Memorandum submitted by Ordnance Survey
CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER SECURITY
BACKGROUND
1. Ordnance Survey is Britain's national
mapping organisation. We maintain the definitive geographical
framework for Great Britain, as well as capturing and marketing
a wide range of geographical information. Our Director General
is the United Kingdom Government's official adviser on geographical
information. Ordnance Survey is a Government department and executive
agency, and since 1999 has operated as a trading fund.
GENERAL EVIDENCE
2. Ordnance Survey surveys and collects data
on roads, buildings, addresses, boundaries, water courses, height
and many other aspects of the landscape of Britain. Although traditionally
supplied to the user as paper maps, this data is now more usually
supplied as digital information which can be readily analysed,
manipulated and linked to other information. This huge digital
database of the surface of Britain is known as OS MasterMap®.
It is kept up to date on a daily basis with up to 5,000 changes
being added to the database each day. It forms a valuable resource
for government in this country underpinning around £100 billion
of economic activity.
3. We have agreements in place with both
local and central government for the supply of our products to
support their activities. Government is a major user of geographic
information for policy-making, planning, operations, monitoring
and analysis. The geographic perspective and the ability to cross
refer data on a geographic basis add considerable value to the
business of government.
4. We also have agreements in place with
various utility companies including most of the water supply utility
companies within Great Britain. They use our products in order
to plan and manage their water supply networks and also to make
provision for any additional storage capacity required in order
to prepare for the ever increasing demand for water.
EVIDENCE RELATED
TO CLIMATE
CHANGE AND
WATER SECURITY
5. The main government agency within England
and Wales with responsibility for the monitoring of climate change
and water policy is the Environment Agency. One of the core functions
of Environment Agency is defined as providing high quality environmental
protection and improvement in England and Wales through an emphasis
on prevention and education, and then vigorous enforcement where
necessary. Over 80% of Environment Agency's core data, used for
environmental and flood monitoring is geographically referenced
and is underpinned by Ordnance Survey data. In many instances,
Ordnance Survey data has been used as the base material for the
compilation of a wide diversity of Environment Agency datasets
used within flood defence, water and air quality monitoring, landfill
site management and other applications. Environment Agency's National
Flood and Coastal Defence Database (NFCDD) will bring together
a number of Environment Agency datasets using OS MasterMap as
the underpinning element in order to provide Environment Agency
with a fully integrated flood monitoring system covering all major
rivers within England and Wales together with coastal areas liable
to flooding. This will enable Environment Agency to plan flood
defences more efficiently and provide a better flood warning system
for the public.
6. Within the European Water Framework Directive,
Environment Agency has the responsibility for improving the condition
of nearly all surface and groundwater flows across England and
Wales. In order to do this, Environment Agency requires to build
up a complete picture of an entire water catchment area from source
to estuary. This picture will include all natural water processes
as well as human input in terms of industrial and agricultural
pollution and its effects on the biodiversity of each catchment.
Ordnance Survey data will enable Environment Agency to build definitive
maps of each catchment area by supplying the underpinning element
in defining the extents of these catchment areas. Ordnance Survey
MasterMap topographic layer data could be used to provide all
the component polygons in the construction of a catchment dataset,
to which can be added Environment Agency information plus information
from other government departments and private sector organisations.
7. Environment Agency is increasingly being
asked to supply its data to other government departments and to
local government as well as the private sector. The availability
of this data in a form that will be fully interchangeable with
other bodies will be made possible if this data is supplied to
a common referencing framework. Ordnance Survey's Digital National
Framework (DNF), linked and delivered through OS MasterMap via
the unique identifiers or TOIDS within OS MasterMap, seeks to
provide all organisations with a common referencing framework.
This will allow each organisation to uniquely identify each geographical
location within their data. In this way, data interoperability
will be ensured and allow each organisation to have access to
the highest quality and most current data.
8. To date, neither the Environment Agency
nor Ordnance Survey have developed a complete and functional networked
river layer that is tied to detailed height information: a combination
of data crucial to managing the predicted effects of climate change.
Recent advances in remote-sensing technology demonstrated by the
EA (for height detail), together with the OS MasterMap initiative
(for water features) can now meet this need. Project Atlantis
is a forum which seeks to provide better information to support
decision making for flooding and environment risk management,
is being sponsored by Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey and
a number of other key government agencies within Great Britain.
The scope of the project is defined as being to develop a national
(England and Wales) set of definitive, integrated and maintained
datasets to provide a better geographic information framework
for flood management and the protection of the water-related environment
over the next two to three years. These datasets will be interoperable
with one another and with the national framework provided by OS
MasterMap.
9. The Environment Agency has a duty to
secure the proper use of water resources in England and Wales.
EA monitors water in the environment, and issues "abstraction
licences" to regulate who can take water from the environment.
These specify the amount of water someone can take from a location
over a period of time. EA also has a long term strategy for Water
Resources that looks 25 years ahead and considers the needs of
both the environment and society. Also, one of Environment Agency's
nine business themes is Limiting and Adapting to Climate Change
which is a major component of its Corporate Vision and forms the
basis of corporate performance targets. EA has a large science
project investigating Climate Change and how the EA can respond
to the various issues raised. Ordnance Survey data is used widely
within the science function as part of its role in delivering
the corporate vision.
Ordnance Survey
April 2004
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