Biodiversity Information Science and Standards : Conference Abstract
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Conference Abstract
Automated Validation of Biological Names in Environmental Survey and Impact Assessments
expand article infoAlex R Chapman‡, Kehan Harman‡, Serge Le Breton‡, Jason Grzywna‡
‡ Gaia Resources, Perth, Australia
Corresponding author: Alex R Chapman (alex.chapman@gaiaresources.com.au)
Received: 05 Oct 2020 | Published: 09 Oct 2020
© 2020 Alex Chapman, Kehan Harman, Serge Le Breton, Jason Grzywna
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Chapman AR, Harman K, Le Breton S, Grzywna J (2020) Automated Validation of Biological Names in Environmental Survey and Impact Assessments. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 4: e59345. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.4.59345
Open Access

Abstract

Taxonomic name validation and elucidation in biodiversity collection datasets (specimens and names) at institutions are well established, as is the enabling of historical scientific literature, thanks to the work at the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), Plazi TreamentBank, and others. However, a significant area yet to be enhanced in this way is in the assembly of environmental impact survey (EIS) assessments across states or countries.

In this project, we looked at using new tools such as AWS Textract to extract text from a range of document types, together with the newly-released gnfinder tool to find taxon names in submitted EIS documents, match them in the Global Names Index and other sources, then use this unique names list to interrogate the Atlas of Living Australia to find additional applicable data, such as the taxonomic and conservation status of given names.

The result is a consolidated report summarising the validity and status of taxon names in each EIS report, saving many hours of manual lookup across multiple datasets and thereby significantly streamlining the process of evaluating each environmental proposal.

Keywords

taxon names, gnfinder, environmental assessment, Biodiversity Heritage Library, Plazi TreatmentBank, AWS Textract, Global Names Index, Atlas of Living Australia

Presenting author

Alex R Chapman

Presented at

TDWG 2020

Hosting institution

Gaia Resources

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