A number of years ago, in recognition of the growing environmental awareness amongst river stakeholders and also the need to demonstrate a transparent decision-making process, the PLA and the Thames Estuary Partnership developed a Geographical Information System called the Information Exchange System (IES).
The main drivers for the IES were: to bring together stakeholders as partners in the decision-making process for dredging licence applications; to share information; and to produce an excellent baseline of relevant environmental data for the tidal Thames. The partners include, amongst others, the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Kent and Essex Sea Fisheries Committee and four dredging companies, with the Thames Estuary Partnership providing administrative support and a neutral forum for discussion.
The IES was developed as part of a number of initiatives in the PLA’s Maintenance Dredging Framework including a beneficial use register, environmental monitoring and research and guidance notes for berth operators.
Despite containing valuable information, during Dredging Liaison Group (DLG) meetings it came to light that the IES was not as widely used as was originally intended, which led the PLA to make significant improvements to the application. The new and improved version of the IES has been renamed the ‘Dredging Spatial Information System’ (DSIS) and benefits from the clearer display of all information and data; the inclusion of additional data; and more extensive functions.
DSIS enables the PLA and members of the DLG to access and interrogate environmental data relevant to dredging activity. The database supporting the application contains large datasets that have been supplied by members of the DLG, including:
The PLA carries out a scientific and environmental assessment of each application for maintenance dredging within the limits of the Port of London. The assessment includes the potential effects on legislative requirements, coastal processes, sediment quality, water quality, ecology, fisheries, archaeology, local community and recreation with a summary being recorded in the form of an Environmental Checklist.
The PLA’s River Regime and Environment team uses DSIS, together with information about the proposed dredge, to inform decision-making and to identify any conditions that should be included in a dredging licence. Rather than trawling through a series of static reports to obtain the relevant environmental data, DSIS provides a visual representation of the information and provides access to more detailed datasets as required.
In addition DSIS provides an excellent portal to enable the PLA to consult with stakeholders on dredging licence applications. DSIS is deployed over the PLA’s website using a secure connection to allow members of the DLG to access the application.
Further changes are proposed to DSIS to allow access for members of the public, and to enable documents relating to current dredging licence applications to be downloaded, thus allowing DSIS to be used as an external consultation tool in much the same way as a local planning portal is used. It is likely that some information contained within DSIS will remain password protected and will only be accessible to members of the DLG.
Access to the DSIS for members can be found via this link.
Further information on the DSIS (PDF 2,608kb)