Digitising Plant and Fungal Collections at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Applying International Standards to Support Data Sharing and Geospatial Analysis
Udayangani Liu · From WDSRPD to GeoSchemes: Recording Biodiversity Distributions for Science and Policy
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The short versionWGSRPD enables cross-collection geospatial analysis at Kew, but historical, heterogeneous data leave half of records without fine-level assignment.
What this was about
Udayangani Liu presented how Kew applied WGSRPD in its Integrated Collections Management System after a four-year mass digitisation that imaged over six million herbarium and fungarium specimens. Selecting an ISO country semi-automatically populates TDWG levels, while transcontinental countries, multi-country archipelagos and changed boundaries need level-by-level handling. Analysis of 7.9 million records spanning five centuries showed ISO codes are well captured but only just over 50% have levels three and four, with about 1.5 million records lacking a continent; challenges include historical data, missing hierarchy, language and variable user familiarity with the scheme.
Why it matters. It is a real-world large-scale application of the standard being revised, surfacing practical issues the new version must accommodate.
In the room
- Kew holds over 8 million items across 12 collections; ICMS manages them in one system following TDWG, Darwin Core and other protocols.
- Over six million records were added in the mass digitisation project.
- Choosing an ISO country auto-populates TDWG levels; large countries require state/province choice.
- About 70% of records capture collecting year; dates span five centuries with dips during the World Wars.
- Just over 50% of records capture TDWG levels three and four; ~1.5 million (20%) lack continent.
- Data shared via Kew Data Portal, GBIF, DiSSCo UK, Genesys and the Svalbard Seed Vault.
Notable moments
Transcript
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