Rescuing hydrometric data in England: traditional versus AI automation approaches by Dr Sara Alexander, Environmental Agency, UK.
The Environment Agency is an important steward of hydrometric data within the UK, holding an estimated 10,000-12,000 years of river level and flow information stored on paper charts, microform, or outdated digital media such as punch tapes. Over time, these records degrade and the skills and technology able to read these records diminishes. Once the data and/or the skills required to read the data is lost, they cannot be regained. At the present rate of rescue, it is estimated that it would take the Environment Agency at least 40 years to complete, with other UK measuring authorities echoing this timescale.
The purpose of the collaborative study was to better understand the opportunities, processes, and funding required to enable a systematic hydrometric data rescue of physical media within the Environment Agency, and more widely. In addition, it was essential to capture the highly skilled knowledge and experiences of current and retired staff able to interpret the data, once extraction has been successfully completed.
The success of the study was the scanning and digitally extracting approximately 130 years of paper charts for seven gauging stations across North-East England and the Midlands, and the scanning of 250,000 microfilm images (approximately 3000-4000 years of data). Other key successes were exploring efficiencies that can be made through AI automation or semi-automation combined with citizen science approaches through two exciting proof-of-concept projects.
Zoom link to join: https://tuwien.zoom.us/j/64173457480
