Biodiversity data for decision making
Last updated: 2024
Latest data available: 2023
Introduction
Good policy making and evaluation is based on evidence. Millions of biological observations (records) have been recorded in the UK over the past century by a wide variety of organisations and individuals. This indicator provides an evaluation of the number of records added to the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Atlas (which replaced the NBN Gateway) in a particular year, and the resolution of those data, as a proxy for the evidence available to underpin conservation decision making.
We are considering further changes to the content of this indicator in collaboration with the NBN Trust, and are keen to hear from our users about how this indicator is currently used, as well as our published development plan.
Data for this indicator can be found in the published datafile.
Type of indicator
Benefit indicator
Type of official statistics
Official statistic
Contents
- Assessment of change
- Key results
-
Further detail
- Figure 2: Age of records at 1 square kilometre resolution or better sourced from NBN
- Figure 3: Resolution of publicly available records on the NBN
- Figure 4: Number of downloads from the NBN
- Figure 5: Number of records downloaded from the NBN
- Relevance
- International/domestic reporting
- Web links for further information
- Acknowledgements
- Technical annex
- Development plan
Assessment of change
| Measure | Assessment | Time period | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cumulative number of records in the NBN | Long term | 2004 to 2023 | Improving |
| Short term | 2018 to 2023 | Improving | |
| Number of publicly accessible records at 1 square kilometer resolution or better | Long term | 2004 to 2023 | Improving |
| Short term | 2018 to 2023 | Deteriorating |
Notes on the indicator assessment
Long- and short-term assessments are based on a 3% rule of thumb. Where possible, the base years for these assessments use a three-year average. See Assessing Indicators.
Key results
At the end of September 2023, there were 247.9 million biological records held within the NBN Atlas, of which 112.1 million were at 1 square kilometre resolution or better. The total number of records has increased by 116.6 million since April 2017 when the Atlas began.
Figure 1: Cumulative number of records in the National Biodiversity Network Atlas (formerly the National Biodiversity Network Gateway), 2004 to 2023
Source: National Biodiversity Network Trust
Notes about Figure 1
- The step change observed in both time series in 2017 is due to the move from the NBN Gateway to the NBN Atlas and the addition of 10 large datasets by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).
- The number of records dropped in May 2018 as a result of the system behind the NBN Atlas not saving the date (timestamp field) of when the records were first created. In addition to this, there were technical challenges in the transfer of data between the Gateway and the NBN Atlas, where the NBN had to delete records first before they are updated.
- The number of records dropped in September 2020 as a result of the BTO updating their datasets and aggregating many records.
Further detail
Millions of biological observations (records) have been recorded in the UK over the past century by a wide variety of organisations and individuals. Most of these people are volunteers who organise themselves through many national and local societies and recording schemes. The UK and devolved governments (through their conservation and environmental bodies), local government and non-government wildlife-related organisations all collect and use biodiversity data. Information is held by many different organisations, and the individuals who collect it use a variety of formats, from computer databases to handwritten record cards. This means that although a huge amount of information exists, it is not always easy to access. This indicator provides an evaluation of the number of biological records added to the National Biodiversity Network Atlas (which replaced the NBN Gateway in April 2017) in a particular year, and the resolution of those data, as a proxy for the evidence available to underpin conservation decision making.
During the period between the beginning of March and the end of April 2016, a large number of new and updated datasets were loaded on the NBN Gateway (around 210), including a new UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) dataset which added 5.7 million records. The update to the Butterfly Conservation’s National Moth Recording Scheme dataset (around 20 million records on the NBN Gateway) may have accounted for the rise in April to May 2016, followed by a drop of 2.4 million records seen in June 2016, as the updated moth surveys were loaded before the old surveys were removed. A very large number of records were added to the NBN in April 2017 as a result of the changeover from the NBN Gateway to the NBN Atlas. Some of the large increase in the number of records is a result of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) adding 10 new datasets which accounted for nearly 156 million records in the Atlas. Approximately 55.8 million of the 95.5 million records that were on the Gateway were transferred to the Atlas. The remaining records were not transferred due to a variety of reasons, such as data providers not taking the opportunity to update the datasets and/or requiring permission from the data owners.
In addition to the resolution of the records, it is important to consider how recent the records are. Records that are less than 10 years old are more useful for advice on planning matters than older records. Figure 2 shows a snapshot of the age of records at 1 square kilometre resolution or better since 2016. In September 2020, the BTO updated their datasets. This added a substantial number of newer records, which increased the proportion of records which are less than five years old and records which are five to 10 years old, as seen in the ‘2020’ column of Figure 2.
Figure 2: Age of records at 1 square kilometre resolution or better sourced from NBN
Source: National Biodiversity Network Trust
Notes about Figure 2
- The data represented are a snapshot of the data available as at the end of September each year.
Figure 3 shows an increase in the proportion of publicly available records at 1 square kilometre and 2 square kilometres, and a decrease in the proportion at 100 metres and for 10 square kilometres. This is partly as a result of a change in the data access policy by a major contributor to the NBN Gateway, Butterfly Conservation, which decided in 2015 to make approximately 5.7 million records prior to 2010 available at a 2 square kilometres resolution, which previously had not been accessible. In September 2023, Butterfly Conservation added a new butterfly dataset and updated their macro-moth dataset. Most of these records were at 2 km resolution and accounted for approximately 44 million new records.
Figure 3: Resolution of publicly available records on the NBN
Source: National Biodiversity Network Trust
Notes about Figure 3
- The data represented are a snapshot of the data available as at the end of September each year.
Figures 4 and 5 show the number of downloads and the number of records downloaded since November 2013 when the NBN Gateway was relaunched. Since 2014, the number of downloads (Figure 4) has increased considerably, whereas the number of records downloaded has seen more varied change from year-to-year (Figure 5). It is not entirely clear why this is. In 2022, there were 11,110 downloads from the NBN Gateway, with a total of 584.2 million records downloaded.
The NBN Trust found a problem with the automatic logging of downloads on the NBN Atlas in 2021 and 2022, resulting in an underreporting of both the number of download events and number of records downloaded in both years. The issue is being monitored and download events since October 2023 are being recorded correctly.
Figure 4: Number of downloads from the NBN
Source: National Biodiversity Network Trust
Notes about Figure 4
- Based on the number of downloads within full calendar years from the NBN since it was relaunched in November 2013.
Figure 5: Number of records downloaded from the NBN
Source: National Biodiversity Network
Notes about Figures 5
- Based on the total number of records downloaded within full calendar years from the NBN since it was relaunched in November 2013.
Relevance
Good policy making and evaluation is based on evidence. Evidence also helps to engage the public, natural resource managers and business to actively address biodiversity loss. There are therefore a range of geographic scales of decision making (from local to national) and audiences (public sector, industry, public, research, etc.) that have an interest in the availability of biodiversity data. The indicator is focused on the availability of data collated by the National Biodiversity Network for decision making – evaluating actual use within decision making is more difficult.
Over time, more high-resolution data are becoming available. For example, protected species records have recently been uploaded - which is important since more detailed records are of more value for conservation casework. In the case of protected species, this can be used to evaluate whether species are present at a particular location and thereby to assess if a proposed development might impact on the protected species.
International/domestic reporting
The UK Biodiversity Indicators have been reviewed in response to the latest goals and targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The indicators are being adapted, with some new indicators being developed, to better align them with the monitoring framework for the GBF. The suite of biodiversity indicators is therefore expected to change ready for forthcoming UK national reports to CBD in 2026 and 2029.
Web links for further information
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the many people who have contributed by providing data and to the many colleagues who have helped produce this indicator.
Technical annex
The NBN website works to set standards for data exchange and data accuracy, and captures wildlife data in a standard electronic form, allowing the integration of data from different sources, and use of the internet to enable data to be used in different ways by as many people as possible. The history of the development of the NBN Gateway and Atlas, and a detailed timeline are available from the NBN website.
Key points to note in the context of this indicator:
- The development of a prototype NBN Gateway in 2001;
- Redevelopment and relaunch of the Gateway in November 2013 - which is the start point for the development of many of the metrics used here; and
- The switch to the NBN Atlas in April 2017.
Registered users can request enhanced access to records of sensitive species from data providers through the NBN Atlas. If granted, the user can access higher resolution data just like under the previous NBN Gateway system. This gives data providers control over who can use their data for particular purposes. Where requests are made to access protected species records through the NBN Atlas, this can be given, but the location details are generalised in order to protect the location of the protected species. Enhanced access through the NBN Atlas is not available for all records, therefore users may need to contact data providers for this additional information. Government and its arms-length bodies have, over recent years, been moving much more to open data, and the development of the NBN Atlas fits with that agenda.
One of the principal means of collation and interpretation of this data is the network of local records centres and the Biological Records Centre, which collates and interprets data from many national recording schemes. The BRC update 65 data resources on the NBN Atlas, often every other month. These are datasets from recording schemes and projects that use iRecord for record management and verification. The majority of the records shared are verified but some schemes and projects also share unverified records, which are clearly flagged as such within the NBN Atlas. BRC also supplies unverified data to the NBN Atlas for some species groups that are not currently covered by a national recording scheme. The NBN Atlas is a free online tool that provides a platform to engage, educate and inform people about the natural world. It enables the combination of multiple sources of information about UK species and habitats, and provides the ability to interrogate, combine and analyse these data in a single location. Individual records, for example for plants, mammals, birds and invertebrates, are stored on the NBN Atlas. Records can be quickly and easily accessed and displayed on a map of the UK in a number of different ways to aid understanding of the distribution of particular species in the UK.
This biological information is vital if the distribution and abundance of species and habitats is to be understood. Without it, making informed decisions on how to protect the UK’s wildlife is much more difficult.
Development plan
Due to data provision issues, this indicator has not been updated for 2024.
Since our previous publication we have adapted the language used in this indicator. We are also considering further changes to the content of this indicator in collaboration with the NBN Trust, and are keen to hear from our users about how this indicator is currently used, as well as our published development plan, please email us.
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