CEH Information Gateway links up with the National Biodiversity Network
The CEH Information Gateway (CIG) is a web portal that provides researchers and the wider public with quick, easy and direct access to a diverse range of environmental data.
The latest upgrade to the CIG allows users to run searches using other metadata catalogues, including the 66 million species records held on the NBN Gateway. This means users can now find species records and environmental information from a single source.
Because both systems employ common web service standards, CIG users can now search for NBN datasets using the CIG search interface. Users simply select the “Search Additional Catalogues” tickbox before running a search and records from the NBN catalogue will now be included in the results.
CEH expects the link with the NBN Gateway to be the first of many similar connections as more data providers start providing matching services (using UK Location and EC INSPIRE standards) in the future.
The team behind the CIG have produced a short movie showing the distributed search in action, and showing how to change which catalogues are used.
The CEH Information Gateway is the first major output of the Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC), the NERC Data Centre for the Freshwater and Terrestrial Sciences. The EIDC hosts a wide variety of datasets including many nationally and often globally unique long-term datasets. It brings together data facilities such as the Biological Records Centre, the National River Flow Archive, the UK Environmental Change Network, Countryside Survey, Land Cover Map and the NERC Environmental Bioinformatics Centre.
The CEH Gateway allows users to:
• Search the data catalogue and read descriptions of the nature and scope of datasets
• View, access and overlay maps of key spatial datasets
• Download key datasets in seconds (subject to terms and conditions of use)
• Create a personal account to save search terms and give feedback on dataset usability
Over 200 EIDC metadata records can currently be seen on the CEH Gateway and 94 datasets can be downloaded directly. To date, nearly 400 external users have registered for CEH Gateway services.
Search the CEH Information Gateway
Find out more about the CEH Gateway and the Environmental Information Data Centre
Read about the launch of the CEH Information Gateway
Example screenshots showing the CEH Gateway
Simple search function
Select a distributed search
The settings
Search results
Detailed search results