RECOMMENDATION 9: ESTABLISHMENT OF AN NBN NATIONAL HUB

An NBN National Hub for Scotland should be established to support a network of NBN Regional Hubs and to facilitate the flow of biological records into the NBN Atlas to create a definitive evidence base for Scotland.

The National Hub should act as a ‘Product Owner’ for the NBN Atlas and iRecord on behalf of all stakeholders in Scotland, collaborating with all sectors to encourage innovation and the development of added-value data products and tools. A ‘business analysis’ approach should be taken to understand Scottish requirements for the NBN Atlas and iRecord and added-value products and tools.

The National Hub should work with Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the State of Nature Partnership and Non-Native Species Secretariat (and others – such as the Habitat Map of Scotland Project Team) to realise the greatest possible value for Scotland from bespoke spatial layers, reports and alerts tailored to the needs of each community of interest, while developing capacity in Scotland to detect new arrivals and to monitor changes in habitats and species populations in Scotland. It should also work with national stakeholders to automate the supply of biodiversity information to inform environmental decision-making.