Condition Assessment Method

Introduction

This document sets out a proposed method for carrying out condition assessments in England to support biodiversity net gain (BNG) assessments. The aim is to standardise the approach to carrying out condition assessments to aid repeatability and replicability. This will ensure that ecologists and regulators can be confident that condition assessments have been carried out to a consistent and appropriate standard.

It will also facilitate data sharing and scrutiny by providing a standard set of variables to record in the field and a standard way to store and share these data.

The philosophy here is: collect data first, assess condition second.

There is danger in trying to decide whether a criterion is passed or failed in real time in the absence of objective data (quantified where possible). It is better to collect data on which to base an assessment. Where possible, this could be automated based on the data, but it may require a more nuanced judgement based on experience.

Contributing to this method document

This is very much a work in progress!

Digital Ecology has made this an open document – we hope that developing a method for habitat condition assessment will be a collaborative project. We invite people to contribute their ideas and help improve and shape this document.

Digital Ecology has created a wiki where the methods for each habitat are provided. Not all habitat condition assessments are currently available and they will be updated when they are complete.

However, you can sign up for an account on the wiki and help edit the methods. We encourage anyone to take part in this work as the more people involved, the better the methods will be.

The wiki can be accessed here: http://conditionassessmentmethod.co.uk/

QGIS project

To support standardised data collection for condition assessments, Digital Ecology have developed a QGIS project for digital data capture in the field. This includes condition assessment forms for many of the habitats listed in the method.

The QGIS project can be used in either QField or MerginMaps for use in the field. It has been made free and open source so anyone can use it.

The QGIS project can be accessed on Digital Ecology’s Codeberg