Tag Archives: Biodiversity Net Gain

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) 3.1 Baseline – Field Data Capture Application

Over the past few months, the GIS team has been working on a desktop and mobile data capture tool for the creation and attribution of UK habitat spatial information to be used in Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) 3.1 baseline habitat calculations.

The tool was initially discussed in an internal BNG workshop between our Ecology and GIS teams. The workshop identified areas for improvement such as:

  • Transfer of data/spatial information between ecologist and GIS professional
  • Potential repetition of data capture on large sites between multiple surveyors
  • Complex condition assessment criteria to remember and record
  • The requirement for a quick method of calculating baseline habitat scores.

Based on the discussion in the workshop the GIS team set about development of a desktop and field data capture tool that provides the digital data capture and single source of truth required along with the topological quality checks, condition criteria and automated BNG calculations to quickly express a BNG baseline figure.

Our Senior GIS Consultant, Monika Klamann, and GIS Spatial Developer, Gregor Boltic worked alongside senior members of the ecology team to evaluate potential software and hardware solutions. GIS went about developing a solution to this in the form of a desktop and field data capture software application that:

 

Biodiversity Net Gain GIS
  • Captures digital data in a desktop environment with appropriate base mapping
  • Captures digital data in the field both online and offline
  • Provides condition assessment criteria information within the same application
  • Gives the ability to add strategic significance values, condition information and images that would help attribute this information
  • Calculates BNG 3.1 baseline habitat unit scores based on the habitat, size, condition and strategic significance of the parcel
  • Provides spatial and topological quality assurance to allow for an accurate BNG baseline calculation and use within the calculation metric.

 

The BNG baseline application is currently being field tested on live projects, with the view of rolling it out for use within our 40+ strong ecology team in the near future. This is just one of many GIS innovations in field data capture and spatial data management that the GIS team are working on as part of their two-year GIS business plan aimed at reviewing all TEP’s data capture processes, and bringing as many of these to a digital platform as feasible.

BNG – What’s it all about?

Following the 2019 publication of DEFRA’s objectives for a mandatory biodiversity net gain (BNG) policy in England, Natural England recently published Biodiversity Metric 3.0 and the long awaited Environment Bill is anticipated to receive royal assent in autumn 2021. TEP’s Associate Ecologist Anne Pritchard takes a look at the key points of the new policy.

10% Uplift Needed

BNG will be mandated in the forthcoming Environment Bill, with a minimum 10% net gain required for most developments. Biodiversity Metric 3.0 will be the key tool for measuring BNG. However, projects which are already using the previously published Biodiversity Metric 2.0 (beta test version) can continue to use this version for continuity.  

The metrics encompass a wide range of habitat types that can be included in development proposals, including green and brown roofs, SUDS features and street trees. It also includes metrics for linear habitats like hedgerows and watercourses. In fact the accompanying guidance document references two research papers about hedgerows published by one of our very own Principal Ecologists, Dr Mike Walker!

Some developments exempted

Exemptions will apply to constrained, small and brownfield sites depending on qualifying criteria.  Nationally significant infrastructure and marine projects are currently exempted while further development of workable approaches is undertaken with stakeholders. These will eventually be included.

On or Off-Site?

The guidance is to follow the “mitigation hierarchy” so that developers should demonstrate that they have tried to maximise habitat retention and creation on site, before considering off-site locations. If they choose an off-site location, the Government expects a range of offset providers to offer their land, for example local authorities, wildlife trusts or bespoke offset providers.

How long must BNG schemes be managed for?

Ongoing maintenance, monitoring and evaluation of BNG schemes will be required for a minimum of 30 years, encouraging longer term protection where this is acceptable to the landowner or via a conservation covenant. Government will work with local authorities to ensure that BNG monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are straightforward and consistent and that it is aligned with existing processes.

Tariffs

No new standard tariffs will be introduced for loss and offsetting of biodiversity although government will provide a supply of statutory biodiversity units (cost per unit still being considered) into the compensation market, should local habitat creation opportunities not meet demand.

Spatial Planning Changes

The Environment Bill will introduce new duties to support better spatial planning for nature through the creation of Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs). Baseline mapping for each LNRS will encourage consideration of the wider benefits of habitats, help identify strategic areas for offsite compensation schemes and be used in such matters as disputed baselines. A public record of government and local habitat creation projects will be set up and maintained for transparency and audit purposes.

Within the planning system, government will ensure that local authorities have access to the right training, guidance, ecological expertise and systems required to deliver BNG, providing funding where required. With respect to developers, government acknowledges the need for clarity, consistency and simplicity and will publish practical guidance for the sector.

For more information on how TEP can help with your development, read the latest edition of The Briefing.

GIS Scales up Defra’s Biodiversity Metric

Last week the Landscape Institute hosted its annual awards ceremony, which is all about celebrating people, place and nature, and the myriad ways that landscape projects can connect them. This year, TEP’s GIS Team entered their Greening Greater Manchester project, which was shortlisted in the Landscape Innovation category. TEP’s Greening Greater Manchester project was an independent research project, which investigated the potential application of the Biodiversity Metric at scale, using GIS.

Greater Manchester was selected as a study area due to its rich diversity of habitats – from the post-industrial urban centre to the rural moorlands on the periphery. This presented a great opportunity to evaluate the project methodology across several landscape character areas. To measure the success of the project, the following objectives were identified:

  • Establish a Biodiversity Baseline of Habitats and Biodiversity Units (BU) for land parcels in Greater Manchester.
  • Estimate the BUs per District Authority, Ward and Development Allocations.
  • Utilise accessible datasets to provide a repeatable methodology.

The output of the project, the Biodiversity Baseline, was developed using Defra’s Biodiversity Metric 2.0, which was considered to be best practice for habitat assessment at the time. The fine spatial resolution of the parcels (approximately the size of a road verge) provides a high level of detail in the baseline. The combination of best practice data, which also has a high level of detail, means that the Baseline has a high level of utility by the various organisations involved in the delivery of BNG, such as:

  • Council planners can use it to identify the most valuable habitats to protect and opportunities for enhancement through the Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
  • Developers can use it to evaluate the potential impacts of proposals to begin discussions to secure offsetting sites.
  • Landowners can use it to identify land parcels with potential uplift in BUs and secure investment for habitat improvements.

Most strategic assessments of habitats only look to assess the quantity of habitats within a region for example how much woodland, grassland or wetland it has. However, this project also incorporated measurement of habitat quality and strategic importance within the valuation of biodiversity. Furthermore, it would be near impossible to assess the study area (131,944ha) using traditional field techniques, so this project offers a new way to assess the biodiversity in the region without extensive survey work.

The methodology to produce the Biodiversity Baseline for Greater Manchester utilised Ordnance Survey (OS) and open-source datasets in a repeatable process. This project presents an ‘off the shelf’ process that could be repeated in different locations, or overtime to monitor change, without the need for bespoke or expensive source datasets.

The Biodiversity Baseline produced for this project provides strategic planners in Greater Manchester with the key quantitative information they require to protect and enhance biodiversity in the region, such as:

  • The composition and distribution of habitats and BUs
  • The most valuable habitats in the region
  • Demand for BUs from known development sites
  • Areas of opportunity for BU increases.

On the global stage, this project contributes towards UN Sustainable Development Goals 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 13 (Climate Action) and 15 (Life on Land).

Through the provision of a quantitative baseline of biodiversity, it is possible to ensure that interventions and developments have a measurable positive impact on habitats, increasing the sustainability of urban development.

Biodiversity underpins all of the Ecosystem Services which the natural environment provides, including carbon sequestration and urban cooling. Through the measurement of biodiversity, it is possible to protect these services and mitigate or adapt to the impact of climate change.

The Biodiversity Baseline for Greater Manchester provides landscape planners with the evidence base required to protect valuable habitats in the region and identify those which have the opportunity for enhancement.

Although this was an independent research piece completed by TEP, various organisations were consulted throughout the project to ensure that the methodology developed aligned with best practice for habitat assessment and that the outputs were usable by decision-makers. We would like to thank Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Greater Manchester Ecological Unit and Natural England along with the project team for their contributions, without which the project wouldn’t have been a success.

If you would like to learn more about the project, we published our research online, which you can read here:

From Grey to Green – Biodiversity in Greater Manchester

Development and Biodiversity in Greater Manchester

We also have CPD workshops available and offer free consultations. If you are interested, our team will be happy to discuss your requirements. To get in touch email gis@tep.uk.com.

River Assessments and BNG For Sustainable Development

The UK’s rivers have been in the news recently, often for all the wrong reasons. Communities have experienced significant river flooding in Cumbria and Scotland. In Parliament, the Government has had to toughen the law on water companies discharging sewage into rivers, after a public outcry about the millions of hours that sewage is allowed to be discharged under current rules. The public is demanding that rivers, streams and headwaters are valued in all land development and management decisions.

The Environment Bill has just received royal assent. The Bill supports the government’s approach for leaving nature in a better state than before and includes biodiversity net gain (BNG) provisions. TEP is proud to announce it now has qualified staff that can offer River Condition Assessments utilising the Modular River Survey (or MoRPh) field survey techniques, as required by the BNG guidance. The assessment has two components, a desk study and a river survey, which collects information on sediments, vegetation, morphological and water-related features; and the extent and severity of physical modification within the channel, channel margins, banks and riparian zone. This assessment is particularly important for developments with rivers and streams because it assesses any impacts from the project or development and the requirement for specific mitigation.

TEP already delivers on other sections of the Biodiversity Metric, including identifying baseline scores for terrestrial habitats, advising on high-value areas to allow avoidance of high compensation requirements, modelling final scheme scores and creating the necessary 30-year management plans. In addition to completing the BNG baseline assessment for rivers, our staff, in conjunction with our in-house GIS team and Land Management Team can provide watercourse enhancement options for your schemes to work towards achieving a biodiversity net gain within the rivers section of the Biodiversity Metric. All of which can help turn our murky waters clear and promote sustainable development.

If you are interested in using our BNG services, would like a CPD for your staff on any aspect of BNG or just want some friendly advice, please get in contact by emailing ecology@tep.uk.com.

Leighton Plans Approved

Two plans totalling 1,250 homes in the Leighton area of the town have been approved by Cheshire East Council and stand to benefit from a £36.5m highways expansion project nearby.

Congratulations to Bloor Homes, Vistry Partnerships, and Cheshire East Council’s Economic Development Team (formerly Engine of the North) on the recent announcement that both the Leighton West (North) and Leighton West (South) planning applications in Crewe have been approved.

This project is the culmination of years of hard work by the project team, led by planning advisors Avison Young. TEP has a long history of involvement with this site; we were first brought on board in 2013 to carry out habitat, bat, and amphibian surveys for the scheme. Since then, we have worked closely with Avison Young and undertaken a range of assessments to support the project, including surveying the trees, invertebrates, badgers, and hedgerows. TEP also carried out landscape and visual assessments for both developments and designed a biodiverse landscape framework for Leighton West (North). By working closely with TEP’s ecologists, the project achieved an onsite Biodiversity Net Gain of well over 10% – an incredible result for this type of constrained site.

To discover more from our teams click here.

Biodiversity in Greater Manchester

The UK is said to be one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, so on International Biodiversity Day, we take a look at the prospects for nature in a growing city-region like Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester has a vision to be one of the best places in the world. Part of its vision is to be “a place at the forefront of action on climate change with clean air and a flourishing natural environment”.

To assess the current state of the natural environment, TEP has developed a system, using open-source data, which estimates biodiversity units (BU’s) present at a landscape scale. A BU is measured using Defra’s Biodiversity Metric 2.0. The number of BU’s on any piece of land depends on the habitats present, their quality, condition and connectivity. For example, a species-poor road verge or playing field would have only 2 BU’s per hectare, whereas heathlands, reedbeds, mature native woodland can score over 20 BU’s per hectare.

We estimate that Greater Manchester has 766,000 BU’s, an average of 5.8 BU’s per hectare. Amongst the ten constituent local authorities, Oldham has the greatest score (139,416) and Manchester City the lowest (38,613).

We also mapped biodiversity units at electoral ward scale, highlighting “nature-rich” and “nature-deprived” areas.

As part of our study we have summarised our findings in a 10 page briefing note. In our second part, due in June 2020, we will take a look at how a 10% uplift in biodiversity could be achieved and the role that development might play.

To read our briefing note click here.

To register for an advance copy of our next briefing note or to find out more details on our research, contact GIS@tep.uk.com

To discover more about TEP’s GIS team or to read their latest articles, follow the link below:
https://www.tep.uk.com/category/gis/

Climate Action – At The Heart of Environmental Planning

Sustainability is embedded into all that TEP’s Environmental Planning team do. Importantly, much of our work is guided by the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), at the heart of which is a presumption in favour of sustainable development, to ensure long-term environmental, social and economic sustainability. Beyond this, we believe that delivering sustainable outcomes for all of our clients will make our business (and theirs) stronger in the long term. Efforts to cope with the impacts of climate change and sustainable development share common goals, so we consider climate action to be central to our everyday work.

The Environmental Planning team works with clients from all sectors, integrating sustainability considerations early into the planning process. TEP is an Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) Corporate Partner and registered Environmental Impact Assessor with a Quality Mark for commitment to excellence. The planning team has extensive experience in managing the EIA process, regularly working in multi-disciplinary teams of ecologists, engineers, designers, surveyors and planners. Our priority is to identify all of the potential environmental effects from a proposed development and provide innovative and practical measures to avoid or reduce the effects. Our team also includes experts in Sustainability Appraisal and Strategic Environmental Assessment, allowing us to carry out detailed appraisals of plans and strategies, to ensure that sustainability aspects are considered effectively from the outset of the planning process. And let’s not forget, the planning system that we work with on a daily basis has a primary purpose to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.

The organisations that we work with are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate environmental awareness, which is now almost inextricably linked to climate change. We have recently been instructed by Port Sunlight Village Trust to complete a 10-year Environment Strategy. Working with Element Sustainability, we are evaluating the baseline impact of all their buildings and operations, consulting with stakeholders and developing a 10-year environmental improvement strategy, which will include reductions in CO2 emissions.

Many of the local authorities we work with have declared climate and ecological emergencies, which is reflected in the planning applications we prepare and submit. Sustainability also lies at the core of our work developing Green Infrastructure (GI) Strategies for local authorities in England and Wales. A key theme of our recent GI Plan for Cheshire East Council was climate change, recognising that enhancing the natural environment has significant potential to help mitigate or offset the impacts of climate change and help to achieve ‘net zero’ targets. Investing in green and blue infrastructure can address issues such as carbon capture and storage, air and water quality, flood management, alternative modes of travel and alleviation of high temperature fluctuations, whilst contributing to biodiversity net gain.

Our team continues to provide a comprehensive range of services to our public and private sector clients to ensure our built and natural environments respond to and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

To discover how our other teams are contributing to climate action follow the links the below:
GIS
Ecology
Arboriculture
Landscape Design
Landscape Management

or to get in touch about the planning of your sites, please email planning@tep.uk.com

Ecology Ensures Natural Sustainability

Ecology surveys are hugely important to understanding the unique ecosystems that are woven throughout our natural and built environments, whether for roosting bats, migratory birds or great crested newts. Surveys allow our ecologists to identify and monitor potential ecological constraints within a development and offer effective solutions to mitigate the impacts on a sites biodiversity. Biodiversity being vital because, it boosts ecosystem productivity, ensures natural sustainability and offers a greater resilience to the effects of climate change.

This is why TEP’s ecologists are leading the way with regard to local and national efforts in delivering biodiversity net gain. Our ecologists are closely involved in the consultation process with Natural England to develop the Defra 2.0 metric.  We have successfully helped our clients to deliver biodiversity net gain on a range of projects. TEP also contributes to BREEAM assessments, to help clients meet sustainability targets under the BREEAM 2018 criteria. This may include the production of a long term management plan for a site, to ensure that the recommendations for biodiversity enhancement are carried out.

All of TEP’s ecology team are committed to delivering their service in a sustainable manner, complying with environmental legislation and the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management’s (CIEEM’s) code of good practice. We recognise that reducing the use of non-renewable resources, the waste arising from our operations, and the impact of travel through the delivery of our service is essential. This is why during survey design and planning, our ecologists seek to minimise the number of site visits, by utilising suitably experienced ecologists and completing multiple surveys simultaneously. This is regularly achieved, for example, by completing a Phase 1 habitat survey with a preliminary bat roost assessment and badger survey during the same visit. Survey materials are also considered, such as creating traps for great crested newt surveys from recycled single use plastic drinks bottles, reusing them where possible and recycling them when no longer usable. We purchase equipment such as eDNA kits in bulk where feasible, to reduce courier mileage.

All these small gains go a long way to addressing TEP’s own sustainability targets. Importantly, our ecologists aid our clients in meeting their own carbon reduction commitments. TEP’s Ecology team is engaged in a range of projects that help our clients address climate change. This includes our Northern Roots project, which will be the UK’s largest urban farm and eco-park. TEP’s ecologists are advising which habitat creation measures will optimise the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered in vegetation, wetlands and soil, with the ambition that Northern Roots will be carbon-negative and contribute towards Oldham Council’s climate emergency actions.  

To discover how our other teams are contributing to climate action follow the links the below:
Environmental Planning
GIS
Arboriculture
Landscape Design
Landscape Management

or to get in touch about your ecological enquiries, please email ecology@tep.uk.com

WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on this website.

Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.