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.

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GIS Unit gallery

Latest blog posts

Mapping live data and tweets from the field

by: Justin Moat and Steve Bachman, GIS team blog
14 Feb 2012
Mapping live data and tweets from the field - experiments with the latest technology 'mashups' in Sumatra.

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From the field - fly-camping in the Harapan Rainforest, Sumatra

by: Jenny Williams, GIS team blog
10 Feb 2012
Kew's GIS and South East Asia team report from their study sites deep in the forests of Sumatra. In this - their second post - they venture into the jungle, seeing all sorts of things on the way.

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From the field - Harapan Rainforest, Sumatra

by: Marie Briggs, GIS team blog
27 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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Live updates from Kew's GIS team

Sourced from KewGIS

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:39:41
KewGIS: David Attenborough at KEW in 3D, new 3 part series http://t.co/ny1G4vRs
Wed, 16 May 2012 14:11:18
KewGIS: RT @qcrescente: @KewGIS this one more exciting! Not ideal for a wedding celebration... http://t.co/yAu2Jihu
Wed, 16 May 2012 12:47:37
KewGIS: oh the joys of georeferencing - you find some nice places to live, low on crime surely? http://t.co/qSgIL761
Tue, 15 May 2012 19:43:36
KewGIS: Python in ArcGIS, great just like the old days of Arcview and avenue.
Tue, 15 May 2012 11:34:29
KewGIS: First published Red List assessment using #GeoCAT Galanthus panjutinii Zubov & A.P. Davis sp. nov. http://t.co/OQJYO5Gl It is Endangered :(

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.