JNCC has been putting the Strategy to work,
and the examples below how the strategy can be employed. As
work continues, more examples will be added, but there is currently
information on: impacts of chemical pollution, air pollution and
climate change, coverage of UK BAP species and habitats,
understanding the need for vegetation surveillance, reviewing
the coverage of mammal surveillance and seabird surveillance.
The policy analyses and review of coverage set
out in these documents are also used to further refine the
Surveillance Framework and the Surveillance Strategy
document.
How the Terrestrial Biodiversity Surveillance
Strategy can help you
To address this recommendation JNCC held a workshop in
April 2009. Information on existing vegetation
surveillance datasets was collated and the possible
analyses in relation to nitrogen deposition identified. The
background document and minutes of the workshop are available
in the report below.
Chemical pollution is a policy area that is
among the most advanced in our understanding of which surveillance
schemes can help provide evidence, and how that evidence should be
used in formulating advice. A paper describing a framework
for risk assessment of chemicals was produced as a December 2007 JNCC Committee
paper. The framework is still at an outline stage, but
sufficient detail is presented to indicate the linkage with
surveillance. In particular, Sections 2.7 - 2.10 describe the
linkage between surveillance, other evidence and advice; whilst
Section 5 explicitly addresses monitoring requirements to support
the framework.
JNCC has recently undertaken a more detailed
analysis of the data needs and current surveillance in place
for understanding air pollution and climate change impacts.
The resulting paper also considers the
potential role of the Environmental Change Biodiversity Network in
the light of this analysis.
A paper on Supporting UK BAP Species and
Habitat Reporting (see below) was produced for the November
2007 meeting of the Biodiversity Reporting and Information
Group. It demonstrates how a particular reporting obligation
can be analysed against the information in the Terrestrial Biodiversity Surveillance Strategy
Database. It also includes an analysis of
cost. The paper may be updated in the future to
reflect the way in which the UK BAP process has evolved since it
was written, and also to provide more information regarding how to
incorporate an assessment of risk into the timescale for
reporting. The paper works from an assumption that
all priority species and habitats will require information
from surveillance to assess their status, and some of these
information needs are already met.
Both of these analyses of policy areas have
been used to update the Surveillance Framework.
Reviewing taxonomic groups – filling gaps and evaluating
coverage
Plant and vegetation surveillance was
identified as an information gap in the Surveillance
Strategy. JNCC hosted a workshop of species and habitat
specialists to clarify the nature of the gap and to assess means to
fill it. Gap filling can be complex, since most schemes will
help to fulfil multiple objectives in the Framework, and most data
uses will require information from multiple schemes. The
Vegetation Workshop Report (see below) identifies a number of tasks
for taking forward the work on plant and vegetation
surveillance.
The Mammal Surveillance Review (see
below) used the three surveillance objectives to evaluate
current mammal surveillance schemes, and to identify any high
priority gaps in surveillance. The review work helped to
develop the three objectives at an early stage of the Strategy
work, and the insights that resulted have been incorporated into
the Surveillance Strategy (February
2009 version).
Eventually, further papers that analyse the
surveillance requirements of other policy areas and gaps in
surveillance will be produced, and these will be used to update the
Surveillance Framework.