Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring & Modelling Programme - ERAMMP Year 1 Report 22: A Review of the contribution of species records held by Local Environmental Record Centres in Wales to ERAMMP Evidence Needs

I. Better use of Local Environmental Record Centre (LERC) data in delivering biodiversity objectives is stated explicitly in the Nature Recovery Action Plan for Wales. Consistent with this aspiration we carried out two quantitative assessments of LERC data to determine the availability of species records at the resolution required for ERAMMP and WFG (Indicator 44) evidence needs; <=1km. II. A comparison of the availability of 1km square records for section 7 reptiles, amphibians and mammals between LERC and NBN Atlas showed that LERC data were more numerous in every case and sometimes markedly so (on average 17 times as many 1km square records in LERC data). For these species the NBN Atlas tends to have a greater number of records available at 10 rather than 1km square resolution. III. An assessment of the contribution of LERC 1km square records to national trends modelling demonstrated that substantial benefits in increased species coverage and precision of modelled trends are likely to arise by including additional LERC data alongside surveillance scheme data already used for trends modelling. By combining datasets the number of species that could be modelled increased by 267% on average across all the taxonomic groups previously modelled. IV. The design of the new Wales-only Indicator 44 “status of biological diversity” is currently under consultation. Our results show that species coverage for this indicator will benefit from combining multiple datasets with the current analytical state-of-the-art for trends modelling. While results are always dependent on sufficient data, there would seem to be scope for exploring how an ecologically more comprehensive Indicator 44 could be developed in partnership with Wales LERC and others. V. Our assessment also suggests that exploiting the more numerous 1km square records for section 7 species will increase the chances of detecting legacy and future effects of management scheme interventions for biodiversity and resilience objectives. A strategy for extracting the most biodiversity understanding for time spent would most likely involve applying state-of-the-art spatio-temporal modelling in collaboration with the Wales LERC and surveillance schemes. VI. A key benefit of working more closely with LERC is their ability to identify recording gaps and to mobilise new recording effort among the interested public as well as scholarly recording societies. This kind of reactive engagement activity could also contribute to efficient risk-based surveillance but with the proviso that voluntary effort typically exhibits strong spatial bias and variation in recording quality. VII. Further evidence needs driven by recent legislation and policy in Wales are likely to become clearer as indicators for SoNaRR, in particular the resilience objective of SMNR evolve in the near future.