Summarised Botanical Value Map
Under the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) Pilot, Natural England and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) have been working in partnership to use BSBI's vast database of plant records to inform the evidence base for tree-planting activities. Poorly targeted tree planting risks damaging wildlife and carbon-rich habitats, therefore using these data we aim to ensure that areas of high conservation value are preserved in the landscape. The summarised botanical value map provides an easily interpretable output which categorises monads (1 x 1 km grid squares) as being of Low, Moderate or High botanical value according to the presence of Rare, Scarce and Threatened (RST) plant species and/or the proportion of Priority Habitat Positive Indicator (PHPI) species that were recorded within the 1 x 1 km grid square between 1970 and 2021. The PHPI species are a combination of BSBI axiophytes, positive indicators for common standards monitoring and ancient woodland indicators. The dataset includes an overall botanical value, as well as values based on only the presence of RST plant species, and a value for each broad habitat type based on the PHPI species records. By viewing the different attributes, you can gain insights into how valuable a monad is for different habitat types and for plant species of conservation concern, as well as an indication of how well a particular monad has been surveyed. The categories of 'No indicators, poor survey coverage' and 'No indicators, good survey coverage' indicate where no indicator species have been recorded and survey coverage either is above or below a threshold of 3 'recorder days'. A 'recorder day' is defined as being when 40 or more species have been recorded on a single visit and 3 recorder days is assumed sufficient to achieve good survey coverage within a 1 x 1 km grid square. This map is not intended to be used to carry out detailed assessments of individual site suitability for tree planting, for which the RST plant species heatmap at 100 x 100 m resolution and the PHPI heatmaps at 1 x 1 km resolution have been developed by BSBI and Natural England. However, the summarised botanical value map can provide useful insights at a strategic landscape scale, to highlight monads of high value for vascular plants and inform spatial planning and prioritisation, and other land management decision-making. These should be used alongside other environmental datasets and local knowledge to ensure decisions are supported by the appropriate evidence. Please get in contact if you have any queries about the data or appropriate uses at botanicalheatmaps@naturalengland.org.uk Further information can be found in the technical report here: http://nepubprod.appspot.com/publication/5063363230171136. Attribution statement: Contains data supplied by © Natural England © Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of HMSO. © Crown copyright and database right 2020. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100022021. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right [2020] © JNCC, licenced under Open Government Licence v.3.0. Walker, K.J. 2018. Vascular plant 'axiophyte' scores for Great Britain, derived from the assessments of the vice-county recorders of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (May 2016). NERC Environmental Information Data Centre. (Dataset). Available under Open Government Licence v.3.0. Glaves, P., Rotherham, I.D., Wright, B., Handley, C. & Birkbeck, J. 2009. A survey of the coverage, use and application of ancient woodland indicator lists in the UK. Hallam Environmental Consultants Ltd., Biodiversity and Landscape History Research Institute and the Geography, Tourism and Environment Change Research Unit, Sheffield Hallam University. © NERC Copyright 2004. Hill, M. O., Preston C. D. & Roy D. B. 2004. PLANTATT. Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life history, Geography and Habitats. NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology: Huntingdon.
dataset
protocol: http
name: Botanical_Value_2021_England_Attribute_Metadata.pdf
description: Botanical_Value_2021_England_Attribute_Metadata.pdf download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: Botanical_Value_2021_England_Spatial_Metadata.pdf
description: Botanical_Value_2021_England_Spatial_Metadata.pdf download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: Botanical_Value_2022_England_Attribute_Metadata.pdf
description: Botanical_Value_2022_England_Attribute_Metadata.pdf download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: Data Version.txt
description: Data Version.txt download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: ne_summarised_botanical_value_map_2021_england.lyr
description: ne_summarised_botanical_value_map_2021_england.lyr download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: OGL.url
description: OGL.url download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: Open Government Licence.url
description: Open Government Licence.url download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: README.txt
description: README.txt download on Defra Data Services Platform
protocol: http
name: Natural England Open Data Geoportal page
description: Natural England Open Data Geoportal page
https://environment.data.gov.uk/spatialdata/summarised-botanical-value-map-2021-england/wms
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 (England) WMS
description: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 (England) WMS
https://environment.data.gov.uk/spatialdata/summarised-botanical-value-map-2021-england/wfs
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 (England) WFS
description: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 (England) WFS
https://environment.data.gov.uk/explore/ef9ed0ff-d270-4582-96c5-4fe1e9ebcc09?download=true
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 (England) Download
description: Download data by area of interest
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 (England) ESRI REST Map Server Endpoint
description: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 (England) ESRI REST Map Server Endpoint
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 ESRI REST Feature Server Endpoint
description: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2021 ESRI REST Feature Server Endpoint
https://environment.data.gov.uk/spatialdata/summarised-botanical-value-map-2022-england/wms
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2022 (England) WMS
description: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2022 (England) WMS
https://environment.data.gov.uk/spatialdata/summarised-botanical-value-map-2022-england/wfs
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2022 (England) WFS
description: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2022 (England) WFS
https://environment.data.gov.uk/explore/ef9ed0ff-d270-4582-96c5-4fe1e9ebcc09?download=true
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2022 (England) Download
description: Download data by area of interest
protocol: http
name: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2022 ESRI REST Map Server Endpoint
description: Summarised Botanical Value Map 2022 ESRI REST Map Server Endpoint
protocol: http
name: Natural England Open Data Geoportal page
description: Natural England Open Data Geoportal page
ef9ed0ff-d270-4582-96c5-4fe1e9ebcc09_resource
eng
http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700
environment
environment
Habitats and biotopes
publication
2008-06-01
-6.236
2.072
55.816
49.943
1999-01-01
2099-12-31
creation
2022-04-20
revision
2023-06-19
annually
Process Description: The main data sources were the botanical heatmaps which were developed as part of the NCEA pilot in collaboration with BSBI. BSBI provided summarised counts of Rare, Scarce and Threatened (RST) plant species and Priority Habitat Positive Indicators (PHPIs) present within each 1 x 1 km grid square (monads) between 1970 and 2021, which were then further processed by an automated workflow to subset to England and gap-fill where values were missing, taking into account the influence of survey coverage. To create the summarised botanical value map these heatmap data were then further categorised based on the number of RST plant species or PHPI species present indicating semi-natural habitat of high quality. The number of PHPIs present per monad within each broad habitat heatmap were compared to the total number of PHPIs present within their surrounding area We used a local benchmarking approach to categorise monads based on the proportion of the total PHPIs recorded in the monad. If a monad contained less than 10% of the regional species pool this was deemed as being Poor value, between 10-20% was defined as Moderate value and over 20% was High botanical value, from a vascular plant perspective. Where a monad had no indicator records and survey coverage was poor, it was classified as ‘no indicators, poor survey coverage’. Datasets used: BSBI botanical heatmap data - BSBI OS Grids - OS ONS Country boundaries - ONS Common Standards Monitoring guidance - JNCC 2004 BSBI's Axiophyte list - Walker 2018 Ancient Woodland Indicators - Glaves et al. 2009 Plantatt - Hill et al. 2004
Proprietary format | ESRI File based Geodatabase (GDB)
Open Government Licence
There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.
There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.
Natural England
data.services@naturalengland.org.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england
description: Natural England Website
pointOfContact
Natural England
data.services@naturalengland.org.uk
pointOfContact
2023-12-13