An information system to support the sustainable management of Habitats and
Rare Priority and Protected Species (HaRPPS) in British forests
1*
D. Ray, 1A.C. Broome, 1A. Brunt, 1T. Brown, 2A. Mason, 3C. Vials
*e-mail: duncan.ray@ forestry.gsi.gov.uk
1
Ecology Division, Forest Research, Roslin, Midlothian, UK
2
Environ-IT, Tweedsmuir, Scottish Borders, UK
3
Biometrics Division, Forest Research, Farnham, Hampshire, UK
__________________________________________________________________
Abstract
In order to maintain and improve standards of sustainable forestry, managers need
relevant and clearly presented information recommending good practice for
managing woodlands and associated open habitats. Recent legislation has
implemented heavy penalties for failure to maintain a duty of care to protected and
rare, species and habitats. This has produced a requirement for information on
management procedures to reduce the risk of damage and disturbance.
The public consider the provision of habitat for wildlife a key function of forestry in the
UK. Experiencing wildlife, especially rare species, is an important attraction of forests
to the public and brings with it economic benefits. Good management of the wildlife
resource and especially rare and threatened species and habitats is of key
importance.
Habitats and Rare Priority and Protected Species (HaRPPS) is a new decision
support tool that provides managers with quick and easy access to this information.
The system is underpinned by a database which is populated using a systematic
review process to assess available knowledge and its quality. For each species,
information is sought for a consistent set of topics, including forest operations. A
citation and data quality tag enables users to assess the authority and impact of
information. HaRPPS has been developed as a web service, providing access from
and to other information systems used by foresters, private woodland owners and
land managers. The interoperability of the system opens up linkage options to spatial
and modelling applications allowing spatial and temporal scenarios for rare species
and habitats management to be developed.
Introduction
The UK Forestry Standard (Anon, 1988, revised 2004) identifies key issues, with
targets and indicators for forest management, underpinned by sustainable forest
management (SFM) principals. The standard sets out the Government’s approach to
sustainable forestry, for which the Forestry Commission has statutory responsibility
within Britain. More recently the standard has been adopted as Britain’s
implementation approach to the ‘Pan-European Criteria’ (PEC) that is applied
throughout Europe in all forests. This has led to overall improvements in the standard
of management, including biodiversity, conservation and monitoring of these areas
(Garforth and Thornber, 2003).
The level of species protection in EU member countries continues to increase (Anon
1992). In the UK, recent changes in legislation and regulations under review, e.g.
Conservation (Natural Habitats &c.) Regulations 1994, have increased the
1
protection for many additional species and habitats not covered by the EU Habitats
Directive. Within the sphere of forest biodiversity research there is a steadily
increasing knowledge-base on the broad principles of how forest management
impacts on biodiversity (e.g.Humphrey et.al., 2003). Survey and spatial information
systems are providing increased data on the distribution and status of species and
habitats. Studies of habitat and species autecology and synecology are feeding into
management guidance (e.g. Anon, 2001; Hill, 1997).
Forest managers are faced with a plethora of information, from a variety of sources,
and have to deal with the complex legislation covering the protection status of
species and habitats. There needs to be a single, open-access gateway, with
information and guidance presented in an organised way that is relevant to forest
operations and practice. Our view has been that this could be most effectively offered
by a combined knowledge and information decision support system.
This paper describes a system called Habitats and Rare Priority and Protected
Species (HaRPPS) decision support system, designed to help land managers, and
forest managers in particular, maintain high standards of SFM while minimizing
disturbance to protected species and reducing damage to habitats. The HaRPPS
application aims to structure, simplify and deliver complex information on the
protection of existing species and their habitats, and encourage management for
potential species through habitat management. It aims: to make clear the threats
posed, and opportunities offered by management operations; to provide the
information to resolve conflicts from managing multiple species, or planning multiple
operations; and assist decision making by setting out evidence in a logical way.
HaRPPS design
The decision support system is composed of several isolated components, which are
linked in a way which allows queries to be constructed in different ways. The
architecture is designed to allow easy linkage from internal (HaRPPS) and external
(other web applications) sources. The data model represents the structural
relationships between the data tables of the database, and is a useful way of
demonstrating the linkages and dependencies in understanding the kind of data
queries that can be constructed.
System Architecture
HaRPPS has been developed as a three tier web application to provide open access,
and with exposed web services to allow interoperability and rapid linkage by 3rd party
systems. The system has four main tiers (Figure 1):
1. The data tier comprises two databases, one holds the species, habitat,
operations, location and protection status information, the other holds information
input by users relating sites
2. The Business logic tier controls the system.
3. Presentation Tier (1) converts information into an XML (Extensible Markup
Language) document. If the user requires this format it is returned directly.
4. Presentation tier (2) converts into other formats (HTML, PDF, RTF ) and locates
the appropriate XSLT stylesheet (eXtensible Style Language Translation) to
format information. The tier can also send the XML document and the stylesheet
to a user, for other types of conversion.
2
Figure 1. The HaRPPS web-application system architecture.
Data model
An important feature of the data model is the development of two-way linkages
between species and habitat, species and forest operations, species and location,
and between species and protection status, allowing queries to be made on species
or any of the linked factors. In addition, dependencies between ecological data and
species were created to allow queries on species provide a range of detailed
ecological information. Dependencies were created between habitat, forest
operations and ecology tables to associate descriptive information with a species. In
addition, the numerical information and descriptive information in all tables was linked
to a data quality classification table and a citation index.
Knowledge acquisition
Linkages between the attributes were formed from a systematic review. The data
quality table (Table 1) provides a means of classifying the type and quality of
information used in the database. Information is tagged in the review process to
identify information from a range of sources.
Table 1. Data quality classification in HaRPPS
Quality class
5
4
3
2
1
Description
Peer reviewed papers and books
Web sites (known quality review process)
Unpublished internal reports
Web sites (unknown review process)
Anecdotal experience
A citation table holds the reference from which the information was obtained. Every
piece of information in the database has a citation and a data quality class
associated with it.
3
HaRPPS Operation
Simple queries by species provide ecological information. Complex queries can also
be set, for example it is possible to extract rare priority and protected species that
occur in selected management units (e.g. Forest Districts) OR a specified grid
reference AND/OR are associated with a habitat type AND/OR which will be affected
by forest operations AND/OR have a particular protection status. Data quality and a
citation are displayed interactively for all elements of the information.
Discussion
SFM is demanding more of forest managers, and the knowledge supporting SFM is
proliferating. As a result there is a growing interest in decision support systems
(Turban, 2000) which synthesise and deliver knowledge to managers (Rauscher,
2000).
Organising and delivering information in HaRPPS
Existing information on the ecology of species and habitats is dispersed throughout
the literature in scientific papers, books, magazines and specialist web sites. The
review process in HaRPPS aims to search the literature and select information that is
relevant and reliable (Pullin and Knight, 2001). The key data requirements were
determined prior to the literature review.
Supporting species and habitat protection
HaRPPS addresses principally the nature conservation aspects of SFM, listing both
the positive and negative impacts of forest operations on species, and provides
current recommended practice to avoid disturbance.
In forestry, the problem is not so much overcoming a reluctance to intervene, but to
provide evidence and experienced-based knowledge to make the method and timing
of interventions successful in all aspects of SFM. Clear, easily accessible information
is a key factor that will encourage management for rare and threatened species.
HaRPPS also indicates species with potential to colonise. A windows-based
computer program application with similar objectives (NEWILD - within the NED
family of decision support systems) (Thomasma et.al., 1998; Twery et.al. ,2000)
developed in the United States has been designed in a broadly similar way with links
between species, habitat type and structure. NEWILD has codified expert knowledge
on 338 species centered mainly in the eastern US. Although it doesn’t contain explicit
links between forest operations impacts and legal protection status, it has been
developed to deliver SFM within the framework of the Endangered Species Act
(1973).
Resolving management conflicts
Most management operations impact in conflicting ways on different species, and a
good understanding of the habitat requirements of the species of interest, coupled
with knowledge of the landscape, the forest type and its habitats is required (Liu et.al.
1995). Managing conflicts is best approached from a position of knowledge in which
decisions are taken after assessing model scenarios, and after discussion with
interested parties.
4
HaRPPS and social forestry
The general public perceive rare and threatened species management as one of the
most important issues in UK forestry. The UK Public Opinion of Forestry 2003 survey
(Anon, 2003), reported that “48% of all adults had seen or read about forests,
woodlands or trees…on the television, radio or in the newspapers. As in previous
years, the topics most widely seen were ‘birds or other animals in the woodlands’”.
Selecting from a list of 14 issues, 72% of respondents believed the main public
benefit of forests was in providing good places for wildlife, and this response had the
highest ranking.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the HaRPPS Steering Group: Sallie Bailey, Patrick Green, Michelle
Bromley, Fred Currie and Peter Quelch, and also Chris Quine for comments on an
earlier draft.
Reference
Anon (1992) European Union Habitats Directive, COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 92/43/EEC
of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora.
Anon (2001) Great crested newt mitigation guidelines: Version 2001. : English
Nature, Peterborough.
Anon (2003) UK Public Opinion of Forestry 2003 Survey. : Forestry Commission
Report , Forestry Commission, Edinburgh.
Anon (2004) The UK Forestry Standard (2nd edition): Forestry Commission and
Forest Service Northern Ireland, Forestry Commission, Edinburgh.
Bryden, D. (2003) Quality of Wildlife Tourism Survey. : Highlands and Islands
Enterprise Report May 2003.
Garforth, M. and Thornber, K. (2003) The Impacts of Certification on UK Forests,
Report by the UKWAS Support Unit.
Hill, D., Hockin, D., Price, D., Tucker, G., Morris, R. & Treweek, J. (1997) Bird
disturbance: improving the quality and utility of disturbance research. Journal of
Applied Ecology 34, 275-288.
Humphrey, J. W., Ferris, R. and Quine, C. P. (2003) Biodiversity in Britain's Planted
Forests: Results from the Forestry Commission's Biodiversity Assessment Project. ,
pp. 118pp: Forestry Commission, Edinburgh.
Liu, J., Dunning, J. B. and Pulliam, H. R. (1995) Potential effects of a forest
management plan on Bechman's sparrows (Aimophila aetivalis): Linking a spatially
explicit model with GIS. Conservation Biology 9(1), 62-75.
Pullin, A. S. and Knight, T. M. (2001) Effectiveness in Conservation Practice:
Pointers from Medicine and Public Health. Conservation Biology 15, 50-54.
Rauscher, H. M., Lloyd, F. T., Loftis, D. L. and Twery, M. J. (2000) A practical
decision-analysis process for forest ecosystem management. Computers and
Electronics in Agriculture 27, 195-226.
Thomasma, S. A., Thomasma, L. E. and Twery, M. J. (1998). NEWILD (version
1.0) user’s manual [Computer program]. : Gen. Tech. Report NE-242. Radnor, PA:
US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station. 28 p.
Turban, E. and Aronson, J. (2000) Decision Support Systems and Intelligent
Systems: Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Twery, M. J., Rauscher, H. M., Bennett, D. J., Thomasma, S. A., Stout, S. L.,
Palmer, J. F., Hoffman, R. E., DeCalesta, D. S., Gustafson, E., Cleveland, H.,
Grove, J. M., Nute, D., Kim, G. and Kollasch, R. P. (2000) NED-1: integrated
5
analyses for forest stewardship decision. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture
27, 167-193.
6