On May 25 our environmental scientist Lauren Ilyas and GIS analyst Rebecca Pembery will be at the Brownfield Briefing “Effective Site Investigation and Data Management Conference 2017” presenting a session on the role of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the management and understanding of site investigations.
Rebecca Pembery is a GIS analyst based in the Bristol office, where she manages CampbellReith’s extensive GIS database for projects in the South West and Surrey areas. She joined CampbellReith in 2014 after graduating from Bath Spa University and she is a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and member of the Association of Geographic Information.
Lauren Ilyas is an environmental scientist working in the contaminated land department at CampbellReith’s London office. She joined CampbellReith after graduating from Newcastle University with an MSc in Environmental Engineering and has been involved in several projects ranging from schools and the construction of commercial warehouses of brownfield land, to the redevelopment of large parcels of land for residential use.
What have you prepared for the presentation of GIS and site investigations?
Lauren: Along with another GIS specialist Lisa Bowman, we have prepared two case studies, one from a geotechnical and one from and environmental perspective to show the way in which GIS is used across disciplines at CampbellReith.
Rebecca: I have created a demo of Kilnwood Vale GISSMo (GIS Site Model) to showcase some of the tools and software we have that can be used across the company to visualise, analyse and manage data.
Lauren, how important is GIS in your day to day work?
The environmental team works hand in hand with the GIS department. The schematics Lisa and Rebecca produce are incredibly useful in conveying technical and complicated aspects of projects to non-technical audiences and design teams.
Rebecca, what does your role as a GIS specialist involve?
I create maps and figures to support the planning applications and other documents which the company produces for sites around the world. This involves using open data as well as purchasing data, which I interrogate and display the information in a clear fashion so that it can influence some of the decisions made during the planning process.
Will you be using any project in particular to illustrate the presentation?
Lauren and Rebecca: We will be using Kilnwood Vale, a 132 hectare site in Crawley occupied by a 50 hectare landfill that is being redeveloped into 2,500 homes. Due to landfilling activities, it is a complex earthworks project with significant ground gas assessment. This is shown through some detailed GIS outputs using interesting calculations. We hope to show the range or our GIS capabilities through use of this case study.
We will also be using the Frome Gas Works case study, which was a compact former gas works in Somerset that involved a complex remediation. We hope that this case study shows how we use GIS from early stages of the project to completion and regulator sign off.
For further information on the Brownfield Briefing Effective Site Investigation and Data Management Conference 2017 please see their website.