BSBI Atlas 2020: Maps Updating Project for Hampshire

Background

©Martin Rand 2007

The BSBI Atlas of the British and Irish Flora is a major publication project that has previously appeared at 40-year intervals. It is one of the most important sources of information on the distribution of British plants, and is widely used by researchers and conservationists. With computer technology it is possible to keep the maps updated on an 'ad hoc' basis, and so the decision has been made to age-band records every 10 years, starting in 2000 (just after the work for Atlas 2000 completed). This means that we are now one year into the second age band since the published Atlas. There has been no comprehensive systematic recording project in Hampshire since 1999, so recent coverage is getting quite patchy. Also many of the commoner species have not been fully computerised. We would like to take this opportunity to get the record more up to date. There will be a big concerted national "push" on this in the years 2013-2019, but we are making a start already. The BSBI Maps Scheme also offers an opportunity to map the distribution of the British flora at a tetrad (2km x 2km) resolution, giving a much better impression of how frequent our more localised and declining species really are. Inevitably coverage will be patchy for many years to come, but the pieces of the jigsaw will gradually drop into place.

If you would like to see examples of the national maps, click here.

How you can participate - visiting priority areas

You can help bring the record up to date by recording plants, including the most common ones, in any areas of Hampshire you visit. You can submit thousands of records if you like, but even one will be useful!

The map below, which has (November 2011) been updated with records from Hampshire Biodiversity Information Centre for 2000 onwards, shows where priority is being given for the year 2012. It is based on 2km x 2km (tetrad) grid squares. The strategy will be fully explained at meetings and workshops over the coming winter (watch this space!), but essentially it is based on areas that are species-rich and so will rapidly contribute to the national 10-kilometre mapping; areas that have low levels of recording since 1999; and some randomly selected tetrads (but biased towards under-recorded tetrads).

The main task for the next two seasons will be getting as many of the top priority tetrads recorded as we can. After that, we will adjust priorities and move on.

 Map generated with Quantum GIS 1.6

How you can participate - filling in blanks on common species

While you are waiting for the full details of the project to be revealed, here's another little exercise that will give us a quick gain in the short term. Quite a lot of common and easily recognised species are lacking up to date records (or have never been computerised at all) in a few 10km squares (hectads). If you can give us an up-to-date record in your area for any of these, it will help to fill in gaps in the national record shown on the BSBI's national Web site.

Click here to download a list of species against grid squares in Excel spreadsheet format.

Click here to download a list of species against grid squares in Adobe Acrobat format.

These files will be updated periodically to show progress. (Files last updated: 13 Nov 2011.)

Please record everything to at least 1 kilometre precision (eg 'SU5205'). For species that are uncommon in the area where you are recording, you may want to provide a more precise grid reference. If you are recording many species at a locality, and you are comfortable with scientific names, you may like to use the downloadable field recording sheet also used for the Rare Plant Register project.

Please submit your records electronically if you can. Sorry, we don't have resources to deal with paper records at present for more than a few dozen records at a time. If you are a Mapmate user then sending a Mapmate 'sync file' to the vice-county recorder is the ideal method. Otherwise, you can use the downloadable electronic recording spreadsheet. The notes on that page will explain how to fill in each column.

How you can participate - curate a hectad!

If you want to get more seriously involved, we are compiling a list of "Hectad guardians" who will take responsibility for collating the records from one 10km x 10km square in the county. (This doesn't mean they have to do all the recording work themselves!) At present we have guardians for about two-thirds of the county. If you would like to join them, email the vice-county recorders for further details - or see the Spring 2011 Flora News for more details.

Good hunting, and thank you for your help!