Creation of Scottish Bracken Mapping Layer

Tender description

Section 1 – Introduction 1. The Scottish Government, on behalf of Scottish Ministers, is seeking to contract a third party service provider to map the presence of bracken in Scotland. This tender does not specify the methodology to be used, however the methodology adopted must achieve the outputs and key deliverables identified later in this document. A key requirement is that the methodology is developed in liaison with Scottish Government geospatial analysts to ensure it is fit-for-purpose, replicable in-house, and can be updated in future. Section 2 – Background & Context 2. Bracken is a native fern and woodland plant, however it can be invasive and the impacts associated with uncontrolled bracken intersect many areas, including rural productivity (loss of grazing), impact on biodiversity (particularly on sensitive habitats such as species-rich grassland and moorland), forestry (as a barrier to tree establishment), public health (in relation to potential tick harbourage and direct toxicity) as well as impact on the integrity and maintenance of historic monuments. 3. There are several evidence gaps relating to the impact of bracken in Scotland, underpinning these gaps is the lack of data on current bracken area. Without this data there remains uncertainty about bracken’s influence, control options, and how to monitor the effectiveness of controls. 4. There is also lack of information on how coverage is changing. Some evidence suggests that climate change may increase bracken growth and cover, but without data on the current extent of bracken coverage it is difficult to establish the potential for spread and the implications this could have. 5. Mapping the presence of bracken would better identify the problem, support development of appropriate treatment methods and allow prioritisation of further research. A Scottish bracken map will be an integral tool to aid decision making at local and landscape scale, as part of an overall Bracken Strategic Framework, being developed for the UK by the UK Nature Agencies. England and NI already have bracken maps. Scotland needs a similar resource to assist land managers in deciding when, where and how to target future bracken treatment. Lot 1: Section 3 – Scope /Statement of Requirement 6. The desired output is a bracken dataset for Scotland, with a spatial resolution of 10m, released under Open Government Licence (OGL), with code and methodology shared with the Scottish Government for future re-mapping. This mapping layer must allow current bracken extent to be assessed, be comparable with existing UK maps and ensure ability for the map to be updated in-house by Scottish Government in future. 7. Development of methodology for production of this mapping layer will require liaison with relevant officials to ensure inhouse replicability for future re-mapping. The bracken mapping layer will be the property of the Scottish Government and ownership should be transferred to the Scottish Government at the end of the project. 8. There is ongoing work in other UK nations with regards to bracken mapping. Additional information is provided for awareness as an annex to this document. 9. The expectation is that the map would be produced and available for general use and dissemination to stakeholders by the end of the 25/26 financial year. An accompanying final report should be produced, detailing the methodology, and there is an expectation of sufficient knowledge exchange with SG geospatial staff to allow future maintenance and update of the mapping layer in-house 10. The contract would be managed by SASA. 11. The successful bidder will be appointed based on expertise and best value.