On 11th September 2017, Norfolk County Council held a local stakeholder meeting at the Natural History Museum with representatives from the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Trust and the Association of Local Environmenteal Records Centres (ALERC).
During the meeting discussions focussed on the ways in which biodiversity data can be made available via the NBN Atlas in particular the way in which Open Data layers of modelled and interpreted data can be published. The aim of the day was to devise ways in which different types of data could be published to monitor use against the degree of openness used.
During the meeting different types of data were discussed with regard to the ability to publish as Open or shared datasets and much time was spent on confirming that Open Data in the context of BID-Rex should perhaps focus on ensuring that data licencing encourages wide use of data and that this may mean that resolution is reduced. However publication of Open Data sets can and should act as signposting to the high resolution shared datasets that will be available directly from the data owners.
The outcome of the day was the agreement to publish some existing datasets on the NBN Atlas including Invasive Alien Species datasets at full capture resolution, “heat maps” of species densities and spatial maps of ecological networks or proposed Green Infrastructure corridors. The NBN will provide access to monitoring data and download logs to allow analysis of the use of different data types to feed into the work by NCC in developing a Regional Action Plan.
