Surveillance and monitoring
What do we mean by surveillance?
There have been many definitions of biodiversity
surveillance, monitoring, sampling and recording (or even
observation). None of these words manages to convey the
over-arching category that includes activities described by all of
them. Our strategy does cover all of these activities,
however defined, and we have chosen to refer to this as
‘surveillance’, or sometimes as ‘surveillance and
monitoring’. Traditionally, many biodiversity surveillance
programmes have been referred to as ‘schemes’, and we have also
used this term.
In the UK a wide range of surveillance and monitoring work is
undertaken covering many terrestrial, freshwater and marine
species and habitats. The overall purpose of surveillance is
to help determine if nature conservation goals are being met, or if
not, to help identify problems that need to be addressed.
Surveillance schemes undertake measurements annually or
periodically, which, when processed, provide trends in population,
distribution, habitat extent or condition and ecosystem function.
They report at a UK scale and also, in some cases, national,
regional, and major ecosystem scales. JNCC spends over £1
million a year on biodiversity surveillance and mostly delivers its
contribution through long term partnerships. Volunteers carry out most of
the fieldwork and recording for biodiversity surveillance in the
UK. We greatly appreciate their skills as well as their
dedication and we thank them for their tremendous contributions
over many years.
A database
allowing you to search the results from these schemes is available.
A summary
of the results for each taxonomic group is also provided.
Further analysis of the results can be found in Analysis and
Trends.
JNCC has developed common standards for protected
sites monitoring, and the results at a UK level are
available.
What is the ‘terrestrial biodiversity surveillance strategy’
and why is it needed?
Currently there are at least 70 different schemes (more
than for any other single sector of environmental monitoring) that
are looking at one or more components of biodiversity and which
operate at a country or UK scale. The total investment in these
schemes – currently estimated at £7 million per annum – is split
over at least 30 funders, including public bodies, research
organisations, NGOs and societies.
This variety of schemes mostly provides some evidence of the
status of biodiversity in relation to specific pressures and
drivers including climate change, habitat transformation and
exploitation. The geographic scales of reporting for these schemes
can range from regional or country-based monitoring of policy
effectiveness (e.g. the Native Woodlands Survey of Scotland, county
or regional mapping of basic habitat land cover) to European or
global (e.g. seabirds population and national fisheries
monitoring), frequently operating at a range of levels.
However these schemes have developed over a long period, often
without an overview of existing surveillance effort; we need to
understand whether we have the right mix of schemes to meet current
and anticipated needs for evidence.
The Terrestrial Biodiversity Surveillance Strategy has been
developed, initially by JNCC, to improve the fit between UK current
biodiversity surveillance and monitoring activity, known gaps and
likely future need. An explanation of the main purpose is
provided in the Surveillance Strategy (July 2008
version). It will also provide an important mechanism to pull
together all relevant information on biodiversity-related
surveillance for input into the Environmental Observation Framework
(UK-EOF),
which is working on a complete framework for all environmental
observation and monitoring.
How the Terrestrial Biodiversity Surveillance
Strategy can help you
Who has been involved with the Strategy so far
and how you can get involved
Why the Strategy does not cover marine
surveillance needs as well
How this Strategy fits into a European or wider
picture