1 Reply by Ian M Spence

  • Ian M Spence
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  • Registered: 30-06-2006
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi

In my use of R6 for recording sightings and other records of birds, I have a list of about 830 named 1 km squares, the level that I decided to use for general recording.

From November 2007 until 2011 the BTO will be running fieldwork for a new winter atlas and breeding atlas combined based on selected tetrads. My wife, Anne Brenchley, is organising a North Wales Breeding Birds Atlas, that will use fieldwork methods that will be very similar to the BTO methods and she hopes that all 2000+ tetrads will be covered.

My conundrum is how to record the bird records gathered, when they will be collected at a courser grade than the locations I have established. Has anyone else dealt with this issue - and if so, how did you deal with it? I suspect that I will have to set up new locations - ie the tetrads - but will be pleased to hear what is best to do. If I do have to set up tetrad locations, I am not sure how they will link with the 'logical' place name hierarchy that I have established.

When it comes to reporting, I assume some of the issues will depend on how the data are recorded, but if I need to set up up tetrads as locations, when it comes to reports, does R6 pull out records from the tetrads searched and the 1 km squares that make up each tetrad automatically, or must tetrad and the specific 1 km squares all be listed in the search criteria?

I do hope I get a reply to this one! Thanks in anticipation.

Cheers, Ian

2 Reply by johnvanbreda

  • johnvanbreda
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi Ian

Normally in Recorder it is not necessary to set up locations for each grid reference you wish to record against. I would recommend creating locations for each logical site, no matter how big it is, and specify the centroid of the location as its grid reference. Then, when you actually record observations just overtype the grid reference field with the actual grid reference of the observation.

Having said that, now that you already have a list of 1km locations, you have several possibilities for the new data:
1) Create locations for all the tetrads and record against them.
2) Create a list of logical sites and record against them, but change the sample spatial reference to the tetrad (or whatever accuracy you can get the data at)
3) For the new records, just specify the sample spatial reference as the tetrad and don't bother linking to a location.

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

johnvanbreda's Website

3 Reply by Gordon Barker

  • Gordon Barker
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Ian

another possibility would be to create the tetrad locations and then move all the 1k locations to become sub-sites of their respective tetrad locations, which would make reporting on the tetrads easier.

Gordon

Gordon Barker
Biological Survey Data Manager
National Trust

4 Reply by Ian M Spence

  • Ian M Spence
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi John

Many thanks for your suggestions, but sadly I don't understand what you are recommending.

I understood the location hierarchy to mean that for a large town, let's say Wrexham, each subdivision (in my case the 1 km squares) need to be called eg Wrexham, centre, SJ3350). I made the grid reference the name of the square rather than use the centroid grid reference as that would mean  that I would have to edit every grid reference I receive  and I wished to avoid that chore.  I import all of my data using Tools, Import so I am not sure where you are meaning that I would "just overtype the grid reference field with the actual grid reference of the observation". In the import process the name and grid refernce have to be exactly the same in both the locations list in R6 and in the file to be imported.

Your option 1 seems to be the way I will have to go. I don't want to change the sample spatial area to the tetrad for all records. I don't understand how your third idea would work with the import process.

I'm sorry if I am being dense - please elaborate!

Thanks, Ian

5 Reply by Ian M Spence

  • Ian M Spence
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi Gordon

I can see that your suggestion could work. Do you know if it is possible to have two, linked location hierarchies so that either samples could be called up by the logical name (eg of a town) or by tetrad reference? If so, what needs to be done in the Data entry, locations to achieve that end?

Thanks, Ian

6 Reply by Gordon Barker

  • Gordon Barker
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

I haven't tried to set up something like that and am not sure if you could cross link 2 hierarchies. A possibility would be to have a single hierarchy but use a secondary (unpreferred) name for each location as these would be picked up by any location search. Actually I think you could create a double hierarchy using secondary names starting with the tetrad reference in the 1k hierarchy. This wouldnt be a real link but should function well enough within the Report Wizard. (based on R2002, I'm not on R6 yet, but don't think there would be a difference here)

Gordon

Gordon Barker
Biological Survey Data Manager
National Trust

7 Reply by Ian M Spence

  • Ian M Spence
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi

I have had rather a long break from this issue while I have been doing other things. I have to return to it now as the fieldwork for the national BTO atlas is underway and fieldwork for a North Wales breeding bird atlas at tetrad level will start in April 2008.

I have done a small experiment with merging a tetrad with ordinary locations within the same hierarchy and it is not always easy - but then, I need to check, how will I get data out of this tangle? When I do most data searches I do them by 1 km square, the level I record at. Consequently, any search set up like that would not find any data recorded at tetrad level. So, if that is the case, why don't I set up another survey, based on tetrads to hold the data at tetrad level. It can then be searched at tetrad level or presumably 10 km square level, but never at 1 km level.

Are the 'surveys' intended to be used in this way, or are they intended for different taxa?

Does anyone have any views, especially if you have tried to get some sense out of the different levels of recording?

Thanks in anticipation!

Cheers, Ian

8 Reply by Ian M Spence

  • Ian M Spence
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi

Happy New Year to you all!

I am still struggling with two levels of recording. I have been able to import data under a tetrad reference but I cannot get it to appear in a report - so some suggestions about how to achieve this would be most welcome.

I am contemplating altering my complete location hierarchy, so I have only done a few small experiments so far. The alterations I am thinking of are:

Site = SJ26 (centroid SJ2565)
Subsite = SJ26N (centroid SJ2567)
Subsite of tetrad = Sychdyn (I use 1 km ref = SJ2466) etc

On importing, the spreadsheet contained the location data = Sychdyn, SJ2466 and the other necessary bits. When it came to the location matching, the entry for Sychdyn was not found automatically, so I found it in the location hierarchy and pressed f9. Hey presto, a match. The data then imported and in the Observations list, the data are listed under the date and 'Sychdyn'. So far, so good!

Should I alter all my place names so that the tetrad reference becomes part of the subsite name (eg SJ26N, Sychdyn) to try to get an automatic match in the Import Wizard? Would that make any difference for reporting?


In the Report Wizard, I chose to find all taxa (hopefully to get my one hit - I have only entered one species record in this small experiment, thankfully). I have tried to select data for SJ26N under:

Event location
Event location name
Event location reference

to no avail. All I get are empty reports.

Immediately, I wonder, does the word 'location' in the Report Wizard refer to 'Site' in the location hierarchy anyway, or does it refer to some other part of R6 that I am not fully aware of? If it does refer to 'site', I had hoped and expected that any search for data under:

Site name, eg SJ26
Subsite name, eg SJ26N or
SubSubsite name, eg Sychdyn

would be found. Maybe the location hierarchy does not work in that way, or I have not correctly used the reporting system to find what I want.

So, how should I set up the locations so that I can search for and find data at the level of the 10 km square (SJ26), a tetrad (SJ26N) or a named 1 km square (Sychdyn)?

Alternatively, how can I get each of these levels to report data to me?

I very much look forward to hearing from someone, especially if you know how to achieve what I am after!

Best wishes, Ian

9 Reply by charlesroper

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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi Ian, happy new year to you too.

A few questions for you:

* Just to clarify, you have one record under a location called "Sychdyn", yes?

* When you say you "have tried to select data for SJ26N", how exactly are you selecting the data for SJ26N?

* When you mention "the word 'location' in the Report Wizard refer to 'Site' in the location hierarchy", where exactly are you seeing these terms? These two terms would almost certainly refer to the same thing: locations within the locations hierarchy. Rather confusingly (perhaps something that should be fixed) they're also referred to as "Places" in the Report Wizard.

Tip: If you want to report on all records under a particular site (and its sub-sites), try choosing "Report about a place" at the first step of the Report Wizard. You can then search by the name of the location (the "place name"). If you want to search for all records within SJ26 no matter what location it is assigned to, you would select Taxon Records and Restrict to a Bounding Box on the first step of the Report Wizard. Then in the South-West corner of the bounding box you would enter SJ26 and in the North-East corner enter SJ 2999 6999.

Does that help at all?

Charles Roper
Digital Development Manager | Field Studies Council
http://www.field-studies-council.org | https://twitter.com/charlesroper | https://twitter.com/fsc_digital

charlesroper's Website

10 Reply by Ian M Spence

  • Ian M Spence
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Re: Locations - at tetrad level rather than 1 km

Hi Charles

Many thanks for your reply and suggestions. I have had partial success, but a frustrating failure....

Sychdyn is the village where I live and it is the name that I have given for the 1 km square SJ2466. (I must explore further your question about selecting for tetrad SJ26N).

The terminology that I have used comes from:

- Data Entry, Locations, Add, Site/Subsite
- 'Location hierarchies' is in Help and mainly uses the word 'Location' except near the bottom where it mentions 'Site' and 'Subsite'.
- Report Wizard, Layout Selection, Additional Filters, 'Event location', 'Event location name' (I am not sure I know what is the difference between them).

You kindly provided two tips for getting results in reports.

The first one using 'Report about a place' is an option I had not tried before, but it did produce what I had expected. I shall make use of that again.

The second one works if the grid references are typed in to the two boxes but I have also tried to select an area (the tetrad SJ26N) using the map (click on magnifying glass, select an area of the map, then press f9). That provided data for just two of the four 1 km squares, and not from SJ2466, the SW corner, that has most data. I am not sure which options can be relied on to produce correct data. There is then the minor niggle of the report not saying how many records have been selected (as you would see after running a query in Access).

So, yes, your suggestions have helped and I thank you again for them. However, there are mysterious ways about R6 that I do not yet fully understand or know how to get to do my bidding!

I shall explore further using the two methods you suggested and see what else needs to be done to have the selection of area using the map work properly.

All the best, Ian