Community workshops at Dyfi 'Observatory'
The Dyfi Virtual Observatory is hosting three community workshops at the Owain Glyndŵr Centre in Machynlleth on 13th October and has launched a new ideas website to invite residents and interested parties to help solve environmental issues in the Dyfi region and across the UK.
The Dyfi Virtual Observatory, which was recently launched by researchers at Aberystwyth University’s Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, has issued a ‘call to action’ to the wider community to be part of its development.
A team is also developing a new website that will enable people for the first time to have access to different types of environmental data and a suite of tools to help them understand and solve environmental issues.
Professor Mark Macklin, a leading rivers expert based at Aberystwyth University said: “The Dyfi catchment is probably one of the best studied river catchments in Wales, if not the UK. Now the community will be able to access and analyse data to understand a wide range of issues, from climate change, biodiversity to water quality.”
The Dyfi Virtual Observatory has been chosen as a local exemplar by the Natural Environment Research Council funded Environmental Virtual Observatory (EVO), which is a UK-wide pilot initiative. Local residents, councils, scientists and environmental organisations across the Dyfi region will potentially be able to use the observatory to study local, regional and national issues.
Dr Paul Brewer, who is part of the Aberystwyth University team setting up the Dyfi Virtual Observatory said: “Progress is moving fast on the technical front. The team is proving that this type of application is technically feasible and offers a promising tool for environmental management.”
Dr Brewer added “Yet it is clear when building a public facing technology, it is important to involve the community at the outset. We need the ideas and views of the communities around the Dyfi and from across Wales to ensure the observatory’s success.”
To ensure the platform meets the needs of the local community, everyone is invited to come along to one of their upcoming workshops (refreshments and biscuits available) to be held in Machynlleth, as detailed below:
13th October: Owain Glyndŵr Centre
09.30 - 12.00 – For environmental and community organisations.
12.45 – 15.15 – Open invitation to community residents
16.00 – 18.30 – Open invitation to community residents
Dr Nicola Thomas, a post-doctoral researcher at Aberystwyth University who is project managing the Dyfi Virtual Observatory said: “Our workshops are an exciting opportunity for people to steer the observatory’s development from the ground up.”
“Everyone is welcome, as their ideas will ensure the observatory delivers a tool people will want to use and advocate on a regular basis to help solve environmental and quality of life related issues.”
For anyone interested in the project but is unable to attend its 13th October workshops, the Dyfi Virtual Observatory has also set up an ideas website at www.dyfivo.ideascale.com to gather the community’s feedback over the internet.
To learn about the Dyfi Virtual Observatory, please visit its newly launched website at www.dyfivo.org.uk
The £2.7M Centre for Catchment & Coastal Research (CCCR) is one of the four Research Centres of the Aberystwyth University and Bangor University Research & Enterprise Partnership. CCCR brings together a multi-disciplinary consortium of leading environmental academics from the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, the Centre for Research into Environment and Health, and the Department of Computer Sciences and the newly formed Institute Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University; and the School of Ocean Sciences, the School of Biological Sciences and the School of the Environment and Natural Resources at Bangor University. There are also strong links with the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (co-located with Bangor University in the Environment Centre Wales).
CCCR’s mission is to integrate the study of rivers, estuaries and coastal waters within a single functional and linked system and thus establish a framework to provide substantial benefits for the long-term sustainable management of water, of rivers and of the land-ocean interface in Wales and internationally.
For more information, please contact Mark Macklin – mvm@aber.ac.uk
The Dyfi Virtual Observatory team also work within the River Basin Dynamics &
The RBDHRG Hydrology Research Group aims to advance understanding of the functioning of the catchment system, its processes, drivers of change and patterns of response. Our research addresses disparate environments and spans a wide range of time and space scales; working from the instantaneous, local controls on particle entrainment to the influence of climate and land-use on shaping rivers and their basins over millennia.
The group has particular strengths in three overlapping areas:
• Monitoring and Modelling Catchment Processes: Developing earth observation tools for monitoring morphodynamics and flow resistance; multi-scale characterization of morphology; dynamics of mixed bedrock-alluvial rivers; reduced complexity models of hydraulics and landscape evolution.
• River System and Catchment Response to Environmental Change: Application of geochronology to fluvial deposits; quantifying and interpreting fluvial sedimentary archives; assessing the drivers and controls of river and catchment response; impacts of metal mining on the fluvial system.
• Catchment and Coastal Water Quality: Modeling fluxes of indicator bacteria and pathogens in bathing and drinking water and coastal fisheries; linking catchment and coastal fluxes and circulations of pathogens; quantifying health effects due to contact with 'environmental' waters.
Our research employs a rich and varied set of methods including innovative numerical modelling, remote sensing, geochronology, quantitive stratigraphic and geochemical analysis. We have a strong tradition of developing new approaches to river basin science.
The group is one of the largest centres of watershed-based science in the UK and comprises seven academic staff ( P.Brewer,H.Griffiths, D.Kay, M.Macklin, M.Smith, S.Tooth, L.Yorke), whose research has been identified in the last UK Research Assessment Exercise as world leading and internationally excellent. These are supported and support, in turn, a further 15 research assistants and doctoral students.
Group members have an excellent track record in securing research grants and in the last 5 years have attracted over £1.5m investment from the NERC and EPSRC, over £0.8m from the EU. The group has also received a £2.8m investment from the Welsh Assembly Government to create an interdisciplinary Centre for Coastal and Catchment Research in partnership with Bangor University. We have also established an international reputation for innovative applied research which is pursued by our two consulting arms, the Centre for Research into Environment and Health (CREH) and Fluvio.
For more information, please contact Stephen Tooth – set@aber.ac.uk
The pilot Environmental Virtual Observatory (EVO) project team consists of 18 scientists from 13 organisations. The team holds a wide range of skills covering IT, modelling, data portals and standards, catchment science, hydrology, modelling, soils, water quality and decision support tools. Leading the EVO team is Prof Bridget Emmett of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), Prof Adrian MacDonald of the University of Leeds, and Prof Robert Gurney of the University of Reading. The EVO’s main information website is currently under development and will be launched in early October 2011.
The Dyfi Virtual Observatory, which was recently launched by researchers at Aberystwyth University’s Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, has issued a ‘call to action’ to the wider community to be part of its development.
A team is also developing a new website that will enable people for the first time to have access to different types of environmental data and a suite of tools to help them understand and solve environmental issues.
Professor Mark Macklin, a leading rivers expert based at Aberystwyth University said: “The Dyfi catchment is probably one of the best studied river catchments in Wales, if not the UK. Now the community will be able to access and analyse data to understand a wide range of issues, from climate change, biodiversity to water quality.”
The Dyfi Virtual Observatory has been chosen as a local exemplar by the Natural Environment Research Council funded Environmental Virtual Observatory (EVO), which is a UK-wide pilot initiative. Local residents, councils, scientists and environmental organisations across the Dyfi region will potentially be able to use the observatory to study local, regional and national issues.
Dr Paul Brewer, who is part of the Aberystwyth University team setting up the Dyfi Virtual Observatory said: “Progress is moving fast on the technical front. The team is proving that this type of application is technically feasible and offers a promising tool for environmental management.”
Dr Brewer added “Yet it is clear when building a public facing technology, it is important to involve the community at the outset. We need the ideas and views of the communities around the Dyfi and from across Wales to ensure the observatory’s success.”
To ensure the platform meets the needs of the local community, everyone is invited to come along to one of their upcoming workshops (refreshments and biscuits available) to be held in Machynlleth, as detailed below:
13th October: Owain Glyndŵr Centre
09.30 - 12.00 – For environmental and community organisations.
12.45 – 15.15 – Open invitation to community residents
16.00 – 18.30 – Open invitation to community residents
Dr Nicola Thomas, a post-doctoral researcher at Aberystwyth University who is project managing the Dyfi Virtual Observatory said: “Our workshops are an exciting opportunity for people to steer the observatory’s development from the ground up.”
“Everyone is welcome, as their ideas will ensure the observatory delivers a tool people will want to use and advocate on a regular basis to help solve environmental and quality of life related issues.”
For anyone interested in the project but is unable to attend its 13th October workshops, the Dyfi Virtual Observatory has also set up an ideas website at www.dyfivo.ideascale.com to gather the community’s feedback over the internet.
To learn about the Dyfi Virtual Observatory, please visit its newly launched website at www.dyfivo.org.uk
The £2.7M Centre for Catchment & Coastal Research (CCCR) is one of the four Research Centres of the Aberystwyth University and Bangor University Research & Enterprise Partnership. CCCR brings together a multi-disciplinary consortium of leading environmental academics from the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, the Centre for Research into Environment and Health, and the Department of Computer Sciences and the newly formed Institute Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University; and the School of Ocean Sciences, the School of Biological Sciences and the School of the Environment and Natural Resources at Bangor University. There are also strong links with the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (co-located with Bangor University in the Environment Centre Wales).
CCCR’s mission is to integrate the study of rivers, estuaries and coastal waters within a single functional and linked system and thus establish a framework to provide substantial benefits for the long-term sustainable management of water, of rivers and of the land-ocean interface in Wales and internationally.
For more information, please contact Mark Macklin – mvm@aber.ac.uk
The Dyfi Virtual Observatory team also work within the River Basin Dynamics &
The RBDHRG Hydrology Research Group aims to advance understanding of the functioning of the catchment system, its processes, drivers of change and patterns of response. Our research addresses disparate environments and spans a wide range of time and space scales; working from the instantaneous, local controls on particle entrainment to the influence of climate and land-use on shaping rivers and their basins over millennia.
The group has particular strengths in three overlapping areas:
• Monitoring and Modelling Catchment Processes: Developing earth observation tools for monitoring morphodynamics and flow resistance; multi-scale characterization of morphology; dynamics of mixed bedrock-alluvial rivers; reduced complexity models of hydraulics and landscape evolution.
• River System and Catchment Response to Environmental Change: Application of geochronology to fluvial deposits; quantifying and interpreting fluvial sedimentary archives; assessing the drivers and controls of river and catchment response; impacts of metal mining on the fluvial system.
• Catchment and Coastal Water Quality: Modeling fluxes of indicator bacteria and pathogens in bathing and drinking water and coastal fisheries; linking catchment and coastal fluxes and circulations of pathogens; quantifying health effects due to contact with 'environmental' waters.
Our research employs a rich and varied set of methods including innovative numerical modelling, remote sensing, geochronology, quantitive stratigraphic and geochemical analysis. We have a strong tradition of developing new approaches to river basin science.
The group is one of the largest centres of watershed-based science in the UK and comprises seven academic staff ( P.Brewer,H.Griffiths, D.Kay, M.Macklin, M.Smith, S.Tooth, L.Yorke), whose research has been identified in the last UK Research Assessment Exercise as world leading and internationally excellent. These are supported and support, in turn, a further 15 research assistants and doctoral students.
Group members have an excellent track record in securing research grants and in the last 5 years have attracted over £1.5m investment from the NERC and EPSRC, over £0.8m from the EU. The group has also received a £2.8m investment from the Welsh Assembly Government to create an interdisciplinary Centre for Coastal and Catchment Research in partnership with Bangor University. We have also established an international reputation for innovative applied research which is pursued by our two consulting arms, the Centre for Research into Environment and Health (CREH) and Fluvio.
For more information, please contact Stephen Tooth – set@aber.ac.uk
The pilot Environmental Virtual Observatory (EVO) project team consists of 18 scientists from 13 organisations. The team holds a wide range of skills covering IT, modelling, data portals and standards, catchment science, hydrology, modelling, soils, water quality and decision support tools. Leading the EVO team is Prof Bridget Emmett of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), Prof Adrian MacDonald of the University of Leeds, and Prof Robert Gurney of the University of Reading. The EVO’s main information website is currently under development and will be launched in early October 2011.
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