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Environment Bay of Plenty's Biodiversity Ecologies Application holds data relating to freshwater wetlands, collected at different times for purposes including SNA and PNA reports and field visits. The database, which is implemented in Dot.Net, provides for site, ecological, management, species, threats, pest and consents data (510kb).
BEA is a suite of tools that are both separate and integrated. Each module is capable of operating as a stand-alone unit and of integrating with other modules, as well as with a diverse range of external systems via web services.
The modules include databases for different ecologies. The following ecology modules are currently in production:
The following modules are in development:
BEA modules incorporate a Biodiversity Interface (BDI) that allows access to the other modules (including reporting across modules) and integration with other systems in the organisation. BEA integrates particularly well with GIS, providing, for example, ecological information in an interface that is used for assessing consent applications. This allows ecologists to be notified when a consent application is lodged that has implications for an area they are working on.
BEA consumes external data where possible, including taxonomic data from Landcare Research. It is designed to provide information at the level required by the user. These levels of detail can range from being highly comprehensive to very generalised. BEA also uses a data quality model that assesses data reliability through a brief index, which lists how the current the data is, as well as how reliable the data was at the time it was originally collected.
BEA is described in the 2005 "Survey of
Regional Council Biodatabases", accessible from the References section.
The system has been shared with Opotiki District Council, but is not web-enabled.
Some data is available to the public on a web-based GIS site.
A summary of the Dataversity workshop on BEA and EcoBase in Nelson is available here: EcoBase and Biodiversity Interface Workshop
A walk-through of the Bioweb module is available to view as part of the 2010 National Workshop resources.
Join the discussion on the Biodiversity Ecologies Application.
For more information contact Nancy Willems.