EA Ecology Data

EA Ecology Data

England's Environment Agency publishes biological survey data from freshwater and marine monitoring programmes.

Data Model

• Sites — Monitoring locations with coordinates (lat/long, easting/northing). Two types: BiosysFreshwaterSite and BiosysMarineSite. Each has a canonical site URI and a short local_id.
• Observations — Individual survey results: taxon, measured property (e.g. units found), and value. Linked to a site and survey.
• Observation Types — Twelve fixed categories: river diatoms, macroinvertebrates, macrophytes, marine benthos, marine phytoplankton, and freshwater/TRaC fish.
• Taxa — Species/genus records with NBN keys, taxon groups, rank, and protected status.

Workflow

1. List observation types when you need category URIs for filtering.
2. Browse or look up sites by local_id or coordinates before pulling observations.
3. Query observations with at least one of: site_id, observation_type, observable_property, or ultimate_feature_of_interest.
4. Paginate large taxa or site lists with limit and offset (no underscore prefix on this service).

Gotchas

• Open data: No authentication; stay within reasonable request rates.
• Observations need a filter: Unfiltered observation queries return HTTP 400.
• Site lookup: Prefer local_id when you already know the short site code.
• Volume: Sites and taxa can return thousands of rows — always cap limit.