The pioneering use of geospatial technology has won leading ecology consultancy Thomson Ecology an award for innovation and best practice from the Association for Geographic Information.
The award, which was presented at the Association’s headquarters in London, recognises the strength of Thomson Ecology’s successful application of the technology and how it has been used to create a return on investment within the business during 2013.
Tim Donoyou, technology lead at Thomson Ecology, said:
“We are delighted that our advances in this field have received recognition. As a company, we made a commitment to invest in GIS technology during 2013 and the combination of advanced software and high specification mobile field devices has proved to be an extremely good investment.”
“From March 2013 the new field devices were used by our ecologists on large multispecies surveys for projects such as Phase 2 of the East West Rail scheme and pond monitoring around the M25. The new technology has already recorded the location and other information for over 10,000 different animals, plants and habitats. The new technology has allowed our team to upload and download data remotely from anywhere in the UK.”
“Using the new technology, data can be swiftly collated to create real time interactive maps that clients and project teams can view online. Streamlining the process allows clients to make decisions more quickly and accurately.”
Thomson Ecology sees this as just the start and plans to extend the facility for interactive mapping to all major projects in the course of 2014 and to develop new applications for geospatial information management.
