Challenge
Flood risk reduction and environmental improvement projects often require collaboration between many organisations, landowners, and communities.
Identifying everyone with an interest in a location can prove challenging, especially during the early stages of project development. Relevant information is held across multiple datasets and organisations. Project teams often need to search for it manually, acquire landownership information separately, or ask specialist analysts and consultants to carry out assessments on their behalf.
This adds time, cost, and effort to see where different organisations’ priorities overlap.
The Environment Agency (EA) wants to give its teams and other Risk Management Authorities a clearer picture of each project area. It needs to help users identify potential stakeholders, beneficiaries, and investors; understand landownership; and find opportunities to work together or secure partnership funding.
EA also wants to support earlier engagement with public, private, and third sector organisations. Bringing partners together sooner could reduce the time and effort needed to secure funding, and allow related flood and environmental projects to be planned and delivered more effectively.
However, many Risk Management Authorities have limited resources or limited access to the mapping tools needed to identify beneficiaries. A nationally available, accessible approach is required to support more integrated project development.
Solution
The Environment Agency worked with Esri and its internal digital, data, and technology services to develop the Stakeholder and Beneficiary Mapping Tool (SBMT). Built using ArcGIS Online, SBMT brought the data needed for early project planning into a single, national GIS application.
OS data used within the tool includes buildings data from the OS National Geographic Database, OS Water Network, OS boundary data, and OS topographic data, including OS MasterMap.
OS NGD buildings data helps users understand the properties and built features within a project area. OS Water Network provides a structured representation of watercourses, while OS boundary and topographic data supply the wider geographic context needed to interpret each location.
The tool also includes information covering:
- flood and coastal erosion risk
- landownership
- administrative and Environment Agency boundaries
- public sector assets
- environmental programmes
- the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management capital programme
- socio-economic and demographic characteristics
- the Water Industry National Environment Programme
- the National Receptor Database
- the National Highways road network
- Water Framework Directive data.
Together, all these datasets give users an authoritative view of places, properties, water, boundaries, and assets. Users can view complex information together on a map, and even create or upload a project boundary, to explore the assets, risks, land interests, programmes, and potential beneficiaries within or around it.
This makes it easier to see where the EA, another Risk Management Authority, or a prospective partner is planning related work. Teams can then identify opportunities to align projects, combine resources, and approach other involved organisations.
SBMT has been made available to EA staff and eligible public sector Risk Management Authorities through the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), with plans to explore extending access to organisations such as water companies, framework consultants, other government departments, and river and wildlife trusts. This wider access could help more organisations share information, and collaborate on common environmental objectives.
A national network of Area Super Users helps colleagues use the tool, report issues, and suggest additional datasets or functionality. Feedback has been gathered each month, allowing local experience to inform the continued national development of SBMT.
Result
SBMT has transformed activities that previously required hours of manual research into faster, map-based assessments. It gives project teams direct access to information that helps them identify stakeholders, investigate land interests, and make better-informed decisions at an earlier stage.
During its first year, the tool saved more than 400 hours and delivered nearly £130,000 in financial benefits, generated by reducing manual analysis, lowering reporting and consultancy costs, and helping teams reach decisions more quickly.
In one example, Tesco asked for flood risk analysis covering its 200 priority stores. Before SBMT, GIS analysts estimated that locating and drawing the landownership extent for each site would take around 12 minutes. Using information through SBMT, the analysis saved approximately 40 hours of analyst time.
An Area Flood Risk Specialist also used the tool and saved 16 hours, avoided an estimated £28,000 in consultancy costs, and identified a further 250 non-residential properties that could benefit from improved flood protection.
SBMT also simplified the process of identifying landowners responsible for assets with defects. One Asset Officer used the tool to find contact information for seven landowners in minutes. Applied across the Environment Agency’s 14 asset teams, the approach was expected to save around 140 hours each year.
Analysis and Reporting teams could also use SBMT to source landownership information directly. This reduces the need for manual searches and separately purchased title information, creating further savings in staff time and data acquisition costs.
"By bringing OS data together with flood risk, environmental, programme and landownership information, SBMT gave our teams a much clearer view of each project area. We could identify stakeholders and beneficiaries earlier, uncover opportunities to work with partners and complete assessments that previously took hours in a matter of minutes. That helped us reduce costs while planning more joined-up projects for communities and the environment."
Benefits
SBMT supports faster decision-making and a more joined-up approach to environmental delivery. Teams can see where proposed projects, organisational priorities, and potential beneficiaries overlapped, giving them stronger evidence with which to approach partners and develop collaborative funding proposals.
EA will continue to improve the tool by adding new information and analytical capabilities. Planned enhancements include Natural Capital and asset datasets, improved analysis using updated national flood risk data, stronger critical infrastructure and landownership analysis, and a move to a new platform to improve performance.
The EA is also considering inclusion of OS National Geographic Database (NGD) data, to increase the tool’s value.
By combining authoritative OS data with environmental, programme, and ownership information, SBMT gives organisations a clearer understanding of place. It helps them move from fragmented research to coordinated action, making it easier to find partners, reduce effort, and deliver projects with wider benefits for communities and the environment.