7303 Historic Seascape Characterisation (HSC): Consolidating the National HSC Database

Tender description

National coverage by Historic Seascape Characterisation (HSC) in 2015 does not yet equate with a national HSC database. Current national coverage has been achieved over seven years (2008-2015) through the completion of eight HSC project databases encompassing nine separate project areas (see Annex). The eight project extents were framed by funding and time availabilities and by workload practicalities within each of three funding rounds and so cannot be claimed to form ‘regional’ HSC databases either. Each project had a specific requirement to anticipate their products’ later role within a consistent, unified national HSC database: the need for this consolidation project had been anticipated from the outset of the HSC implementation programme. Without a national HSC database providing national HSC coverage, data manipulation and retrieval remains confined in units determined by the relatively arbitrary workload/funding considerations that defined the contributing projects. The inefficiency of HSC data retrieval across the full national coverage effectively prevents HSC’s querying and presentation at a national scale by its intended end-users including Historic England (HE), Natural England (NE) and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). In addition, while measures were taken to promote cross-project consistency between HSC contractors, inevitably some project-based inconsistencies are apparent across the eight project databases compiled for differing complex areas by a range of staff over seven years in which available source data also developed considerably. Those inconsistencies are, however, relatively limited in scope and have not prevented several HSC databases’ successful use in combination in their recent applications (eg MMO 2014). This project will address those shortcomings inherent in the present stage of HSC implementation by undertaking the transition from HSC’s national coverage by eight project databases, drawing them together, removing inconsistencies and dissolving their project boundaries to give national coverage by a single consistent National HSC (NHSC) database. In the course of doing so, the project will pay strong regard to the database’s efficient data storage, querying, presentation and export capabilities given the substantial size of the NHSC, and will produce concise advice documents on those aspects for the NHSC’s end- users.