Hubdate #3 – What data will be available on the NERC Digital Solutions Hub?
Welcome to the third instalment of our Hubdates – a mini blog series exploring and explaining features of the NERC Digital Solutions Hub (DSH). This Hubdate focuses on explaining what types of data will be available on the DSH. Uncover more about the DSH by reading our previous Hubdates.
Over 40 petabytes of environmental data
The Digital Solutions Programme, led by academics at The University of Manchester, is creating an open-access online toolkit built on Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise software – the NERC Digital Solutions Hub (DSH). The DSH will make it far easier to find and discover over 40 petabytes of existing environmental data currently stored on the Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) five data centres.
To put into context how much data that is, it is estimated that 40 petabytes of data is equivalent to 15 billion ebooks or 3512 years scrolling through TikTok.
Why is the Digital Solution Hub needed?
Despite the value of NERC’s environmental data, it is currently not easily accessible or searchable for the majority of users. The NERC Digital Solutions Hub will allow users to search for data sets using plain language text, or typical ‘Google’ type searches, to find a list of data that is relevant to what they are wanting to investigate. To do this, the DSH will use AI and large language models (LLMs), which you can read more about in our previous Hubdate.
By unlocking access to a vast quantity of environmental data, the Hub will allow policymakers, civil servants, local government and council officers, environmental and social charities, and anyone who wishes to find, map and analyse environmental data to easily do so. With improved and easier access to a wide range of data all in one easy to use digital toolkit, decisions made for the environment and society can be well-informed by trusted data sources. This may be useful, for example, in informing what factors to consider when building the 1.5 million homes promised by the end of the current Parliament.
What data will be available on the Digital Solutions Hub?
As well as access to the 40+ petabytes of NERC’s environmental data, the DSH will also allow users to search, map and analyse a range of other environmental, social, health and economic data from a host of trusted sources.
Data from the following organisations will be searchable via the DSH:
- Office for National Statistics
- Environment Agency
- Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
- Met Office
- Natural Environment Research Council.
Users will be able to access data sets from trusted data sources, like those listed above, to be able to search for, map and analyse:
- Flood risk zones
- Real-time data from sensor networks like air pollution levels
- Coastal erosion predictions for 2050 and beyond
- Climate change data from the Met Office
On top of the large range of environmental, social, health and economic data that will be available on the DSH, users will also have the functionality to integrate their own data in the Hub. This will allow Hub users to conduct their analysis with the most accurate and relevant data to them, helping to solve their policy problem, research question or area of interest.
Are you interested to try the Hub when it is launched? Sign up to our mailing list to be on our early-access list.
If you have any questions about the NERC Digital Solutions Hub, how it works, or maybe you have queries about what other data will be available to you on the DSH? Please do get in touch, we would be delighted to answer your questions.
