It is intended that this catalogue will develop to hold information on all environmental observation programmes and activities carried out by or for the UK i.e. that covered by the public, private and voluntary sectors. It will contain information about current, future activities and past activities where outputs are still available for use.

The catalogue is work in progress. We hope that by making this resource available and accessible its value will be realised and that organisations will be encouraged to take part. We have provided what information we have been given by the organisations detailed below. This is the first release version of the catalogue and we cannot at present verify to what degree the information is current, accurate or complete. Over the next year we will work with organisations to update and extend the information contained within the catalogue and will welcome the inclusion of new observation activities or the amendment of existing ones.

If you would like to add, amend or delete any information currently held for your organisation we would be very happy to hear from you. Please go to ‘How to update this information’ for more details.

Current Contents

The UK-EOF secretariat are aware of over 250 organisations involved in some way with undertaking environmental observations. It has not been possible to contact all of these to include up to date information and what is included here is an amalgamation of recently updated and previously held information from a variety of sources with various levels of detail and completeness. Where use of the information requires verification we suggest that users refer to the ‘Date record last checked’ column of the spreadsheet output and liaise with the main contact for an activity.

Currently the information contained in this version of the catalogue comes from the 2006 ERFF Monitoring Database, the 17 UK-EOF sponsor and other organisations (who were asked to perform an update) and information contained within the JNCC Terrestrial Surveillance Monitoring Database and the UK Directory of Marine Observing Systems (UKDMOS). Further details can be found below.

1. First stage of updates

   Updating the information within the catalogue will be a staged process. Analysis of the ERFF 2006 Monitoring Database showed that 80% of its contents were linked to the following 18 organisations. These organisations were then asked to update the information about their portfolio of environmental observations as a first step in the development and population of the UK-EOF Environmental Observations Catalogue.

   Organisation	Contents updated from 2006	Contents complete or partial
   AFBI	Y	Partial
   BAS (NERC)	Y	Partial
   BGS (NERC)	Y	Partial
   CCW	N	Partial
   CEFAS	N	Partial
   CEH (NERC)	Y	Partial
   DECC	N	No records
   Defra	N	Partial
   DOE(NI)	Y	Partial
   Environment Agency	Y	Partial
   Forestry Commission	Y	Partial
   FRS	N	Partial
   JNCC	Y	Partial
   Met Office	Y	Partial
   NE	Y	Partial
   Scottish Government	Y	Partial
   SEPA	N	Partial
   SNH	Y	Partial

   
   

2. 2006 ERFF Monitoring Database

   In the course of the review of environmental monitoring carried out for ERFF in 2006 (reported in ERFF Report 02) a database of environmental monitoring activities in the UK was created. This information has been migrated into the new catalogue except where organisations have provided an update (as detailed above).

3. JNCC Terrestrial Surveillance Monitoring Database

   (http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-4406)

   As part of The UK Terrestrial Biodiversity Surveillance Strategy JNCC has collated records of terrestrial biodiversity surveillance activity in the UK with the help of many scheme organisers. The results are available in the Terrestrial biodiversity surveillance schemes database. The current information, which provides a fairly complete picture as of January 2009 of the surveillance and monitoring schemes that sample species or habitats within the UK on land and freshwater, have been included within the current catalogue.

4. UK Directory of Marine Observing Systems (UKDMOS)

   (http://www.ukdmos.org)

   UKDMOS is the United Kingdom Directory of the Marine-observing Systems, a searchable metadatabase of marine monitoring conducted by UK organisations. UKDMOS provides an internet-based tool for searching monitoring programmes with the aim of providing information to coordinate the monitoring across different organisations. UKDMOS 'programme' level information has been included within this version of the database.

The search is divided into 4 main areas: Who, What, Where and Why?

If you do not enter any search terms or select any of the search options given the default is to return all records within the catalogue.

Entering search terms or selecting pre-defined options will narrow down the search and the number of activities and programmes given in the results. Each search is described separately below. We have provided what information has been made available to us (see 'What's in this catalogue?' for more information).Each record has at a minimum a lead organisation, lead funder, title and an environmental domain associated with it. Other information may not be complete which may limit the search results. If you do not find the information you are looking for, you may wish to consider widening the search you are performing. We will continue to work with organisations to ensure that the information contained within the catalogue is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

Who?

Here you can search for activities related to a particular organisation of interest. This search works using auto text and so if you start typing the target organisation name or acronym it will show organisations (which have information in the catalogue) which contain your search term e.g. Department will show e.g. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Department of Environment Northern Ireland. If the organisation is not related to any activities/programmes within the catalogue it will not appear in the list.

What?

Here you can make detailed searches of the text contained within the title, description and objectives of any activity or programme.

By default, searches will look for all projects containing ALL of the individual words or phrases you enter in the search box separated by at least one space, i.e. if you enter the words freshwater fish pollution the search will look for projects containing freshwater AND fish AND pollution. You can also use OR and NOT explicitly, and you can be explicit about the use of AND if you wish. You can also use a negative sign (-) instead of the word NOT. E.g. badger OR fox NOT rabbit would return projects containing the word badger or the word fox, but not projects which also contain the word rabbit, as would badger OR fox –rabbit. The minus sign must immediately precede the word which it qualifies, with no spaces (whereas AND, OR and NOT must be followed by a space before the start of the word which they qualify).

Enclose search phrases within double quotes, e.g. "freshwater fish", to find only projects in which these words occur adjacent to one another in that order.

You can use a wildcard character (either * or %) to search for a string of characters within a longer word (e.g. flood* will find flooded, flooding, floods as well as flood).

Here you can limit your search to activities or programmes that have been assigned (by the submitting organisation or the Uk-EOF secretariat) to one or more environmental domains. Select one of more of the 7 options given. Use CTRL to select or deselect.

This search allows you to search for activities and programmes which have particular variables, parameters and keywords associated with them.

This search works using auto text and so if you start typing search term it will show all words in the variable, parameter and keyword fields which contain that term e.g. temperature will show (amongst others) sea temperature and air temperature.

Where?

Here you can search for activities that cover predefined geographic regions. Select one or more of the 13 predefined geographic areas given. Use CTRL to select or deselect.

Why?

Here you can search for activities and programmes initiated for a particular purpose or purposes. Select one or more of the 7 options given. Use CTRL to select or deselect.

1. How is the information displayed?

   The downloaded search results can be displayed in three ways:

   1. On-screen display

      This is the default first view of the search results (unless 'send results to spreadsheet' is selected). This display shows a selection of the full information contained within the database:
      • Title
      • Lead Organisation
      • Lead Funder
      • Environmental Domain
      • UK-EOF id number
      • Start Date
      • End Date
      • Link to detail page

      If a search has been made on an organisation that is not the lead organisation or funder the field 'organisation's relationship to activity' will appear in the results instead.

      Records appear in a random order. These can be sorted in alphabetically or numerically (as appropriate to the field) order by clicking on the column titles.

   2. Detail page

      This page can be accessed via the 'Detail' link on the on-screen display. It shows a wider range of fields than the on-screen display but only where the information is known. The fields which will be displayed (where the information is available) are:

      • Title
      • Description
      • Objectives
      • Type of activity
      • Lead Organisation
      • Lead Funder
      • (Organisation’s relationship to activity – where the search organisation is not the lead organisation or funder)
      • Status
      • Environmental Domain
      • Variables/parameters
      • Keywords
      • Reasons for collection
      • Geographic area covered
      • Start Date
      • End Date
      • Date record last checked

   3. Spreadsheet display

      The results can be downloaded in spreadsheet format either directly from the search page or via the on-screen display by selecting 'send results to screen' or 'send results to spreadsheet' at the bottom of the search page. The spreadsheet display includes all the fields within the database, including those which are not expected to be completed until 2010.

      The fields where 'Required 2010' is stated indicate the information that we expect the catalogue to be extended to include by next year. This may not be an exhaustive list and is included simply for information at this time.

2. What do the fields mean?

   A description of the fields is given in the full guidance document, which can be accessed using the link below. Where options are controlled these are given in the format/options field. The spreadsheet information is organised according to the four categories of search available: Who, What, Where and Why.

It is the responsibility of the lead organisation to update the information for each activity and to check it at least once per year. Organisations can amend, add and delete records to ensure the detail of activities and programmes in the catalogue are accurate and of sufficient detail to be useful to others. It may also be necessary for lead funders to submit cost information. Checks and updates are expected to be at least annually but changes are welcome at any time. The UKEOF will prompt the lead organisation to undertake the annual check.

1. Use the search function on this website to download the information you wish to change into a spreadsheet as described in 'how to search link' below.
2. Filter the 'lead organisation' and 'lead funder' column to retrieve the activities or programmes for which your organisation is involved.
3. Now check, amend, add or delete each row of the spreadsheet as appropriate. See guidance for further instructions.
4. Even if there are no amendments, please update the 'Date record last checked' and 'Record last checked by' fields so that it is clear the information is still correct.
5. Save the new version of the spreadsheet and send this by email to ukeof@erff.org.uk marking the subject with 'Catalogue update' and ensuring that your contact details are within the email.
6. The secretariat will process the information and contact you if there are any queries. If there are no issues with the information the Environmental Observation Activity Catalogue will be updated.

How to make amendments to your programmes and activities

To Amend
Using the details in the guidance document, edit the information as appropriate, filling in as many fields per record as possible (using predefined options where indicated).

To Add
Add details of new activities and programmes into the first empty row (and subsequent rows) at the end of the downloaded spreadsheet, leaving no blank rows in between records and filling in as many fields per record as possible. Please use the guidance document to assist you with completing the fields.

The record will be given a UK-EOF id as part of the process of being added to the catalogue.

To Delete
Where an activity or programme is no longer running simply change the 'Status' field. This ensures a record of completed activities and programmes can still be found in the catalogue where the outputs of those activities e.g. data or reports are available but the activity or programme finished.

The final column of the downloadable spreadsheet allows you to indicate if a record should be deleted instead of marked as completed. Add an X into this field if you would like to delete the record from the catalogue.

If you have any queries please email ukeof@erff.org.uk or call the Secretariat on 01793 422193.

We would like to hear from you if you have any comments, queries or suggestions concerning the use or contents of the UK-EOF Catalogue.

Please send your feedback via email to office@ukeof.org.uk and mark the subject clearly 'Observations Activity Catalogue'. Alternatively and if the enquiry is urgent, please call the Secretariat on 01793 411652 during office hours.

Please note, updates will occur monthly and may take 2 weeks to become live.

Version 1.2.0.5