Summarised Botanical Value Map

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