Natural resources are fundamental to society. Water, land, and the species within, all form part of our surroundings to which we are intimately connected. Society imposes ever-greater demands on these resources that sustain and influence the quality of human life. This has fostered a growing realisation of the need to develop new approaches to the conservation of natural resources.

The Digital Economy aims to explore how digital technologies can help rural communities transform the way they manage, use and conserve natural resources. A key challenge addressed by the natural resources team and its partners is real-time monitoring of changing conditions in the environment by harnessing and integrating local knowledge with existing and new data, through the development of novel technologies.