OR/17/005 Testing new more replicable sustainable data and knowledge pathways between NERC (BGS) and local government ‐ pilots

Bonsor, H C. 2017. Integrating NERC (BGS) subsurface research and data to city development processes and policy (NERC briefing note). British Geological Survey Open Report, OR/17/005.

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Glasgow City Council is the first LG in the UK to formally recognise the subsurface within its City Development Plan, and it therefore presents a key opportunity to examine how NERC (BGS) data and research can be most appropriately and effectively integrated to LG city development policy and planning.

A range of pilots are being undertaken by the Fellowship with Glasgow City Council (GCC) and several key national stakeholders, to:

• Identify stronger, more resilient (and in some cases automated) data and knowledge pathways between NERC (BGS) which could be replicable in other cities
• to develop understanding of which NERC (BGS) data are most relevant to LG city development planning and policy, and what is the most relevant and accessible packaging of these data to provide relevant strategic knowledge of subsurface conditions and opportunities, which can inform investment decisions and strategic development policy
• and, to identify how, NERC (BGS) can be most appropriately and effectively integrated to LG city development policy and planning — what are the most relevant and effective LG platforms (e.g. the IS spatial data hub) and workflow processes, or legislative planning processes (e.g. Supplementary Guidance) and systems (e.g. Scottish Government e‐planning and e‐building portals).

The pilots developed in Glasgow through the Fellowship, as well as with other stakeholders (e.g. the IS) in Scotland will provide a robust test bed for uptake by other LG’s in Scotland, as well as elsewhere in UK and overseas. The sections below provide an overview of some of the key pilots being undertaken by the Fellowship, and the key lessons from these so far.

Key value of ‘Action Learning’ — demonstrating and piloting NERC data within LG workflows

Developing the required level of meaningful understanding between NERC (BGS) scientists and LG development planning teams of: how NERC (BGS) data are relevant to early strategic decisions in development planning policy; and how it could be better integrated existing and future LG work flow processes, is a not simple task due to the large knowledge gaps and disconnects between the organisations. Establishing which are the most relevant roles and processes to connect between the organisations takes significant investment in time and personnel. Other key elements requiring deeper understanding are: the capacity of different levels and roles within LG to utilise relevant NERC (BGS) data; how NERC (BGS) data currently enters LG’s across multiple service teams; and what the key decisions within LG development planning policy to which it is most relevant.

‘Action learning’ — that is the discussion, review, demonstration and application (piloting) of NERC (BGS) data to LG work flows and tasks — has been found to be by far the most effective means of developing this required level of understanding — Figure 6. Only in applying and using NERC (BGS) data within LG work cases can LG roles come to fully appreciate its relevance, and how it could be best utilised and integrated within existing workflows and LG/planning platforms or portals.

Equally it is the only real means by which NERC (BGS) can fully understand what presentation and delivery of strategic knowledge is most accessible to inform key strategic decisions in LG developing planning policy, to inform investment decisions or utilisation of land assets and infrastructure delivery.

‘Action Learning’ is time intensive, and reliant on individuals from NERC (BGS), such as KE fellows, to broker this learning development. Many different test cases are required across multiple teams and roles in LG’s. The approach is, therefore, not a sustainable, or an appropriate, means of developing the required understanding across NERC and with every individual LG, or indeed with other stakeholders. However, the understanding developed from this Action Learning process with GCC is a very valuable mechanism to develop sufficient understanding from which more sustainable, long‐term knowledge flow paths can be established between NERC and Local Governments.

Figure 6    Critical reflection, reframing, and refining skills are key processes of Action Learning. Innovation and new understanding to real problems is developed from iterative reflection, piloting and review between teams, and organisations (Revans 1983; Argryis et al. 1985).

NERC (BGS) — Improvement Service workshop

The Fellowship is piloting the first national NERC (BGS)‐IS workshop in Scotland in May 2017, to raise awareness of existing relevant NERC (BGS) knowledge within LG and to begin the process of developing more resilient and sustainable relationship and engagement between NERC (BGS) and multiple areas of LG. The workshop will provide a key forum for NERC (BGS) to engage systematically with all LG’s and with different levels and roles in LG’s — including, critically, LG policy teams. It is envisaged the workshop will be one of many in the long‐term, and future events could also include other key research organisations to LG (e.g. regulators, other NERC centres (e.g. CEH) and research providers (e.g. JHI)).

The IS and workshop events, have to the potential to provide a key future platform for all these roles and actors to discuss how NERC (BGS) (and other research bodies) data might be most appropriately connected to LG through the IS spatial data hub, and how the IS hub could be used to increase the flow of relevant project‐scale LG data to NERC (BGS) (and other research bodies) for development of higher quality strategic knowledge. Other NERC (BGS) science areas are now also looking to engage with the Scottish IS to this end.

Embedding NERC data into city development work processes and policy for transformative impact and business intelligence

Embedding NERC data and research within city development policy and planning guidance would instigate a step change in the impact and utilisation of NERC data to a range of city stakeholders (e.g developers, urban designers, architects, geotechnical consultancies), and as well as to LG business intelligence.

Glasgow City Council is the first LG in UK to formally recognise the subsurface within its City Development Plan (GCC 2011, 2017), and it is working to:

• identify existing relevant NERC (BGS) data within its existing planning Supplementary Guidance documents;
• produce a supporting Developers Guidance document which highlight existing NERC (BGS) data and their potential relevance to developers and development proposals.

Supplementary Guidance (SG) planning documents outline the key development priorities of LG’s, and stipulate or recommend the key data developers should consider as part of a development design concept. Mapping NERC (BGS) resources/services to these Supplementary Guidance documents, or a Developer Guidance document could significantly increase awareness and utilisation of NERC (BGS) data within the formal planning process. If NERC (BGS) were formally included within these documents, there would be much greater expectation, or requirement, for developers to consult and utilise NERC (BGS) data within development proposals — either in pre‐planning application phase, or within applications. Greater utilisation of these data at planning stage, would enable LG to make more informed and effective decisions about what mitigation and investment will be needed to unlock development priorities and land tracts.

Part of the work of the Fellowship with GCC has been to identify how existing relevant NERC (BGS) data could be most appropriately mapped into these SG planning documents, and to future alternate planning mechanisms (Scottish Government 2017). The Action Learning within the fellowship has been instrumental to developing the understanding as to how this could be most appropriately done.

New data procurement and data capture mechanisms to NERC from LG and key stakeholders

New data procurement and data capture mechanisms to NERC from LG and key stakeholders is essential to: increase accessibility and re‐use of data to cities, and to NERC; and for NERC (BGS) to be able to deliver higher quality strategic subsurface knowledge for city challenges in the future.

To improve data accessibility and re‐use it is essential that there is a change to data procurement in LG’s (and within key regional or national stakeholders) so that data are procured in standardised digital data formats, rather than disparately stored PDF documents. Use of standardised digital data formats opens the door to:

• developing automated data ingestion and validation processes — within both LG and NERC (BGS);
• development of relational databases within LG’s linked to GIS or other spatial data platforms and tools — giving increased internal data re‐use, better data analytic capacity, and increased business intelligence;
• enabling integration of data with National Data Centres, such as the NGDC (NERC BGS), or the Urban Big Data Centre (ESRC)
• linkages with other digital data ingestion processes and spatial data innovation hubs (e.g. Future Cities open data; Scottish Government Spatial Innovation Hub; national government e‐building and e‐planning portal systems, which in the future are likely to be requesting 3D above and below ground planning applications and data.
• and for research organisations like NERC (BGS) to develop higher quality subsurface datasets, products and services from a larger volume of high quality data — Figures 4 and 5.

These aspirations are directly in line with the broader national vision for increased data accessibility and wider exploitation of spatial data to inform public services and policy, as being driven by Scottish Government Boards of Information Sharing and Spatial Information (Scottish Government 2012; Morgan 2014). The Fellowship is continuing previous work championed by NERC (BGS) and Glasgow City Council to pilot — and expand to other key national stakeholders — new data procurement requirements in which framework contracts for development work and ground investigations request all subsurface environmental data from ground investigations to be submitted to NERC (BGS) NGDC in a standardised digital data format (AGS format), for long‐term access and re‐use by all parties (LG’s, NERC (BGS), public and private sector stakeholders).

The AGS format is a raw data format, constructed to British Standard, which enables NERC (BGS) to both validate and ingest the data uploaded automatically. Ground investigation data are originally generated by drillers and contractors in this AGS format. In the past the AGS data have been converted and reported in PDF reports on request of LG or consultancies. Altering LG contracts and data procurement so that the AGS file is also requested has, therefore, not been met with any significant resistance from consultancies or contractors, as the AGS files are already generated. Nearly all parties also see the wide benefit of having access to greater body of data to inform future work; and that rather than leading to a reduced volume of ground investigation work, it will enable more effective and targeted work, but likely no less in volume. Part of the success and uptake of the approach within Glasgow, and now other parts of the UK, is also due to the fact that no one party undertakes the majority of ground investigation work in the UK and therefore no one company has a vested interest in sharing a large data holding. Attempts to replicate the approach in Denmark by a city municipality were met with much greater resistance, as one consultancy undertook over half of all ground investigation work in the country (Bonsor 2014). Adoption of the data deposition process, and compliance to the existing AGS standardised digital reporting format also does not cause any significant extra work or cost to any actor — the AGS standard already existed, and ground investigation data in the UK were already originally generated in this AGS format by drillers and contractors. These AGS data were, however, traditionally converted to PDF information for the purposes of site investigation reports, and in the absence of no other subsequent re‐use of the data there were no drivers to use the AGS data. The ASK network pilot simply requested deposition of this original AGS format data to NERC(NGDC‐BGS), and enforced compliance to the AGS reporting standard using an on‐line validation tool.

The initial pilot by GCC to contractually request ags data from ground investigation work are deposited to the NERC (BGS) National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC) for long‐term access and re‐use, received strong interest and uptake by local and national stakeholders in Scotland. Scottish Water and Sweco reported significant downstream benefits in being able to handle large data sets, reduced financial risk from greater certainty in ground conditions, and rapid 3D visualisation of data, for minimal upstream costs in training and communication (Scottish Water, 2014; Sweco 2014). Both Scottish Water and Transport Scotland are now piloting the data procurement approach within the national framework contracts, and on major infrastructure projects — both to realise increased data re‐use internally within these projects; but to aid the development of higher quality strategic knowledge of the subsurface — either by themselves, or by NERC (BGS) in the longer term. Contractual requirements, rather than legislative drivers, have been found to be the key vehicles to ensure compliance of data deposition to NERC (BGS) and use of the standardised digital data reporting format. The same experience has been gained in Netherlands, where despite new national legislative requirements to submit all subsurface ground investigation data to the national Geological Survey (TNO), it was only by changing contractual requirements of key stakeholders that data were deposited to the geological survey in accordance with the legislation.

There is increasing interest in replicating the approach by other LG’s and national stakeholders, due to the realised benefits in increased internal data re‐use, better data analytic capacity, and increased business intelligence — and the Fellowship is working to facilitate this.

The NGDC has since launched a UK digital data portal, to develop increased automated ingestion to NERC (BGS) of ground investigation data and any associated shallow subsurface environmental data. Data submitted to the portal can be queried and re‐accessed from the NERC (BGS) accessions web service, using key word or map‐based searches. The ASK network is working to increase awareness, nationally, of the service.

The ASK (Accessing Subsurface Knowledge) Network — a forum for UK KE between NERC, LG’s and stakeholders

The ASK (Accessing Subsurface Knowledge) Network is a UK KE Network linking a broad range of stakeholders, who either use and/or generate subsurface data within stages of the city development process, from: local governments, business, consultancies, contractors, NERC (BGS), to universities, national improvement services and National Data Centres (e.g. NERC, ESRC centres). The network also links to other UK initiatives and innovation hubs within this work area (e.g. Future Cities catapult, ThinkDeep UK, Urban Innovation, UK government city Foresight programme) and RCUK investment (e.g. EPSRC Urban Big Data centre and research); and internationally (e.g. EU COST Sub‐Urban Action; LUCI; Rockefeller RC 100 cities) provides an effective forum fordiscussion.

The network was originated from work in Glasgow in 2013, to pilot increased data deposition to NERC(NGDC‐BGS) using the standardised AGS digital format for shallow (<50 m) subsurface data from the large number of site investigation work occurring in the Glasgow region. Under an innovation agreement members of the ASK network were able to gain enhanced access to the NERC (BGS) 3D geological model of the Glasgow conurbation, to highlight the data products NERC (BGS) could deliver in the future with increased data deposition. Data deposited to NERC(NGDC‐BGS) using the ingestion mechanism is also then held for long‐term re‐use and widespread benefit through open‐access web‐services.

The pilot and the ASK network saw marked success and there was strong engagement by key national stakeholders (e.g. Transport Scotland, Scottish Water) to make the data deposition process a contractual requirement of their framework contracts for all ground investigation work. GCC has also made it requirement of framework contracts, and other LG’s, both in Scotland and England and Wales, are looking to replicate. Key factors to the success of the initiative and data reporting mechanism have been:

• It has been easy for stakeholders (e.g. other LG’s) to replicate the contractual clauses and requirements established by the initial pioneers.
• The UK Government construction and BIM strategies are increasing the need for private sector consultancies in design and construction, and land remediation to have increased capacity to handle ground investigation data in 3D models.
• There is widespread appreciation amongst a range of stakeholders (from drilling contractors to geotechnical‐engineering consultancies) of the widespread benefits which could be realised from developing a centralised database of accessible, standardised and validated data, held by NERC(NGDC‐BGS) for long‐term re‐access. There is equal appreciation by stakeholders that the development of required future data services by NERC (BGS) takes time, and that it is only possible with increased data availability.
• Stakeholders perceive the benefits from having access to increased data services and higher quality strategic data products in the future outweigh the costs in training/communication to implement changes to contractual requirements of site investigation data.

Growing development of ASK Network

Since the initial launch in 2013, the ASK network has been replicated in other regions (e.g. Wales, 2015), and there have been several ASK events in Scotland. The ASK network is providing a very effective forum for NERC (BGS) to have on‐going conservations and iterative knowledge development with a broad range of stakeholders. Key opportunities provided by the network include:

• Ability to pilot new data exchange mechanisms and development of new NERC (BGS) centralised databases and web‐services with a wide range of stakeholders, rapidly and effectively;
• Opportunities to discuss what data services will be required/desired in the future;
• Assess potential improvements in data procurement processes and aspirations for future data re‐access and data and information services would be aspired to by LG’s, stakeholders, and NERC (NGDC‐BGS).
• Increases the flexibility and agility of NERC (BGS) to engage with different stakeholders and communities of stakeholders, with broader uptake, engagement and promotion of the network

At its inception the ASK Network was focused on facilitating knowledge exchange between geoscientists and geotechnical specialists involved in design and construction phases, at the end of the development process. In light of the key knowledge gaps, and limited utilisation of derived strategic knowledge of subsurface conditions within early strategic phases of city development process, the network is now being extended to include a broader range of city stakeholders — LG development planning teams and officers, national and regional planning organisations, urban designers, developers and community organisations. This is enabling discussions of what new knowledge could be relevant to unlocking future city development amongst a broad group of actors and NERC (BGS) and the NGDC to capture stakeholder evidence base. Other NERC data centres (e.g. EDIC‐CEH), as well as the ESRC Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) are also engaged or formal members of the Network.

The DNA of our required knowledge development

LG’s and NERC (BGS) both require higher impact and accessibility of NERC (BGS) data. Developing the required awareness and understanding across NERC and LG organisations to realise this, will require iterative and in depth conversations between the organisations across multiple levels and roles — the present knowledge gaps are significant in both organisations.

Developing these new knowledge pathways is integral to delivery of required future city development. Our future conservations and perceptions need to over‐arch research programmes and to occur at strategic levels, not just within individual projects — it needs to become part of our knowledge DNA — Figure 7.

Figure 7    The DNA of the required knowledge development between NERC organisations and local governments, extends across multiple levels and roles.