Terrestrial Surveillance Development and Analysis (TSDA) is a partnership between JNCC, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). The partnership aims to develop and enhance biodiversity monitoring schemes involving volunteer recorders, and the uses of their data to address policy-relevant questions about biodiversity. The work seeks to serve the needs of UK governments, country nature conservation bodies (CNCBs) and volunteer recording schemes which are represented by JNCC’s UK Terrestrial Evidence Partnership of Partnerships (UKTEPoP). The TSDA partnership enables exploration of common challenges faced by the sector - working across partners, partnerships and datasets - to find and implement effective solutions.
The TSDA partnership was established in 2017 and comprises two phases: Phase 1 (2017 to 2022), and Phase 2 (2022 to 2027), with outputs for these two phases captured below. At present, the TSDA partnership is working towards the aims set out in the TSDA Strategy 2022 to 2027.
Partnership publications
A catalogue of all outputs from Phase 1 and Phase 2 of TSDA can be found on our Resource hub:
Collaborating with TSDA
We welcome discussion and collaboration with other organisations as we work on different analysis and development challenges.
Our current work programme is as follows:
Analytical tasks:
| Task | Details |
| Using freshwater species data to assess lake and river health | A workshop was held in 2025 exploring freshwater data sets and data requirements. This workshop will be written up, and exploratory analyses on combining freshwater species data from across monitoring schemes will be undertaken. |
| Climate change adaptation indicators development | Work in previous years has explored options for climate change adaptation indicators. This work will be finalised and disseminated. |
| Quantifying the contribution of protected sites to long-term population trends | Analyses of long-term bird and butterfly species trends, to quantify the contribution that protected areas have made to long-term trends in biodiversity. |
| Mapping across monitoring schemes | Developing a map showing the locations of TEPoP monitoring scheme sites, to showcase these schemes to potential data users. |
| Improving estimation of the impacts of interventions on species’ distributions | Trialling new analytical approaches for impact evaluation with unstructured biological records. Initially focusing on tree planting impacts. |
| Ecosystem Health | Options for assessing Ecosystem Health using TEPoP scheme data have previously been explored. This work will be compiled, summarised and evaluated in the context of current data requirements across the UK. |
Tasks Supporting Recording:
| Task | Details |
| Bioacoustics | JNCC has recently established a UK bioacoustics working group. An initial objective of this group is to explore TSDA work to enhance collaboration on applications of acoustics in biodiversity monitoring. |
| Benefits and drawbacks of co-locating species monitoring | Developing a scientific paper exploring the benefits and disadvantages of co-locating species recording from landscape to national scale. Will involve model simulations, expert surveys and case studies. |
| Monitoring habitat with citizen scientists | Developing recommendations for monitoring habitat with citizen scientists to contribute to EO validation. Writing up workshops held last year which captured user requirements on habitat data. |
| Improving verification using new technologies | Exploring the challenges and potential solutions for automated verification systems for biological records. Working with focus groups of recorders and verifiers. |
| Testing the impact of automated personalised feedback for volunteers | Working with 1600 volunteer recorders to test the impact of bespoke feedback on their future recording behaviour. |
If you are interested in the work of the TSDA or would like to discuss any of these tasks, please get in touch at TEPoP@jncc.gov.uk.
Our current work phase is focused on three grand challenges facing the biodiversity sector; adapting to new requirements for evidence, exploiting new data streams and developing a volunteer-centred approach to the evolution of TEPoP schemes.
A number of these tasks have been discussed by UKTEPoP, these events have been recorded and can be found on the UKTEPoP YouTube channel.
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