Map of the Month - January 2025

January’s Map of the Month shows a heat map of bat record density across the NEYEDC area!

Heat map showing density of bat records in the NEYEDC database from across the North and East Yorkshire area. ~15,000 records.

January’s Map of the Month shows a heat map of all species-level bat records from the NEYEDC database. We have recently provided this data in its raw format for a project looking to produce a Yorkshire-wide bat habitat suitability model, work for which has already been completed in South Yorkshire. The model will use data from sources like the NEYEDC evidence base to ‘train’ the model, which when complete will indicate areas of higher and lower suitability for different species.

The aim of the model is to produce a resource for decision-makers on projects that may impact on bat conservation, from checks at a small scale to see which species are most likely to be present, to identifying strategically important areas. Once the modelling has been completed, we are planning to include this layer as standard in our ecological data searches, giving our clients another data product to utilise for local decision-making.

Exporting and mapping full species sets like the above from our database is also a useful exercise in assessing our data holdings and identifying gaps.