Data and databases for decision support

Heightened awareness of the economic value of good quality multidisciplinary data sets, both to UK science and UK Ltd, has ensured that data management now has a high priority. As a result all new Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Thematic Programmes must therefore have a data management strategy based on the NERC Data Policy. This paper describes the data management strategy for NERC's Land Ocean Interaction Study and the GIS tool used to help implement it in one of the programme's data centres. Many of the issues raised and addressed by this data management strategy are relevant to any major multidisciplinary project. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.