About us

In the early 1990’s, public awareness of environmental issues and the impact of climate change was still low. Acid rain was probably the biggest environmental story and governments the world over were still sceptical about global warming.

It was into this climate, that the National Rivers Authority (NRA), one of the predecessors of today’s Environment Agency, assembled a team of dedicated scientists to monitor water quality in the coastal zone of England and Wales, using a combination of coastal survey vessels and state-of-the-art aerial remote sensing.

It is from these modest beginnings that Geomatics Group has emerged, becoming one of the UK’s leading providers of geospatial products. Our vision is to build on this legacy, with a commitment to scientific excellence and the use of cutting-edge technology, techniques and experienced specialist personnel, to further advance the provision of environmental monitoring and asset management.

As a specialist business unit within the Environment Agency, we are uniquely positioned to support the important flood and coastal monitoring work they do, as well as provide services to other organisations, including government agencies, NGO’s and the commercial sector.

Today, at the heart of our service offering is aerial LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), first used by the Agency in 1998 and CASI (Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager), the original survey technique used for coastal monitoring of algal blooms back in 1992. We also offer high resolution digital aerial photography, thermal imaging, bathymetry and mobile terrestrial LIDAR surveys.