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allows anyone with access to the Internet the chance to learn more about the initiative and the partners which are involved, and keep up to date on progress and future work.

With climate change predicted to have an increasing effect on the environment, the Atlantis Initiative will improve the information on rivers and the terrain together with many related datasets for assessing the impacts of changes in flood frequencies, flood magnitudes and sea levels. This should lead to better management of development within the areas at risk and an improved ability to manage emergencies.

Atlantis is bringing together the expertise of some of the UK's leading players in geographic information, hydrology, ecology, geology and climate change. These are the British Geological Survey, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Agency, Met Office, Ordnance Survey and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office.

The datasets provided by the Atlantis partners may be developed and maintained either by the individual organisation or the consortia. Compatibility and interoperability will be achieved by adopting common standards based around the Digital National Framework (DNF). This provides the added benefit of simplifying the process of merging users' own data with Atlantis partners' data.

Atlantis will build on the partners' experience, gained over 30 years, of building leading-edge terrain models and structured digital river networks. The new digital terrain model (DTM) will be a variable resolution grid that meets the needs of environmental managers, the water industry and researchers, and will be especially suited to flood management.

Fully compatible with the DTM, the new River Network, based on the most detailed available mapping, will initially comprise a high-resolution centreline network. The dataset will be structured in a similar way to the road network, allowing upstream and downstream navigation, thus enabling the causes and effects of pollution to be traced and predicted.

Other users' data will be able to be linked to the network using a common referencing system in the same way that street furniture can be linked to the roads. Research is continuing into the development of a two-dimensional description of the banks, and ultimately a three-dimensional description of the bed.

By making other geographic, geological, soils, meteorological, marine and coastal zone data compatible with the River Network and DTM, it will be possible to improve the quality and reliability of existing environmental and engineering procedures and open up the possibility of solving new, or as yet unsolved, problems.

The launch of the website represents the next step in Atlantis' development. James Brayshaw, Director responsible for market development at Ordnance Survey, says: "The web pages are a step in the evolution of this leading initiative that provides the community the chance to see the progress we have made collaboratively and obtain a better understanding of what Atlantis will offer. I believe that the Atlantis Initiative will really make a difference to data sharing and the adoption of a consistent information framework to meet the needs of climate change, flooding and water-related environmental impacts."

Steve Killeen, Head of Science at the Environment Agency says: "The project will significantly improve how the UK understands and manages flood hazards and all water related environmental matters. The Atlantis Initiative will enable us to improve the accuracy of the data available to our engineers and scientists, allowing us to deliver real service improvements to our end-users in both the private and public sector."

Keith Murray of Ordnance Survey says: "The Atlantis user research showed that 35% of users spend around 26-50% of their project time and costs on cleaning up data and fitting it together. Interoperable data, which is linked by the participating providers at source using the DNF model, will offer significant cost saving to users."

Professor Alan Jenkins, Director of Water at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, says: "The new high-resolution datasets will build on our existing experience in developing hydrologically consistent rivers and DTM datasets, and should allow us to extend our understanding of environmental processes and develop new and improved environmental models for the benefit of the UK".

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