Led by Geological Survey Ireland and funded by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the Tellus Programme aims to improve the future management of the environment, by building a deeper knowledge of Ireland’s soil, rocks and water.  In this ambitious initiative, the whole of Ireland has been divided up into over 21,000 squares of 4km², and soil samples are being collected from each of these locations.

When the soil survey began in 2011, sampling teams filled in paper field cards at each location and used a complex table-based methodology to manually allocate randomised but unique reference numbers for each sample collected.  It was an incredibly time-consuming and complicated data collection process that was prone to human error, taking the project team nine years to reach the halfway milestone.   

Accelerated end-to-end survey process
From workload planning to quality assurance, the ArcGIS solution has dramatically accelerated the end-to-end survey process, enabling Aurum to continue the Tellus Programme highly efficiently.   Whereas it took nine years to survey the first 50% of Ireland using paper-based processes, Aurum concluded the survey of the mid and southwest region, representing around 31% of Ireland, in just one year.   “Having a robust and efficient digital system is greatly assisting us to cover more ground in a shorter time,” explains Judith Mather, Project Manager of the Tellus Programme at Aurum.  

€40,000 in annual cost savings
In the field specifically, massive efficiencies have been realised by replacing paper-based data collection methods with ArcGIS mobile apps.  Data is no longer written in pencil on cards, overwritten in pen and then manually typed up into databases.  Instead, over 220 fields of data, from land usage to potential contamination, are captured electronically in situ.  According to Mather: “While it is difficult to ascertain total cost savings, high-level calculations suggest a saving of a minimum of 120 person days and a reduction in overall operational costs of around €40,000 annually.”

Consistent, accurate soil sampling process
ArcGIS has improved the quality of data collected for the Tellus Programme, by reducing the risk of human error and other data collection inconsistencies.  This is evident in the most recent phase of the project in Southwest Ireland, where, to date, Aurum has had no samples failed on quality by the client in over 7000 samples.  In contrast, in the first year of the paper-based process, there were over 600 rejections.  “The improvement in data quality is a real testament to the success of the ArcGIS applications,” says Margaret Browne, GIS Geologist at Aurum. 

Real-time reporting and data sharing
ArcGIS Pro generates reports on demand, at the click of a button, saving time internally, while ArcGIS Dashboards show information that wasn’t even available before, such as how long each sample takes to collect.  As a result, Mather believes that oversight of the national programme has really improved.  “ArcGIS Dashboards give our directors and client a really accurate and visual real-time overview of what is going on, on a national scale, which is what they need,” she explains.