diverse datasets and, in the process, highlighting a number of issues in how data is collected and managed at a national level.

 

Under the UK¡Çs National Contingency Plan for Marine Pollution from Shipping and Offshore Installations, established environment groups must advise on the environmental aspects and impacts of any pollution response operations. In the early 1990s a hardcopy atlas covering Great Britain was published, principally to provide an audit of sensitive environmental habitats and species in the coastal zone and further offshore. It was widely felt that these maps could be improved by making them more detailed to reflect the number of newly designated areas since 1990, and to include the increasing number of designated sites that fall outside statutory control.

 

The EI worked in partnership with other organisations and was one of the key sponsors for this project, with funds provided through the EI Technical Programme, which aims to provide industry with cost effective, value adding knowledge on current and future issues affecting those in the petroleum and wider industries, both in the UK and beyond.

 

The Atlas is hosted as a sub-topic on the Defra MAGIC (Multi-Agency Geographic Information for the Countryside) website (www.magic.gov.uk). Its public availability through the MAGIC website means that other users such as educators, students, pressure groups and the general public are able to access the information.

 

The digital Atlas is primarily a tool aimed at supporting government agencies involved in environmental planning and, in particular, oil spill contingency planning and response. As a secondary function it will be of use to specialist information professionals working in the area of coastal and marine environmental management in the private, public and voluntary sectors.

 

Information collected as part of this project is likely to be of benefit to marine and coastal planners and operational staff conducting the following functions:

¡ü Audit and planning

¡ü Operational response at time of oil spill

¡ü Operational use for clean-up operations

¡ü Assessment of damage and issues of responsibility

¡ü Sharing coastal and marine resource data

 

Agreement was reached on continuing a working group with the aim of overseeing the resource mapping initiative and other related activities. The workgroup is looking for feedback from industry professionals and consultants on awareness of the site (If it is being used), the usability/functionality of the website and if there are additional data sets which would be useful. Feedback is requested by Friday 21^st September.

 

The workgroup is also looking for volunteers from industry who are interested in sitting on the workgroup.

 

If you have any comments/feedback or suggestions on the site which you would like the workgroup to be aware of please send them to khoad@...

 

Kind Regards

 

Kerry Hoad

 

Technical Officer

Energy Institute

61 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7AR, UK

t:  +44 (0)20 7467 7131 (direct)

t:  +44 (0)20 7467 7100 (switchboard)

f:  +44 (0)20 7467 7156

 

e: khoad@...

www.energyinst.org.uk

 

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