Getting the best value from Citizen Science data
Stage in GSE Lifecyle
Primary stage : Define/Design
Related stage(s) : Create | Build Capability
Volunteer recorders organised through NGO networks are enormously important for understanding biodiversity. This is recognised in the Government’s 25-Year Environment Plan. Volunteers are essential for understanding the biodiversity crisis. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the UK’s statutory advisor on nature conservation, funds through partnerships, a range of volunteer species surveillance schemes including birds, butterflies, bats, and plants. Recorders obtain high quality data and baselines on abundance, population trends, demographics, and species diversity for long-term monitoring, which:
- provide the only long-term trends for changes in biodiversity across the UK
- underpin official UK and national measures of species status
- provide evidence on the effectiveness of policies to maintain and increase biodiversity
- evidence the impact of pressures such as climate change
- provide the basis for government statistics
- are used for high-impact publications such as the State of Nature
The JNCC works closely in partnership with the Biological Records Centre at UKCEH, using experimental statistics to maximise the value of the records. Previously we could only study about 100 species; now, using Bayesian occupancy modelling methodology, we can model trends for 5300 species. Last year we published an experimental statistic from the National Plant Monitoring Scheme for the first time.
This case study concerns the whole GSE lifecycle. We took a unique challenge – how to collect and analyse detailed biological data from across the whole UK –and developed new solutions, building capacity, and continually innovating. JNCC supports citizen science financially and by publicising its achievements. The schemes are so robust, the time-series are so long, and the coverage is so wide and dense that they are available to answer really important questions. The questions they are addressing is how global change affects species trends over time, and how policies can mitigate loss of biodiversity.
An image of damselflies on water.
Team
Ecosystem Analysis Team
Department(s)
Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)
Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Contact Details
Email : Communications@jncc.gov.uk
Description
The Ecosystem Analysis team in JNCC analyse and report on biodiversity and conservation in the UK and Overseas Territories.