Managing and distributing marine biodiversity data to meet

the needs of marine conservationSteve Wilkinson,

Jon Davies & David ConnorJoint Nature Conservation

Committee

Key drivers (for marine biodiversity data)

EC Habitats Directive Assessing Favourable conservation status

EC Water Framework Directive Assessing Ecological status

OSPAR Annex V Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs) Priority habitats and species

EC Göteborg Target biodiversity decline should be halted… by

2010

MESH: Interreg NWE sea areas

OSPAR area

Marine management questions

What is the distribution of seagrass beds around the UK?

Has the state of marine biodiversity changed in the Irish Sea over the past 50 years?

How will biodiversity change over the next 10 years?

What are the main pressures driving biodiversity change?

Where and how should we be concentrating our management effort?

The problem

The British Isles are rich in biodiversity records

BUT:Owned by a large number of providers with

a range of technical skillsSome sources are managed others are notWide range of formats (written and

electronic)Need to rapidly pull these together to

assist with analyses

National Biodiversity Network

Set out with the goal of making biodiversity data readily available

Over the last ten years has developed guidance, standards and tools to help with this goal

In particular has developed a data portal – the NBN Gateway – to facilitate data exchange

http://www.searchNBN.net

NBN Gateway

Centralised data cacheVery simple format for data supply

NBN Gateway

Centralised data cacheVery simple format for data supply

What is a schema?

<SpeciesRecord><SpeciesName>Mytilus

edulis</SpeciesName><DateRecorded>26-08-1980</

DateRecorded><GridReference>NL100245</

GridReference></SpeciesRecord>

Pros and cons of schemas

Pros:There are a lot of tools around to validate

and use data provided as a schemaBUT:For less technical users creating,

understanding and using them is more difficult

It gets very bulky

NBN Gateway

Centralised data cacheVery simple format for data supplyMulti-user: research / conservation /

general interestSome reporting to encourage data

provision and assist with identifying relevant data sources

NBN Gateway

Centralised data cacheVery simple format for data supplyMulti-user: research / conservation /

general interestSome reporting to encourage data

provision and assist with identifying relevant data sources

NBN Gateway

Centralised data cacheVery simple format for data supplyMulti-user : research / conservation /

general interestSome reporting to encourage data

provision and assist with identifying relevant data sources

Clear acknowledgement of data sources

Controlled data access

NBN Gateway

Centralised data cacheVery simple format for data supplyMulti-user : research / conservation /

general interestSome reporting to encourage data

provision and assist with identifying relevant data sources

Clear acknowledgement of data sourcesControlled data access

NBN Gateway Centralised data cache Very simple format for data supply Multi-user : research / conservation / general

interest Some reporting to encourage data provision

and assist with identifying relevant data sources

Clear acknowledgement of data sources Controlled data access Small number of standard attributes Ability to download data for further analysis

NBN Gateway

Centralised data cacheVery simple format for data supplyMulti-user : research / conservation / general

interestSome reporting to encourage data provision

and assist with identifying relevant data sources

Clear acknowledgement of data sourcesControlled data accessSmall number of standard attributesDownload data for further analysis

Solution for marine data

Adopted the NBN solution rather than developing a new one

Development is expensive: Prototype (1 year) 100 000 Euro Concept (2 years) 750 000 Euro Production (2 years) 750 000 Euro

There are also running costs100 000 Euro per year

Adapting the solution is relatively cheap

Has it worked?

There are approximately For all species groups:

NBN has 17 million records from 115 sources

GBIF has 44 million from 93 sources For marine records:

NBN has 1.4 million records from 15 sourcesOBIS has 5.6 million from 38 sources

Currently the NBN holding is increasing by about half a million records a month

0 500250

Kilometers

.No. sample stations

0 - 1

2 - 5

6 - 10

11 - 50

51 - 100

101 - 1000

Marine data reporting

Data are summarised to a 10 km by 10 km grid

Linking to larger networks

Our system is now one of the contributing providers to the GBIF network

Acting on behalf of smaller providers helping them make their data more widely available

Want to use these networks to access data at larger geographic scales

Real test will be – can we get enough data available through these networks to help with our broader scale analyses

The way forward

Need to feed marine biodiversity data into user’s own systems:NBN provides dynamic query/download of

data to ArcGIS allowing spatial functions Increased data availability will encourage

the development of new reporting tools, potentially with a faster/shorter update period Move towards annual reporting

Habitats

MESH: Development of a framework for

Mapping European Seabed Habitats

Co-funded by EC INTERREG IIIBMajor goals: collate and harmonise existing marine

habitat maps in north-west Europeprovide standards and protocols for

habitat mapping studiesdevelop predictive mapping toolsbuild a framework for future mapping

programmes

Harmonise existing maps

Collate existing data into a GIS to develop first unified seabed map for north-west EuropeDevelop standard data exchange

format/procedureMetadata catalogue of mapping studiesCorrelate existing maps to standard

classification schemes Internet delivery – promote wider use of

datahttp://www.searchMESH.net

Summary

Biggest problem was getting critical volume of dataSimple import formatGood interfaceControlled access

Starting to move into other data exchange problems