Tasman District Council SNH System

Tasman District Council (TDC) launched a new system in late 2009 to manage their Significant Natural Habitats (SNH) data. 

In 2008 Lindsay Vaughan and Kay Anderson looked around for a system that would both store SNA data and perform simple analysis, however they did not find anything that suited their situation. Instead, they developed a system with their IT team. It runs on Microsoft SQL Server, a relational database system, and has a web user interface. It has been designed so that data can be entered in stages. The basic information, such as eastings and northings, site name, and ecological district, is entered as soon as the SNA report is received. Copies of the reports are attached at this time also. Later, more detailed information is added, such as ecological district, eco systems, plant and bird species. 

The search function allows you to search for the locations of various species across all SNA's in the district. Tasman would like to be able to use the system to calculate how much area of each ecosystem exists across the region, but have not yet found a satisfactory way of doing this.

At a later date, shape files will be incorporated so that they can carry out GIS analysis.

Apart from the hard coded eco-districts, which are specific to the Tasman District, the database seems to be able to be translated to other regions. TDC are happy to share their system with other councils. 

Below are screenshots of the system along with a description of the system's functionality. 

Homepage

Adding a New Site

This form just allows you to enter the most basic site details. These details are added when SNA reports first come in. Further information is entered when there are resources to do so (usually a student is hired over the summer). Dividing up the data entry enables TDC to get sites registered into the database straight away.

Adding a Site Inspection

Species can be sorted to just show trees/shrubs, lianes, birds, etc. You can click on multiple species and drag them across to the selected window.

Viewing Site Inspections

Document Links Page

Site reports, photos, maps etc are all saved here as attachments. The files are saved in a secure TDC drive where they can’t be edited or accidentally deleted.

Adding a Site Note

Viewing Site Notes

List of Attributes

• Site ID (Number)
• Site Reference (Number)
• Site Name (Text)
• Valuation Assessment (Text)
• Easting (Number)
• Northing (Number)
• Eco District(s) (Picklist of 19 categories)
• Inspection Date (dd/mm/yyyy)
• Inspected By (Text)
• Type of Inspection (Picklist of Interim/Final)
• Contact Person at Property (Text)
• Comments (Memo)
• File Name 1 (Text)
• Description (Text, eg. Inspection Report)
• File Name 2 (Text)
• Description (Text, eg. Inspection Site Plan)
• EcoSystem(s) (Picklist of 18 categories)
• Select Species (Picklist)
• Note (Memo)
• Date (dd/mm/yyyy)
• Author (Text)

Contact

For more information contact Lindsay Vaughan or Kay Anderson.