Welcome to the AQUA platform

This platform is designed to allow you to explore data collected in our seas, oceans and lakes — and to use it to help build a more sustainable planet.

Barnegat Bay 347 stations 7,898 samples 70,700 results Lough Foyle 41 stations 3,284 samples 23,673 results Carlingford Lough 12 stations 884 samples 4,219 results Strangford Lough 28 stations 3,520 samples 13,300 results Sanggou Bay 77 stations 23,621 samples 52,636 results Belfast Lough 27 stations 3,135 samples 14,962 results

Map-centric

Data becomes information at the click of a button

AQUA builds on four decades of experience in software applied to water quality issues, and is designed to efficiently store and explore data, using a map-centric interface to allow users to quickly ask the right questions and find what they need.

Because AQUA stores data in a unified format, you can search across datasets in both time and space, for instance comparing historical and present-day measurements to understand the effects of climate change, or looking at the relative impacts of pollution in bays on four continents.

The holy grail

Data is useful when it is information

Every day, our capacity to acquire data increases — this means that the volume of data generated by monitoring and research activities is immense. For this data to become useful, it must be converted into information. The immediate challenge in doing this is to store all collected data in a system that is easy to use, reliable, and safe.

Somewhere between information and knowledge, things start to get useful.

Data Information Knowledge Wisdom Time Days Years Decades Centuries More Less None Societal investment Expensive to acquire Expensive to process Consolidated experience Rare and misunderstood
check icon Fast loading check icon Mobile friendly check icon Charts
check icon Saved searches check icon Data export check icon Satellite maps
check icon Configurable check icon Secure check icon Cross-browser compatible

Environmental data is behind the curve

AQUA turns data into information

Whereas in social media or online shopping platforms data storage relies on sophisticated cloud infrastructure, and data mining tools are used to retrieve information and analyse patterns of consumer behaviour, when it comes to environmental data a wide variety of storage formats is used — often as simple as multiple spreadsheets.

Data stored in spreadsheets is difficult to search, error prone, and easily lost; nevertheless, this kind of software is what most people are familiar with, so it continues to be the basis for archiving environmental data. AQUA changes this.

Jan Apr Jul Oct Water temperature C o