UK Biodiversity Information Systems Steve Wilkinson Steve.Wilkinson@jncc.gov.uk
What do we need to know? • Where are they / where are they not? • How are they changing? • What is their ecology?
What do we need to know?
Pressures
• What pressures are driving change? • How/where are these operating? • How are they changing?
What do we need to know?
Pressures
• What are we doing / where? • Is it ‘joined up’? • What effect is it having?
Actions
Species • Range of surveillance schemes – good data for a small • • • • •
number of groups Huge amount of unstructured samples Value of mobilising these data recognised – led to the formation of National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Invested hard in this area – lot of very dispersed data Developed standards to improve data exchange and use Tools are what get standards applied!
Species - National Gateway • http://data.nbn.org.uk • Now holds over 50 million records from 500 datasets • Still unique in having controlled access to data • Allows simple visualisations of the data but also downloads (in standard format)
Species – next steps • Exploring and developing uses – difficult given the data • • •
are patchy Improving data quality (tools and rules) On-line data capture Better sharing at broader scales
Habitats • Broad scale – Land Cover Map – Inventory derived from remote sensed data – Combines soil and digital boundary data – BUT – coarse and infrequent – value is limited – Published through a range of portals (NBN and http:// www.magic.gov.uk)
8km across
Habitats • Broad scale – Land Cover Map • Local surveys – Patchy and not well standardised – Useful locally but not strategically – Not really published
Habitats • Broad scale – Land Cover Map • Local surveys • Priority habitats – Small patches of habitat with high conservation value – Derived locally (from local survey) and collated – Expensive process – Main value is where it is – Again published through NBN, http://www.magic.gov.uk etc
Habitats – looking ahead • Still don’t have a good method of picking up the scale of •
habitat change we are expecting Developing area for us – extracting more value from remote sensing
Pressures • Separate: – ‘activity’ - human action that may have an effect – ‘pressure’ - the mechanism through which an activity has an effect on any part of the ecosystem
• Example: Benthic trawling causes siltation, abrasion, noise and removal of species but other activities could also have the effects
Pressures – accessing data • Clearly getting information goes beyond the biodiversity • •
sector In marine area have established MEDIN – standards and metadata portal www.oceannet.org Needs interpretation to produce the products
Pressures – accessing data • Terrestrially have established UKEOF (www.ukeof.org) to • •
develop monitoring catalogue Metadata only at the moment Big emerging area for the UK – especially in the marine environment
Action • What we are doing to address the pressures • For example: – Protected areas – Habitat restoration or creation – Incentivising activities
• Usually target driven and involves many partners
Actions - targets Global European National Regional Local
• Needs co-ordination • Have developed BARS (ukbap-reporting.org.uk)
Actions – looking ahead • Not enough content in BARS (tends to be held in local • •
systems). How to incentivise transfer and sharing? Developing standards for exchanging the data Making the website more geographical
How far to go?
Metadata only
Metadata and a data standard
Metadata, a data standard and tools
Summary of experience • Mobilising data is expensive! • Need to think carefully about whether metadata is • •
enough Data standards more expensive – need to weigh up the benefits Getting standards adopted in hard but can use control, benefit to provider or tools