What Information is Held?

HBIC maintains a computerised biological database containing detailed information on habitats and species from over 7,400 sites across Hampshire, including woodlands, heathland, chalk grassland, acid/neutral meadows, ponds and coastal sites. Information for each site is collected on record cards and includes species lists, habitat descriptions and maps, along with general site details such as geology and land use. The information from these site record cards is entered onto HBIC’s database which presently holds some 530,000 records.

Information from the record cards is also entered onto a Geographic Information System (GIS) along with a comprehensive land use and habitat classification layer for the whole County, aerial photographic coverage and various layers of site boundary information including statutory and non-statutory sites. The GIS enables HBIC to produce a wide range of maps and perform spatial analyses between these different layers.

The database and GIS layers are constantly updated as new data comes in from a variety of sources, a major component of which is the ongoing surveying and monitoring of habitats carried out by field ecologists based at HBIC. This is part of a programme which has been running in Hampshire since the late 1970’s. In all HBIC holds and can supply all of the following information:

Species data

HBIC has an extensive database of over 530,000 higher plant records for the County derived from ecological survey reports. In addition, copies of datasets belonging to partner organisations are also held and through data exchange agreements with these partners HBIC can supply species information on their behalf. HBIC currently holds over 2,400,000 records from the following organisations:

Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI)
Butterfly Conservation (Hampshire & IoW Branch)
Hampshire Ornithological Society (from 1990 to present)
Data administered by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (HWT) on behalf of the species recording groups below which includes records for mammals (excluding bats and badgers), invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians. See the HWT website for details of these groups:
- Hampshire Amphibian and Reptile Group (HARG)
- Hampshire Invertebrate Network (HNIC)
- Hampshire Mammal Group

Statutory sites

HBIC holds copies of all the statutory site boundaries maintained by Natural England, including:

Special Protection Areas (SPA)
Special Areas of Conservation (SAC)
Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)
Ramsar Sites
National Nature Reserves (NNR)
Local Nature Reserves (LNR)

Non-Statutory sites

HBIC holds site boundaries for all non-statutory sites within Hampshire, including:

Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC)
Ancient Woodland Inventory Sites

Habitat / Land Use mapping

HBIC maintains a comprehensive land use and habitat classification layer for the whole County. Originally derived from 1996 aerial photograph interpretation, the layer has been partially ground truthed and is continually being updated from the on-going programme of surveys by HBIC's field ecologists.

Site survey reports

Copies of ecological survey reports for any specified sites can be supplied by HBIC where these are available.