Public awareness of environmental issues, such as climate change, the depletion of the ozone layer, flooding, pollution, waste and habitat management, has increased over the past few years, leading to legislation, taxation and changing technologies that affect all businesses. This has brought the work of organizations in the environmental sector to the forefront, as they research these and other issues and investigate the fundamental science behind them.

Measuring, monitoring and modelling the environment have their own problems. Better instrumentation and huge improvements in available computer power have led to more data being produced, which leads, in turn, to issues of data handling, storage and processing. Furthermore, the analysis, quality control and visualization of these large and often complex datasets can also be problematic. New technologies, such as distributed computing and hand-held PCs, offer new opportunities, but also mean that a whole new set of skills have to be acquired.