You need to register as a user to access the MESH webGIS, but it is free to do so: go to www.searchMESH.net/webGIS and follow the link to Register. You will receive login details in an email. Return to www.searchMESH.net/webGIS and select "Launch the mapper". A red box will prompt you for the login details from the email (you will only need to enter these once).

 

When you have entered your login details the map view will open showing a background map of the MESH area. Select the Layers tab on the right, and then expand the ValidationSamples folder. You will see "JNCC biotope samples" layer: the name is in grey because the points are not visible at scales broader than 1:2,000,000. Check both of the boxes to the left of "JNCC biotope samples" to turn the layer on and make it ‘selectable’. Use the Zoom in tool from the toolbar at the top right to zoom in to the area of interest: the layer name turns blue when you have reached a scale at which the points are visible.

 

Select the Info for point tool on the toolbar (the "i") and click on a point. A pop-up Info window will appear containing summary information about the point you selected, and the equivalent information for any nearby points (the number of points returned will depend on the scale of the map view and how close the neighbouring points are to the selected point). Follow the "View sample detail" hyperlink from this window to view the Sample details page. The Sample details page gives Sample metadata (e.g. sample description, date, determiner, position, and method), Physical data (e.g. depth, sediment composition) and Habitats recorded. A species list is provided, together with abundance measures and whether the species is characterising. At the bottom of the page is a link to the Survey details page. The Survey details page contains Survey metadata (survey dates, who organised the survey and who it was run for, survey description) Location metadata (about the site) and Event metadata (about the visit to the site).

 

You can also select an area using the Info for area tool (an arrow in a dashed box). (Note that you should only have one layer selected in order to use this tool). Using this tool, click and drag a box over some points. The Info tab to the right of the map view will open, displaying summary information for these points. As before, you can access the Sample details page using the hyperlinks. However, because you have selected an area there are now new options to view reports; and these appear as hyperlinks at the TOP of the Info tab. The reports are all printable and start with a geographic summary of the selected area:

 

NBN species list for area

Using Web Services, this is a live data link to the data held on the NBN Gateway. It shows a table of taxa recorded in the area. There is more taxon information available on the NBN Gateway than is reported here.

 

NBN species diversity summary for area

This report also uses Web Services to query the NBN Gateway, but rather than a list of taxa recorded, it provides a summary of the numbers of taxa recorded in each taxon group. There is more taxon information available on the NBN Gateway than is reported here.

 

Habitat details for selected points

This report contains a table with one record for each point selected. The table contains Survey name (linked to Survey details page), Sample reference (linked to Sample details page), Habitat code and Description of habitat.

 

Summary of habitats for selected points

This report contains a table with one record for type of habitat identified in the selected points. Each habitat has a description and a count of the number of times it was identified amongst the points selected.