Geospatial Facilities

Environmental research and monitoring are increasingly reliant on the digital capture and analysis of geospatial data. New technologies are transforming our understanding of the natural and human environment by enabling us to monitor, analyse, model and visualise environmental processes at an unprecedented variety of spatial and temporal scales

Our Digital Environment Facility contains a variety of laboratories, resources and equipment to support our environmental teaching and research:

Laboratory and workshop space:

  • The Geospatial Laboratory, housing a suite of computers dedicated to GIS and Remote Sensing research and teaching
  • Electronics and Small Uncrewed Aircraft (SUA) Workshop

Equipment:

  • Several fixed- and rotary-wing Small Uncrewed Aircraft (‘drones’) for high-resolution remote sensing and surveying, including two with RTK positioning
  • Digital imaging sensors, including: Buzzard multispectral imager, Mapir NIR camera, Sony A6000 RGB camera
  • Hand-held field spectrometer
  • Trimble survey-grade satellite positioning systems, and associated software
  • Ruggedised iPads for field data collection and collation, and associated apps

Software and data:

  • Industry-standard GIS software (ESRI ArcGIS) installed in selected campus IT laboratories
  • Agisoft Metashape and Pix4Dmapper for photogrammetric analysis
  • Trimble Business Centre for satellite positioning
  • A variety of packages for data analysis, including Matlab and R
  • Access to an extensive set of UK and global mapping and environmental data e.g. Digimaps