Kew GIS Unit
Welcome to the GIS Unit at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
'GIS' stands for Geographic Information Science. GIS provides the means to visualise and analyse masses of information about the state of the world's plant life and allows us to reveal new relationships, patterns and trends in an rapidly changing environment. As well as mapping plants and vegetation, we can also analyse the information we collect alongside other environmental data to find specific relationships for a variety of practical applications.
Our work includes species conservation assessments, conservation management and planning, climate change modelling and mitigation and the use of state-of-the-art satellite imagery to monitor what is happening on the ground.
GIS enables Kew to understand and deliver key information for global conservation.
GIS Unit gallery
Latest blog posts
From the field - Harapan Rainforest, Sumatra
by: Marie Briggs, GIS team blog27 Jan 2012
Kew's GIS and South East Asia team report from the forests of Sumatra. This is the first of their posts.
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Introducing the GIS Unit
by: Justin Moat, GIS team blog03 Jan 2012
Find out more about the GIS Unit at Kew from Justin Moat.
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- 1 comment
Live updates from Kew's GIS team
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Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:40:03
KewGIS: More data coming in from #KewHarapan - towards the southern end of the study area. http://t.co/AmRbrYVO -
Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:25:09
KewGIS: Scapium -
Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:57:50
KewGIS: we have data! check this map showing data from team #KewHarapan> http://t.co/AmRbrYVO -
Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:55:15
KewGIS: thanks, more news soon! “@heatherschuldt: Looking forward to hearing what you found while exploring. Please do share - @KewGIS #kewharapan” -
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:42:30
KewGIS: #KewHarapan Collecting specimens for Harapan Herbarium (Photo of Dafid, the Harapan botanist). http://t.co/v0w0J8gE
Examples of our work
Mapping Harapan plants - towards restoring habitats
Biodiversity inventory and monitoring to conserve critically threatened lowland forest in Harapan, Sumatra.
Find out about our botanical work at the RSPB Harapan site in Jambi, Sumatra. Thanks to a grant from DEFRA, we will be producing a vegetation map of the area. Once complete, it will be used to guide the reforestation of this former lowland rain forest site.
Find out more about Kew's work in Harapan
Plants at risk
A major baseline for plant conservation and the first time that the true extent of the threat to the world’s estimated 380,000 plant species is known.
A global analysis of extinction risk for the world's plants (IUCN Sampled Red List Index for Plants) has revealed that the world’s plants are as threatened as mammals, with one in five of the world’s plant species threatened with extinction.
Use interactive maps and charts to find out more about the state of the world's plant life
GeoCAT
The Geospatial Conservation Assessment Tool (GeoCAT) performs rapid geospatial analysis of species in a simple and powerful way.
GeoCAT is designed to produce rapid species level conservation assessments through an easy to use interface with a familiar Google Map underlay.
More about GeoCAT
