The Natural Environment Research Council's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology undertook a study to investigate the cost and coordination of environmental physical samples in the UK. The study investigated options for the UK-EOF catalogue to support physical sample metadata and investigated the potential for a UK Environmental Specimen Bank.
Using the UK-EOF environmental observation activity catalogue the researchers found information about 42 environmental observation activities which were potentially collecting physical samples. They found that more than half of these were preserving and archiving material which included soil, rocks, fish tissues, butterflies and fungi at a cost of approximately £16 million.
As each of our catalogue entries contains information about who is leading activities and where they are taking place, the team from CEH were able to get in touch with the relevant people more easily which got their survey off to a good start. The contacts were put to good use when 28 people from 17 organisations were gathered together at a workshop. Members of the UK-EOF secretariat attended the workshop and showcased the catalogue, promoting its use within the community.
