The work involved consultation with staff at JNCC and the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) to ensure a faithful import and production of meaningful layers that are useful to JNCC marine staff when assessing the current extent of UK marine monitoring according to each, broad marine discipline (e.g. biodiversity, physical oceanography and fisheries). In addition, users can create custom layers, selecting only the monitoring parameters that may be relevant to a particular analysis.

Further information from Andy Brewer

CMSi

The BARS Export module for CMSi was commissioned by Natural England to help site managers to convert their CMSi projects to BARS actions, without the need to re-type them into the BARS website.

The contract included a period of consultation with the BARS technical team to establish the best translation between CMSi and BARS concepts. Next, a plugin interface was designed. The design goals for the interface were and to make it as quick, easy and transparent as possible for CMSi users to export their projects to BARS actions.

The solution was a single form in CMSi consisting of two panes and a set of editing controls. The top pane displays all CMSi projects in a grid with icons indicating whether they are ready for export or have been modified since the last export. These projects can then be copied down into the bottom export pane. Here the projects can be edited to match BARS term lists using auto-completion controls for bulk editing, filtering and sorting.

The module also remembers previous exports and displays a complete history including whether projects have been modified since the last export. This ensures that subsequent exports are even easier for users and the whole process is completely transparent.

This information is shared with the public and stakeholders through the bespoke web site https://designatedsites.naturalengland.org.uk/

Further information from Colin Wright.

Further information from Laine Skinner, or see the Property and Agreements module on our website.

Support is provided for entering data as CMSi monitoring projects associated with a site and for incidental records collected by volunteers. The module features a range of input forms that can be customised to suit a variety of recording needs. Data can be browsed from an intuitive tree interface, filtered, and viewed in the standard map window alongside other CMSi layers.

In addition, sophisticated reports can be specified using a wizard, which are then generated within the module and exported to GIS.

The system includes a mobile app (iOS, Android and Windows) and an API to communicate with the backend CMSi system. The mobile app is used by field surveyors throughout the GBNL consortium on iPads and a range of Android tablets. The surveyors record observations and sync these with the backend CMSi database. They typically deal with many thousands of observations and species dictionaries and data volumes are quite large.

The mobile app is map-centric and uses the device GPS and offline mapping for the entire country. The app also provides more advanced control over the map layers and allows additional KML and ESRI shape files to be imported and overlaid by the end user.

The Highland Council Historic Environment team (which at the time included one of our current HBSMR Consultants) had already made preparations for this by having their entire paper archive scanned and catalogued. As part of the data migration we were then able to link these files (tens of thousands of them) to the HER database records via our LibraryLink product. In turn the records and the associated images and files were then published online using the HBSMR Gateway and HBSMR-web.

The online Highland HER was launched in August 2008 and has since gone from strength to strength. The site is updated every couple of months and community groups are encouraged to submit information about their own projects. Thematic content, such as the Community Projects section of the site, featured New Additions, and a range of other resources, is created using the HBSMR Themes module.

As with our newer HBSMR-web product, based on the mojoPortal CMS, the original version of HBSMR-web used by The Highland Council has allowed them to customise many areas of the site to better suit their users. A survey of website users reported high levels of satisfaction with the resource.

Further information from Crispin Flower.

Download the NBN Record Cleaner (free download; launches in a new window).

Further information from Crispin Flower.

Further information from the CMSi team.

The application is composed of a relational database holding the attribute data and a synchronised GIS layer in either ArcGIS or MapInfo format, with a standalone, shared .NET component providing the link between database and GIS. The .NET component uses an abstract, strongly typed ADO.NET layer to communicate with an arbitrary database backend, giving users a wide range of choices of backend database management systems (any OleDB or ODBC source as well as native support for Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and PostgreSQL).

The GIS layer is stored in TAB format on the MapInfo side. On the ESRI side, geodatabases (personal, file and SDE) as well as SHP files are supported. The intention is that the toolkit will be used by local records centres nationally.

Further information from Crispin Flower.

This was developed to move the Marine Nature Conservation Review data into a format compatible with the National Biodiversity Network and to allow the storage and querying of new marine monitoring data that is collected, particularly to help with condition monitoring or marine protected sites.

We also give training in the use of the software to the statutory nature conservation organisations: Natural Resources Wales, Natural England and Scottish Natural Heritage.

The system is used by some 40 organisations representing 130 individual users.

This application reads the original survey data in MapInfo format, undertakes all the necessary analysis and outputs new MapInfo tables and reports containing the results, measured against SSSI selection criteria. This is all achieved through a simple interface.

This reduces weeks of manual analysis to less than 20 minutes of computer processing time. The sites were then interpreted manually to identify a suite of sites that should be considered for further nature conservation.

View the Marine intertidal habitat review and assessment report.

Further information from Claire Lush.

In order to create the indicative map we combined all relevant datasets into a single ArcGIS personal geodatabase containing over 1.8 million polygons. This geodatabase was linked to an Access database application that assessed the likely habitat based upon the reliability of each source dataset and suggested the most likely habitat for each input polygon. The assessment was made based upon an agreed rule base. Using this assessment the application generated a new personal geodatabase that incorporated the classification of each polygon by likely habitat and an indication of the reliability of the assessment. In this way we were able to incorporate all available data in the assessment of each polygon, rather than prioritising the data contained in certain datasets over others.

Click on the map to the right for a larger image.

Further information from Crispin Flower.

The RBMPS enabled CCW officers to use their existing desktop mapping system with an additional interface that facilitated the sharing and transfer of data. The project also incorporated a web site, enabling many different datasets from different sources to be drawn together and interrogated. Data was output in the form of graphs, maps and text.

For further information contact Crispin Flower.

The RBMS details interface and one of the thematic maps produced from it.

• Develop a database to provide standard storage and management of data regarding survey and monitoring of ponds
• Recruit information from partners who manage information of relevance to ponds in the UK
• Create an inventory of ponds in the UK
• Enable the collection of pond information ‘online’ from members of the public
• Present pond information online

The requirement that was met by exeGesIS was to develop data input and verification software that could be run from within the user's standard GIS interface. Initial trials of the tool were well received by users and the system went into widespread use. Support and training for the system was provided by exeGesIS.

Further information is available from David Mitchel.