What is the Countryside Information System?
The Countryside Information System or CIS is a Microsoft Windows-based computer package that organises and presents information about the United Kingdom (UK). Information that can be linked to kilometre resolution grid references can be stored, manipulated and presented in graphical and tabular format. The Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland grid reference systems means that CIS runs in two modes, one to describe Great Britain (GB), the other Northern Ireland (NI), both modes are components of the standard system.
CIS is built around a grid of kilometre squares that can have information attached to them. In GB, the basic grid consists of 243,913 squares covering all land and most intertidal areas. Each datasets may define the extent of the land surface in a different way; the CIS has the facility to allow the data provider or user to define the distribution. The system works in an identical manor for NI, which has 14,427 cells in its grid. CIS uses the simple Cartesian coordinate system of the National Grid Reference.
The unique feature of the CIS is its ability to handle sample information using a stratification. The system is supplied with data collected using the ITE Land Classification and the NI Land Classification, but can be used with any classification that divides the kilometre cells into different strata. The stratifications need not be complete, but only cover the region of interest, so for example a classification for Wales can be derived and used in the system.
The CIS allows users to enter their own data and extrapolate or refine the values before producing tabular results and geographic distributions. The resultant information can be copied into other packages for further analysis or presentation.