Environmental Virtual Observatory Pilot Project

The EVO Pilot project was an ambitious three year project to test the value of new cloud technologies for connecting and integrating fragmented data, models, and tools to deliver new holistic approaches to environmental challenges. The need for such an approach has become increasingly clear as we seek to improve food, water and energy security. These all require a new way of working which spans disciplines and organisations, and that breaks down science-culture boundaries. If successful, the project would demonstrate the vision and opportunities for further funding, attract academic, policy, industry, and global partners, and create a stepchange in the way that NERC science is delivered and exploited. The final deliverables were a tested web service using local, national and global exemplars, future funding and an informed and engaged community. These achievements were met through establishing a project team which had a mix of computer specialists, environmental scientists (from across 13 organisations) and an enduser stakeholder group covering a range of organisations. The work was organised into a series of packages which cooperated closely to deliver the overall vision. The packages covered; leadership and management; cyber infrastructure; modelling; and tested exemplars. The exemplars were chosen to engage with end-users and explore barriers and opportunities at three spatial scales; local, national and global, focused on such topics as flooding, diffuse pollution and uncertainty in climate change projections. Thus the project combined 'narrow and deep' testing using these exemplars with more 'broad and shallow' explorations of issues such as vocabularies and semantics, data security and legal issues. A major conference was organised in May 2012 to showcase opportunities for national and international initiatives working in this area at the Royal Geographical Society with over 120 attendees. The project’s Stakeholder Group provided guidance and support throughout the project, ensuring that this was not another IT 'white elephant' but of real value to organisations that are challenged daily with tackling complex environmental problems. All the deliverables have been achieved with a community of postdocs, academics and end-users who are all now familiar and excited about the opportunities of the approach. New funding is in place from a variety of sources including the Government's Big Data Initiative, the international Belmont Forum and the NERC-TSB joint Environmental Data call, all of which have acknowledged the role of the EVO in securing the funding. A final report including experiences of barriers and opportunities encountered during the lifetime of the project is available on the EVO website (www.evo-uk.org) providing a legacy to be exploited by the whole community as they explore the potential of application of these new cloud technologies for environmental science. A series of papers are also published or in preparation. Emerging technologies offer many opportunities and solutions for environmental science. Big Data initiatives are set to provide the infrastructure and software capabilities within the UK to realise these benefits. A strategic international approach for areas such as legal, security, standards is necessary to maintain the pace of development, but, ultimately, it will be the users that drive progress. Skills and interest from the within the environmental science community to adopt new ways of working are essential factors for new initiatives to succeed.