Explorer Graphics and climate change requriements

MEDIA RELEASE
Issued 12 February 2009

 
Explorer Graphics works with Ministry for the Environment to meet climate change requirements

Porirua based Geographic Information Systems (GIS) company Explorer Graphics Limited (EGL) has signed a major contract with the Ministry for the Environment to help it meet New Zealand's requirements under the Kyoto Protocol.

David Pimblott, EGL's Managing Director, said EGL was working to develop a geospatial system as part of the Ministry's Land Use and Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS).  The primary goal of LUCAS is to develop and implement a carbon accounting and reporting system to enable New Zealand to meet its Kyoto Protocol and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reporting requirements for carbon stock and carbon stock changes.

"EGL is working with the Ministry for the Environment to develop various geospatial technology solutions that will enable the Ministry to store and analyse satellite data and aerial photography to map changes in land use since 1990," Mr Pimblott said.

"We are thrilled to be involved in a project that is a significant part of the Government's climate change policy – and to be able to support informed decisions in this critical area."

LUCAS Programme Director Steve Botica said that the development of a geospatial solution was one of the key components of LUCAS, enabling the assessment of spatial data as part of the measurement and monitoring of the carbon stocks of New Zealand's forests and soils.  "In particular, we need to analyse mapped land use at the key reference points for the first Kyoto commitment period – 1990, 2008 and 2012".
 
"EGL's bid during the public tender process highlighted its previous record in the field of geospatial technology, and the Ministry is looking forward to working with EGL on this important project",  Mr Botica said.

Background
EGL has grown to become one of New Zealand's leading GIS consultancies, with clients across government, environmental, utility, transport and agriculture sectors.  EGL's work focuses on integrating information from a wide variety of sources and delivering it via a 'spatial view'.  EGL has helped organisations to provide online public access to detailed council information; to manage road, engineering, water and sewerage infrastructure; to manage animal and plant pests and to produce plans for land management and district planning purposes.  EGL's focus is on the implementation and development of GIS solutions based upon technology from ESRI, the world-wide leading provider in GIS software.  The company is also fast becoming a significant player internationally, having formed joint ventures in the US and India in recent years.

More specifically, as part of the LUCAS programme, EGL will be involved in the development of systems based upon GIS technology from ESRI:

·          The development and implementation of a geospatial database and implementing functions that manage the preloading of externally sourced spatial and land use mapping data.

·          The creation of a spatial gateway function to ensure valid and versioned spatial data is correctly loaded into the LUCAS core database.

·          The provision of the key geospatial database to manage the core set of versioned spatial data with inclusion to access the contextual mapping information from the already implemented LUCAS context server.

·          The development of a GIS intranet application to manage view-only access to the LUCAS maps.

·          The implementation and elements of customisation of the GIS desktop systems.

·          The development of a GIS data quality assurance application and a LUM (Land Use Mapping) attribute data management application.

For more information on EGL, visit www.egl.co.nz

For more information on LUCAS, visit www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/climate/lucas/

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