1
Working towards better
freshwater information
sharing
Workshop Meeting Report
Freshwater Biological Association, Ambleside, UK
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
2
Working towards better freshwater information sharing
Workshop Meeting Report
Wednesday, 6 May 2009, Freshwater Biological Association, Ambleside, UK
Notes, presentations and follow-up work to this meeting are available on FreshwaterLife at
http://www.freshwaterlife.org/id/101709.
Contents
Invited organisations
2
Purpose of meeting
3
Summary conclusions
3
Notes
4
Introduction to the Workshop and the FBA
4
Presentations by attending organisations
Environment Agency
Riverfly Partnership
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Recording schemes – represented by Ian Wallace
National Biodiversity Network
Pond Conservation
Field Studies Council
Natural England
Buglife
4
4
5
5
5
6
6
7
7
7
Tools for data/information sharing
7
Discussion
Summary conclusions
Some useful comments / points
8
8
8
Actions
3
Invited organisations
Buglife
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Dublin University
Environment Agency for England and Wales
Environmental Protection Agency (ROI)
Field Studies Council
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Natural England
National Biodiversity Network
Northern Ireland Environment Agency
Open Air Laboratories
Pond Conservation
Riverfly Partnership
Scottish Natural Heritage
Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Syngenta
Trinity College, Dublin
WWF-UK
See Appendix 1 for list of attendees
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Purpose of meeting
The agenda for this meeting can be found in Appendix 2. The letter of invitation to the
meeting, which provides some information about the aims and background to the meeting, is
in Appendix 3.
For many years the FBA has been involved in the gathering and dissemination freshwater data
and information. In 2001, the FreshwaterLife partners started the FreshwaterLife programme
with a view to improving the availability of freshwater information and encouraging the flow
and exchange of data and knowledge. Over these last eight years, the benefits of sharing
information proved themselves many times over. It has also become clear how many
organisations and individuals have knowledge to contribute and how complicated sharing can
be. Factors such as copyright, technological barriers, fear over potential loss of control and
income, and simple lack of resources can all too easily get in the way of information-sharing.
After some introductory remarks and general and central to the workshop were the
contributions requested from each attendee representing invited organisations making up the
freshwater community at the present time. Each organisation was asked to prepare a short
presentation supplying the following information;

What freshwater information needs do you and your organisation have?

What information, data or facilities that might your organisation be prepared to
share with others?

What stops information being made more freely available and what barriers do you
encounter when trying to access data and information originating with others?

How, in your opinion, can the flow and exchange of freshwater data and information
might be improved?
These short presentations were followed by a presentation outlining some of the tools and
resources either already available or on the horizon – this was designed to provide input to
facilitate discussion by all participants and to draw conclusions.
Overall conclusion of the meeting
The participants agreed the need for improved access and better sharing within the freshwater
community and felt that the workshop had been of value and that, because of recent changes
in attitude extremely timely. They welcomed the FBA’s attempt to start a process of better
collaboration between regulatory, academic and voluntary sector components of the
freshwater community in the UK and possibly wider. They commented that buy-in from senior
management of all organisations was essential.
The organisations represented were all concerned with data quality, although in different
ways. It was decided this was a big topic worthy of another workshop dedicated to the
question alone. There was a general endorsement of the proposal that the FreshwaterLife
partners pursue the establishment of a freshwater data network.
Actions
 Presentations to be made available on FreshwaterLife, together with the notes and
supporting material.
Action: LM
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 A short report of the meeting to be sent to all attendees and invitees. The Royal Society
of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT), the River Restoration Centre, the RSPB and Association of
Rivers Trusts should be added to the list.
Action: LM
 Consideration to be given to organising a further workshop. Suggested topics include
data quality and intellectual property right issues.
Action: FBA
 Creation of a list of datasets/resources considered essential to each organisation to be
compiled.
Action: All participants and invited attendees to send details of information sources
and datasets held by / considered a priority / in daily use by their organisation to
lmiles@fba.org.uk.
Action: LM Create dedicated section in FreshwaterLife and add contributions. Let all
invitees know the URL.
 Obtain organisational buy-in via a brief, ‘in-principle’ Memorandum of Understanding
that could be signed by all participating organisations.
Action: All participants and invited attendees to discuss the principles with senior
management and provide feedback to lmiles@fba.org.uk.
Action: FBA to draft an MoU for circulation and comment.
 FBA to pursue funding for Freshwater Data Network on behalf of FreshwaterLife
partners and meeting attendees.
Action: FBA
Notes on each presentation – see agenda
Introduction to the Workshop and the FBA
Anne Powell (FreshwaterLife Chair) opened the meeting with a welcome to the FBA and
introduced the objectives of the workshop.
Mike Dobson (FBA Director) gave a brief outline of the FBA and its current activities, with an
emphasis on the FBA as both a consumer and provider of data and information.
Presentations by attending organisations
Representatives from attending organisations gave brief presentations about the information
and data each organisation has and requires. A brief summary of these presentations is
provided below.
Environment Agency
BIOSYS – There are currently around 454,000 datasets in BIOSYS which are quality controlled
to a known level. BIOSYS contains some species level information and this is likely to increase,
reflecting the greater importance the Agency attaches to species level ID.
Species level work has gained importance as the EA attempts to detect non-native species as
early as possible.
Species data is only as good as the recorder but increased availability of good quality training
will help to improve and maintain skill levels. EA information can be tailored to the user
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request but there is a resource consideration – this should improve as the technology becomes
more sophisticated.
Part of the EA’s website WIMBY (What’s In My Back Yard) provides access to certain data fairly
quickly and easily.
All the data in BIOSYS originated from EA staff.
Riverfly Partnership
Anglers Monitoring Initiative: monitoring of water bodies to provide early warning of possible
problems on a number of river sites throughout England and Wales which the EA can
investigate further.
The method uses 8 target taxa which are easy for non-specialists to identify. Abundance
estimates are also recorded.
The sampling sites are chosen in consultation between anglers and local EA staff.
Monitoring done by anglers has flagged up problems and so far 3 successful prosecutions
against polluters have resulted.
Data is shared at the local level but there is a need for a central data-store (possibly with a link
to the EA in the future ).
The sampling frequency is agreed between the angling groups and the local EA officer and
samples are always returned to the river after identification.
One problem encountered is that monitoring groups may become complacent if no changes
are apparent or if they are continually sampling streams with low diversity . Therefore, people
management and maintaining motivation is important.
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
They have/use:

Library

Internal datasets

FishBase

Wikis
Unless you know what you are looking for it is very difficult to find the information.
CEH want to enhance their holdings and make them more accessible.
CEH are creating a new INSPIRE compliant gateway. This will use common standards.
Good metadata practices and ISO standards should be used and best practice guidance should
be established rather than using minimum standards.
Recording schemes – represented by Ian Wallace
The objectives of recording schemes are to provide a source of information about distribution,
to generate interest and encourage recording and monitoring.
Ideally, data on the NBN Gateway should be checked against recording scheme’s records.
The question of data quality is very important and tools should be created to spot duplicates
to minimise effort.
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National Biodiversity Network
Intellectual property has been thoroughly examined by the NBN and when you send
information to the NBN they ask you to accept that they are going to share the information
you provide and point you to a larger document detailing all of the legal information.
There are prototypes for tools for local authorities which flag up possible issues within areas
that are under consideration for planning application.
NBN encourages best practice and standards.
The activities of the NBN has helped to highlight how much unreliable information is around.
Pond Conservation
Pond Conservation (PC) sent their apologies for not being able to attend the meeting but sent
the following notes which were read out on the day.
The National Pond Monitoring Network database continues to be developed as the focus for
pond recording data. All these data will; soon be in the public domain.
PC has current information needs, for example
Information on the location and condition of individual ponds, particularly Priority Ponds,
newly created Million Ponds Project ponds and ponds with important species (e.g. pondassociated BAP species, RDB species etc.).
Information provided by research e.g. condition of ponds as measured by Countryside Survey,
effectiveness of water protection measures (the Water Friendly Farming Landscapes Project),
effects of pond management.
We see a continued need for research on smaller waters to catch up with the rest of
freshwater science. Almost everything to do with ponds is less well-researched than any
aspect of running water ecology or lakes.
Particularly important are:

the continuation of the Countryside Survey in 2014/15

information on the effects of pond management

information on the effects of pond management on individual pond-associated
species.
We also see the need for research which enables us to get a better understanding of the
freshwater landscape and its management (e.g. Water Friendly Farming Landscapes).
Sharing data
Pond data are being shared through the National Pond Monitoring Network database. This is
internet accessible but doesn’t work very well, and we are in the process of migrating it as
much as possible to Google Earth and Maps.
Our general policy is to make data as accessible to everyone as possible.
Information flow
In the future we essentially want to see information flow as freely as possible.
This may be achieved by posting datasets on the web, make them as freely accessible as
possible and let people get on with it themselves.
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There is so much data out there which are never accessed and probably never used because
you can’t just get hold of them.
Field Studies Council
Data collected during courses is sometimes sent to record centres if they are confident of the
quality.
Natural England
Information held and also needed by NE includes data on designated sites and protected and
rare species.
The format of information on designated sites varies (print and electronic).
Protected species information is not always put in the public domain.
NE use BARS (Biodiversity Action Reporting System), with plans to link to NBN in future.
Information on freshwater surveys is of variable quality.
There is access to information that is only available in hard copy if you know where it is and go
to the office to use it.
NE use standard methodologies where available. They use species presence, abundance and
composition.
NE use BSBI, CEH (through JNCC) and EA information.
Have a repository system.
Restricted reports are not necessarily restricted to everyone – appropriate decisions are made
on a case-by-case basis.
Buglife
Ecological grazing marshes and ditches project – Collect data from over 600 sites and
comparing it with old data. Have produced a bibliography of from work on this project.
RSPB and Wildlife Trusts have approached Buglife for data.
Use data from EA.
Problems they have are time, money and staff capacity so Buglife would benefit from tools
that would make searches more efficient.
The organisation is developing a “springs and seepages” project but this is very time
consuming.
Tools for data/information sharing
Kearon McNicol gave a brief presentation about the different tools and resources available for
data/information sharing, details of which can be found at www.freshwaterlife.org/id/101709.
He also outlined the proposal by FreshwaterLife partners for the establishment of a
Freshwater Data Network which would aim to pull together existing information/data from
various sources and make the information more readily available.
During the meeting, comparisons were made between this proposed bid and the work of the
NBN. Kearon explained that the Freshwater Data Network will not conflict or overlap with the
work of the NBN as the target data encompasses much more than distribution data (which
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should always be submitted to NBN where appropriate). The Freshwater Data Network would
focus upon improving data and information sharing and improving awareness of existing data.
During discussions it was agreed that the FBA (through the FreshwaterLife programme), as an
independent organisation, is ideally placed to champion this type of project and associated
work given the impartial nature of the organisation and established history of understanding
and tackling the issues surrounding data and information facilitation.
General discussions
Conclusions
 It was commonly agreed that there is a need for improved access and better data
sharing within the fresh water community.

The overall opinion was that the meeting was useful and that the timing is right to
improve the sharing and exchange of information / data.

It was generally felt that there has been a cultural shift and the idea of organisations
sharing data is more acceptable that it may have been in the past.

For data/information sharing to be successful, buy-in from senior management in
participating organisations is required.

It was recognised that the issue of data quality is an important one which may merit
a separate meeting.

There was general endorsement of the proposal by the FreshwaterLife partners to
pursue the establishment of a freshwater data network.
Some useful comments / points
o IMPACT – Tried to harmonise datasets within the EA – didn’t work.
o Would be beneficial if all data sources and software were integrated and could link up.
o There are difficult issues around the IPR of data that has multiple ownership or when
original databases are subsumed other databases.
o There are commercial issues surrounding IPR so some parties don’t want information
to be freely available.
o How realistic is it to get a list of all data/information in each organisation? Some
organisations would be more difficult than others, especially those that have lots of
grey/unpublished literature may not be electronic. RC commented that different levels
of granularity may have to be accepted for different organisations.
o BB commented that the EA has a vast amount of data but it is difficult to gain access to
the information, even if you know it exists and even within the organisation.
o OG commented that we need to standardise metadata, perhaps just between
participating organisations to start with, so that we can start to share information.
o MR commented that information on standard monitoring/sampling protocols as a
reference would be very useful so that we can encourage people to use standard
methods.
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o BB suggested that just making information available and letting people assess how to
use it may be a useful step (i.e. standards are important but sometimes just making the
information available is a start).
o KMN – Standards may need to be flexible to allow greater participation. Perhaps a
minimum requirement with a widely accepted understanding that more information is
better. The difficulty is striking the balance between the metadata necessary to ensure
data / information can be used and reducing the obstacles to participation.
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Appendix 1 - Attendees
Attendee
Affiliation
Anne Powell (AP)
Freshwater Biological Association
Bill Brierley (BB)
Environment Agency
Bridget Peacock (BP)
Riverfly Partnership
Claire Wood (CW)
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Craig Macadam (CM)
Recorder
Cynthia Davies (CD)
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
David Pryce (DP)
Recorder
Heidrun Feuchtmayer (HF)
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Ian Pettman (IP)
Freshwater Biological Association
Ian Wallace (IW)
Recorder
Ian Winfield (IWi)
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Jeremy Biggs (JB)
Pond Conservation
Judith Clarke (JC)
RFERAC
Judy England (JE)
Environment Agency
Louis Kitchen (LK)
Recorder
Louise Miles (LM)
Freshwater Biological Association
Kearon McNicol (KMN)
Freshwater Biological Association
Maggie Robinson (MR)
Natural England
Mike Dobson (MD)
Freshwater Biological Association
Oliver Grafton (OG)
National Biodiversity Network
Rebecca Farley (RF)
Field Studies Council
Richard Chadd (RC)
Environment Agency
Roger Sweeting (RS)
Freshwater Biological Association
Sue Townsend (ST)
Field Studies Council
Vicky Kindemba (VK)
Buglife
Invited attendees (not present at meeting)
Alastair Fergusson
Consultant
Andy Brewer
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Bob Davidson
Northern Ireland Environment Agency
Catherine Duigan
Countryside Council for Wales
Deirdre Tierney
Environment Protection Agency
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Geoff Johnson
National Biodiversity Network
Imelda O'Neill
Northern Ireland Environment Agency
John Tweddle
Natural History Museum
Ken Irvine
Trinity College, Dublin
Lee Knight
Recorder
Pernille Thorbek
Syngenta
Peter Hale
Northern Ireland Environment Agency
Phil Boon
Scottish Natural Heritage
Phil Heneghan
Syngenta
Rob Shore
WWF-UK
Ross Doughty
Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Steve Wilkinson
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Stewart Clarke
Natural England
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Appendix 2 - Agenda
12:00 – 12:45
1) Arrival and lunch
12:45 – 12:55
2) Introduction
12:55 – 13:10
3) The FBA, information-sharing and scene-setting for contributions
13:10 – 14:50
4) Organisation outlines – This part of the programme provides
opportunity for each organisation to explain their needs for freshwater
data/information resources and how information is shared. How would
you like to see information flow within the freshwater community in the
future?
13:10 – Environment Agency
13:20 – Riverfly Partnership
13:30 – Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
13:40 – National Biodiversity Network
13:50 – Recording Schemes
14:00 – Pond Conservation
14:10 – Field Studies Council
14:20 – WWF-UK
14:30 – Natural England
14:40 – Buglife
14:50 – 15:05
5) Refreshments
15:05 – 15:30
6) Some tools for data/information-sharing – FBA/FreshwaterLife
15:30 – 16:30
7) Discussion; the importance of information-sharing and how do we
improve it?
16:30 – 17:00
8) Resolutions and actions
1700
9) Close
1800
10) Evening meal at the Angel Inn, Bowness-on-Windermere
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Appendix 3 – Invitation to the meeting
The following email was sent to the list in Appendix 1, inviting them to a workshop on
“Working towards better freshwater information sharing”.
“Dear potential collaborator:
We would like to invite you to a half day workshop on ‘Working towards better freshwater
information sharing’ at the Freshwater Biological Association’s head quarters in the Lake
District for the afternoon of Wednesday 6th May 2009. The workshop will start at 12pm with
lunch, followed by discussion from 1pm until 5pm. After there will be an opportunity for
attendees to meet for a meal in a local restaurant.
Why hold this workshop?
For many years the FBA has been involved in the gathering and dissemination freshwater data
and information. In 2001, the FreshwaterLife partners started the FreshwaterLife programme
with a view to improving the availability of freshwater information and encouraging the flow
and exchange of data and knowledge. Over these last eight years, the benefits of sharing
information proved themselves many times over. It has also become clear how many
organisations and individuals have information, data or knowledge to contribute and how
complicated sharing can be. Factors such as copyright, technological barriers fear over
potential loss of control and income and simple lack of resources can all too easily get in the
way. We would like to invite you to this workshop to discuss:

What information needs you or your organisation have

What information, data or facilities you may have to offer others

What stops you being able to make your information available to others and what
barriers you experience when trying to access data or information

What we, the freshwater interest community, can do to improve the flow and
exchange of freshwater data and information.
In addition to any actions arising from the workshop itself, the workshop will be held the day
before the FreshwaterLife annual strategy meeting and the outcomes will be used to help the
partners decide priorities for the FreshwaterLife programme and what role FreshwaterLife
might play to facilitate and encourage information sharing.
Obviously for this workshop to be a success it is important that relevant organisations have an
opportunity to contribute.
We would be delighted if you are able to join us on the 6th May. We will be putting together a
more detailed program in the coming weeks and will circulate this when available.
We look forward to seeing you at what promises to be an interesting and valuable workshop.”