The overall aim of this workstream is to remove barriers to financial mechanisms so that both the long term national and international needs of the UK can be met.
To achieve this aim it is necessary to understand both the needs (Statement of Need) and how much the UK is investing in environmental observations.
This workstream has produced a set of guidelines for a common method of reporting investments associated with observation activities, which encourage all organisations to report their investments in a comparable way.
During 2008/09 18 organisations, who publicly fund environmental observations, were asked to follow the guidance and provide information on their investments in observations. This information was collated into a table of estimated investments.
Analysis of the information shows that that the UK spends at least £300m per annum on environmental observations.
Next steps:
The 2008/09 estimate was the first attempt to refine the estimated spend by the UK's major public funders of environmental observations. The UK-EOF is now working to obtain investment information from the other 100+ organisations that invest in environmental observations. The information is being collected at the same time as the Environmental Observation Activity Catalogue update.
In the future the UK-EOF aims to investigate the barriers and budget constraints that are a major risk to the continuity of long-term observation programmes. From this it is intended to provide recommendations and along with the Decision Support Framework enable transparent funding and resourcing of observations that are capable of sustaining the long-term needs of the UK.
