Innovative Research for Biodiversity Data Acquisition and Assessment (2005)
Recommendations of the workshop of the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy held under the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU. Brussels, Belgium, 18th April 2005, concerning:
INNOVATIVE RESEARCH FOR BIODIVERSITY DATA AQUISITION & ASSESSMENT
To achieve the quality of data needed to halt biodiversity loss, research is needed on:
- 1. methods to integrate and aggregate data varying in scale, precision and accuracy to answer local, regional and global research and policy questions
- 2. quality assessments and confidence estimates based on data provenance, characteristics, collection bias and processing
- 3. spatial and temporal sampling strategies to take into account statistical characteristics and cost efficiency
- 4. biodiversity informatics to discover and exploit links between ecological, species, genetic, molecular, economic and social data
- 5. tools and criteria for prioritisation of data collection.
To develop the necessary high quality and policy relevant research on the above priority areas, particular attention should be paid to:
- Effective communication among policy makers, scientists, practitioners and the general public
- Wide agreement on metadata standards for data collection and processing
- The application of common protocols and agreed standards for the construction of and access to biodiversity-related databases
- Confidentiality issues, legal aspects and IPR of data, and protocols for data access and use
- Digitisation and validation of existing data, including taxonomic synonyms and georeferencing of observations and specimens
- Automated artificial intelligence data parsing techniques for digitised versions of non-electronic data sources such as publications, field notes, catalogue cards and photographs.