Broadcasting the science stories of BGS: The British Geological Survey communications strategy

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a world leading geological survey that focuses on public-good science for government, and research to understand earth and environmental processes. Prior to November 2006, the communications culture of the BGS had been largely driven by reaction to news events and managing media requests as they emerged. Since 2007, when greater emphasis was placed on more proactive communications, the public profile of the BGS was successfully raised. In 2014, the BGS released its new science strategy, Gateway to the Earth: Science for the next decade. This has the vision of BGS becoming a global geological survey with a focus on new technologies, responsible use of natural resources, management of environmental change and resilience to environment hazards. This has informed the development of a new communications strategy for the BGS, which is outlined in this report. The main audiences for BGS science and technology are the public, government and other decision makers, industry and private business, academia, BGS staff and the wider NERC community and the media. Communication with these audiences is largely through the broadcast media and the internet, with additional communication through the print media, and the public engagement activities of the BGS. The UK Governments communications plan for 2014-15 has as its vision ‘exceptional communications’, and the Government’s Digital Strategy aims to put more data into the public domain. The key messages in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills policy paper ‘Engaging the public in science and engineering’ are that new audiences need to be targeted outside those already interested in science and that engagement needs to be ‘where people naturally congregate, rather than expecting them to come to us’. The communication trends that have influenced the development of the new BGS communications strategy have included: mobile went mainstream; transparency and trust; social media; science stories; image is everything; and, analytics and evidence. The new communication vision is to Establish the British Geological Survey as a global authority for geoscience. The over-arching aim is to create the maximum impact for BGS science and technology by communication with the world through the media, web and public engagement. BGS will make use of traditional, new and emerging communication channels to communicate its research with the following overarching themes: • broadcasting – broadcast the science of the BGS • science – demonstrate the impact of BGS science • stories – tell the geoscience stories of the BGS. The following are the key communication objectives: • make BGS the ‘go to’ organisation for geoscience news events in the UK and globally • use broadcast quality video to communicate the research of the BGS • use infographics to illustrate the impact of BGS research • engage a wider audience by telling the science stories of the BGS • create a website that is the first port of call for geoscience information • create a positive reputation and strong brand image for the BGS using social media • create a novel digital publication channel to publish the research of the BGS • actively work to promote geoscience as a career choice and to explain BGS research • create a more successful research community in BGS by effective internal communication (both one-way and two-way)

Dynamic real-time hydrological status monitoring in the UK

A 'display' at the EGU General Assembly 2020. Understanding the current hydro-meteorological situation is critical to manage extreme events and water resources. The UK Water Resources Portal (UKWRP) has been developed to enable dynamic, interactive, real-time access to hydro-meteorological data, including catchment daily rainfall, real-time daily mean river flows, real-time soil moisture data from COSMOS-UK and standardised climate indices. Users can access and view data at the field, grid cell and catchment scale enabling holistic assessments of the hydro-meteorological status at a range of spatial scales. The portal offers a way of exploring the full range of river flow and rainfall variability, including comparing current conditions to those in the past, from droughts to floods. A variety of different plotting capabilities mean users can view and explore data in different ways depending on their requirements. The UKWRP can be used alone or alongside other resources such as: the UK Hydrological Outlook seasonal forecasts, the Hydrological Summary for the UK and Environment Agency Water Situation Reports, to manage water resources, to plan and prepare for extreme events, and to understand and communicate their severity. The UKWRP enables all water users, from farmers, to water companies to members of the general public to view and explore the data used by regulators to manage water supplies. Equalising access to data can be extremely powerful; for example in the case of farmers, it means they can easily view real time river flows in relation to conditions on their licence using the same data used by regulators to impose abstraction restrictions during a drought. Here we present the stakeholder engagement story of how and why the UKWRP was developed, demonstrate the capability of the UKWRP to monitor the hydrological situation in real time, and present plans for its future development, such as the addition of more indicators and indices

Dynamic high resolution hydrological status monitoring in real-time: the UK Water Resources Portal

Understanding the current hydro-meteorological situation is critical to manage extreme events and water resources. The United Kingdom Water Resources Portal (UKWRP) has been developed to enable dynamic, interactive access to hydro-meteorological data across the United Kingdom, including catchment daily rainfall (near), real-time daily mean river flows, groundwater levels, real-time soil moisture data, and standardised climate indices. The UKWRP offers a way of exploring the full range of river flow and rainfall variability, including comparing current conditions to those in the past, from droughts to floods. A variety of different plotting capabilities mean users can view and explore data in different ways depending on their requirements. Here we discuss the mechanisms and the engagement undertaken to develop the UKWRP, in addition to the technical issues and solutions of bringing multiple data sources and types together, how the data are processed, stored and published to deliver an integrated tool for water resources management. The UKWRP enables all water users–from farmers, to water companies to members of the general public–to view and explore the data used by regulators to manage water supplies. We demonstrate how the UKWRP can be used to monitor the hydrological situation, using recent examples of both floods and droughts, and enables consistent messaging and universal access to data and information. Finally, we discuss the decisions the information provided in the UKWRP can support, and possible future developments. The UKWRP is aimed at the United Kingdom water research and management community, but we envisage that the Portal (and the development pathway and technical solutions reported here) could provide a useful exemplar for similar systems in other international settings

Lake water quality in-situ data requirements and availability

Copernicus is the European Union’s Earth Observation (EO) and monitoring programme. This report summarises the requirements, availability and limitations of in-situ data for development of satellite-EO products relating to lake water quality across the Copernicus services. It identifies gaps in available data and provides recommendations for coordination activities that may help improve access and usefulness of in-situ data

Nowcasting flood impacts of convective storms in the Sahel

•Flash flooding from intense rainfall frequently results in major damage and loss of life across Africa. Over the Sahel, intense rainfall from Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) is the main driver of flash floods, with recent research showing that these have tripled in frequency over the last 35 years. This climate-change signal, combined with rapid urban expansion in the region, suggests that the socio-economic impacts of flash flooding will become more frequent and severe. Appropriate disaster preparedness, response, and resilience measures are required to manage this increasing risk. •The NFLICS (Nowcasting FLood Impacts of Convective storms in the Sahel) project has co-developed a prototype early warning system for Senegal, incorporating nowcasting of heavy rainfall likelihood and flood risk from MCSs at city and sub-national scales. This system uses remote sensed satellite data and has been developed in partnership with the national meteorological agency (ANACIM) to operate quickly in real-time. To identify convective activity, wavelet analysis is applied to Meteosat data on cloud-top temperature for historical periods (2004 to 2019) and for the start-time of a nowcast. Data on historical convective activity, conditioned on the present location and timing of observed convection, are used to produce probabilistic forecasts of convective activity out to six hours ahead. Verification against the convective activity analysis and the 24-hour raingauge accumulations over Dakar suggests that these probabilistic nowcasts provide useful information on the occurrence of convective activity. The highest skill (compared to nowcasts based solely on climatology) is obtained when the probability of convection is estimated over spatial scales between 100 and 200km, depending on the forecast lead-time considered. Furthermore, recent advances have included incorporation of land surface temperature anomalies to modify nowcast probabilities – this recognises that MCS evolution favour drier land. •A flood knowledge database, compiled with local partners, allows estimation of the flood risk over Dakar given the identified probability of convective activity. The flood hazard is estimated from the probabilistic convective-activity nowcast when combined with information on the historical relationship between convective activity and precipitation totals. Information on the antecedent conditions can also be included, with a higher level of hazard associated with recent rainfall and already-wet conditions. Flood vulnerability is estimated at the local scale from post-event analysis of the 2009 flood events along with information from recent modelling studies and flood-alleviation measures. The combined information from nowcasts of convective-activity and flood-risk is visualised through an interactive desktop GUI and an online portal. Operational trials over the 2020 and 2021 rainy seasons, and during intensive nowcasting testbeds with researchers and forecasters, has shown the utility of these new nowcast products to support Impact-based Forecasting

Impact-based forecasting for convective rainfall: a new approach combining rainfall ensembles and hazard impacts

•PREDICTOR (PREDICTing flooding impacts from cOnvective Rainfall) has been developed to improve the approach to forecasting the impacts of surface water flooding. PREDICTOR is a next generation decision-support tool that utilises the latest Met Office convective precipitation ensemble forecasting capabilities and Scotland’s National Flood Risk Assessment (NFRA) flood maps. •The Impact-based Forecasting (IbF) approach of PREDICTOR combines the likelihood ("the chance") of flood-producing rainfall (from the Met Office ensemble forecasts) and the potential impact (from NFRA) to produce "Flood Risk" forecasts. The precipitation forecast product used is the Best Short Range (BSR) ensemble from the Met Office (MOGREPS-UK). 15-minute precipitation accumulations are available, extending out to ~32 hours and issued 4 times a day with 24 ensemble members. The NFRA surface water flooding maps have been generated using design rainfall inputs from the Flood Estimation Handbook (FEH) plus outputs from a number of different flood modelling studies, and used to consider property and road impacts. •Neighbourhood or ‘in-vicinity’ post processing of precipitation forecasts is performed to calculate exceedance probability (or ensemble confidence) of the forecast rainfall that would lead to surface water flooding impacts. This is calculated on a 10km grid basis across Scotland to provide individual gridded risk assessments of the likelihood and impact of flooding. The web-based system has been successfully used by SEPA forecasters during 2023 and in partnership with Transport Scotland to assess the value of predicting the risk on the trunk road network

Resuscitation with pre-hospital blood products in adults with trauma-related haemorrhagic shock:the RePHILL RCT

Background: The treatment of traumatic haemorrhagic shock has been transformed through better haemorrhage control, use of tranexamic acid and use of blood products. The improved survival seen from these strategies has stimulated an interest in pre-hospital transfusion.Objectives: To determine if the clinical effectiveness of resuscitation with red blood cells and lyophilised plasma was superior to 0.9% saline for improving tissue perfusion and reducing mortality in adults with haemorrhagic shock following major trauma.Design: A multi-centre, allocation concealed, open-label, parallel group, randomised controlled trial (with internal pilot).Setting: The trial was conducted in four civilian pre-hospital critical care services who operated within the National Health Service (NHS) England Major Trauma Networks.Participants: Adults (aged ≥16 years) who had sustained traumatic injuries, were attended by a pre-hospital emergency medical team and were hypotensive (systolic blood pressure &lt;90 mmHg or absence of radial pulse) as a consequence of traumatic haemorrhage were eligible for inclusion. The exclusion criteria were known or apparently &lt;16 years, blood administered on scene prior to the arrival of the RePHILL team, traumatic cardiac arrest where (1) the arrest occurred prior to arrival of the team and/or (2) the primary cause is not hypovolaemia, refusal of blood product administration, known Jehovah’s Witness, pregnancy, isolated head injury without evidence of external haemorrhage, prisoners in the custody of HM Prison and Probation Service.Interventions: Participants were randomised to receive up to either two units each of red blood cells and lyophilised plasma or up to 1 L 0.9% saline. Treatment was administered through the intravenous or intraosseous route.Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was a composite of episode mortality and/or impaired lactate clearance. The secondary outcomes included the individual components of the primary outcome.Results: From 6 December 2016 to 2 January 2021, pre-hospital medical teams randomised 432 participants to red blood cell/lyophilised plasma (n = 209) or 0.9% saline (n = 223) out of a target sample size of 490. Most participants were white (62%), males (82%), median age 38 (interquartile range 26 to 58), involved in a road traffic collision (62%) with severe injuries (median injury severity score 36, interquartile range 25 to 50). Prior to randomisation participants had received on average 430 ml crystalloid fluids and tranexamic acid (90%). The primary outcome occurred in 128/199 (64.3%) of participants randomised to red blood cell/lyophilised plasma and 136/210 (64.8%) randomised to 0.9% saline [adjusted risk difference –0.025% (95% confidence interval –9.0% to 9.0%), p = 0.996]. The event rates for the individual components of the primary outcome, episode mortality and lactate clearance were not statistically different between groups [adjusted average differences −3% (−12% to 7%); p = 0.57 and −5% (−14% to 5%), p = 0.33, respectively].Limitations: Recruitment stopped prematurely due to disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.Future work: Identify the characteristics of patients who may benefit from pre-hospital blood products and whether alternative transfusion regimens are superior to standard care.Conclusions: The trial did not demonstrate that pre-hospital red blood cell/lyophilised plasma resuscitation was superior to 0.9% saline for trauma-related haemorrhagic shock.Trial registration: This trial is registered as ISRCTN62326938.Funding: This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme (NIHR award ref: 14/152/14) and is published in full in Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation; Vol. 11, No. 2. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.<br/

Assessing climate change impacts on the water quality of Scottish standing waters

The aim of this project was to assess the key evidence available to improve understanding of climate change impacts on the water quality of Scottish standing waters. Recommendations were made on changes needed to adapt water policy and monitoring networks as part of Scotland’s response to the climate crisis

The European Reference Genome Atlas: piloting a decentralised approach to equitable biodiversity genomics.

ABSTRACT: A global genome database of all of Earth’s species diversity could be a treasure trove of scientific discoveries. However, regardless of the major advances in genome sequencing technologies, only a tiny fraction of species have genomic information available. To contribute to a more complete planetary genomic database, scientists and institutions across the world have united under the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), which plans to sequence and assemble high-quality reference genomes for all ∼1.5 million recognized eukaryotic species through a stepwise phased approach. As the initiative transitions into Phase II, where 150,000 species are to be sequenced in just four years, worldwide participation in the project will be fundamental to success. As the European node of the EBP, the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) seeks to implement a new decentralised, accessible, equitable and inclusive model for producing high-quality reference genomes, which will inform EBP as it scales. To embark on this mission, ERGA launched a Pilot Project to establish a network across Europe to develop and test the first infrastructure of its kind for the coordinated and distributed reference genome production on 98 European eukaryotic species from sample providers across 33 European countries. Here we outline the process and challenges faced during the development of a pilot infrastructure for the production of reference genome resources, and explore the effectiveness of this approach in terms of high-quality reference genome production, considering also equity and inclusion. The outcomes and lessons learned during this pilot provide a solid foundation for ERGA while offering key learnings to other transnational and national genomic resource projects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The European Reference Genome Atlas: piloting a decentralised approach to equitable biodiversity genomics

A genomic database of all Earth’s eukaryotic species could contribute to many scientific discoveries; however, only a tiny fraction of species have genomic information available. In 2018, scientists across the world united under the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), aiming to produce a database of high-quality reference genomes containing all ~1.5 million recognized eukaryotic species. As the European node of the EBP, the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) sought to implement a new decentralised, equitable and inclusive model for producing reference genomes. For this, ERGA launched a Pilot Project establishing the first distributed reference genome production infrastructure and testing it on 98 eukaryotic species from 33 European countries. Here we outline the infrastructure and explore its effectiveness for scaling high-quality reference genome production, whilst considering equity and inclusion. The outcomes and lessons learned provide a solid foundation for ERGA while offering key learnings to other transnational, national genomic resource projects and the EBP.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio