MoreRMSI, a global IT & GIS services company, announced that RMSI along with its joint venture partner Landmark Information Group, UK has been awarded a contract to digitize the boundaries of statutory designated wildlife sites and related features in England. Through this win RMSI and its partner Landmark Information Group, UK, have added yet another prestigious client to their existing list of impressive UK government sector clients. The project was secured against stiff competition against other UK based GIS companies, with one of the key success factors being RMSI's competence in UK mapping systems and domain expertise in land information management sector.
Using English Nature’s existing digital boundaries, which are captured against 1:10,000 Ordnance Survey (OS) raster mapping, and combining them with original paper designation maps, the new digitized boundaries will be snapped to OS MasterMap features. The objective of the project, which should be completed by November 2003, is the provision of a series of vector-based GIS site boundary data as part of English Nature's Nature On-line project. The end result will be a complete set of digital boundary data for Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), National Nature Reserves (NNR), Local Nature Reserves (LNR) Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), Special Protection Areas (SPA), Ramsar sites, management agreements and English Nature site units. The data will form the core of English Nature’s “SuperSite” GIS database, and will replace the data currently available to the GIS community via the English Nature website.
Nature On-line will make all sorts of information about nature available via the internet for use by a wide range of interest groups, such as naturalists, teachers and walkers.
The availability of high quality data created through this project will benefit the management of wildlife sites and will enable accurate national and regional statistics to be derived for land classified under different wildlife designations. The data will allow English Nature to present to a range of users information on both the location of designated sites, and a wealth of information relating to their importance, management, accessibility and interpretation.
