Geospatial Conservation Assessment Tool (GeoCAT) version 1.

By directly producing data to support assessments using Red List Categories and Criteria, GeoCAT specifically responds to the challenge of 'identifying thresholds beyond which a change in biodiversity will lead to extinctions', as stated under the Biodiversity theme of NERC's strategy (Next Generation Science for Planet Earth 2007-2012).

No other product at present is delivering this essential service, thus contributing to UK leadership in this field. Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, which contains a high-volume of recent and historical data on plants (over 7 million specimens), has become a hub for plant Red List assessment activity and innovation. Furthermore, as a result of advanced data capture techniques e.g. digitisation of specimen collections (Global Plants Initiative), a deluge of species occurrence data now exists - see also the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). However very few tools have been built to harness this primary data for secondary outputs such as extinction risk assessments. These assessments lead to conservation action and will safeguard species for the future, leading to the long term persistence of ecosystems that are vital for human health, wellbeing and economic growth. To ensure that the community can address growing challenges such as predicting the impact of climate change on species distributions, it is necessary to make further enhancements to GeoCAT and fully release it.

In relation to the remit of our institution, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's mission is: To inspire and deliver science-based plant conservation worldwide, enhancing the quality of life. Specifically, Kew is committed to identifying species of plants at greatest threat of extinction in order to guide conservation policy (Convention on Biological Diversity 2020 - Target 12, Global Strategy for Plant Conservation - Target 2) and action (in situ conservation, seed banking and propagation).

GeoCAT is a user friendly product that makes light demands from the user, unlike statistical or GIS software that demand a high technical overhead. GeoCAT works in areas where internet connectivity is poor and requires very little experience and has therefore proven to be a valuable tool as part of capacity building projects for our global conservation partners. GeoCAT offers a consistent, transparent and data driven analytical method that can be used to provide baselines in threat status of species from which changes and trends can be monitored.

The enhancements and improvements proposed will enable rapid Red List assessment of large quantities of species - not only restricted to plants. Although the IUCN Red List contains 70,000+ species, it remains incomplete by a large margin with only approximately 5% of described organisms assessed. The rapid assessment of species with GeoCAT will lead to a more comprehensive Red List, indicating potential priorities for policy and conservation action. It will also help fulfil specific goals such as a conservation assessment for all plants by 2020 (Global Strategy for Plant Conservation - Target 2).

GeoCAT will also make re-assessments of species easier and quicker thereby contributing directly to policy mechanisms such as the Red List Index (Convention on Biological Diversity 2020 - Target 12). As GeoCAT is open source the code can be downloaded and modified thereby allowing the user community to directly contribute to innovation and improvements in the tool.

A key enhancement will be the harvesting of data from multiple sources. GeoCAT already links to primary sources such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and Flickr images. Links will be implemented for further data sources such as the citizen science projects iSpot (led by the Open University), iNatualist and Project Noah as well as other image platforms e.g. Picassa.

Future planned innovations for GeoCAT include species distribution modelling and climate change impact modelling. These are key analyses that can help support Red List assessment (Davis et al. 2012 PLOS), but will be useful for other ecological studies. At a later stage the services of the JASMIN and CEMS clusters will assist the climate change modelling module planned for GeoCAT. In addition, plans are in place to develop other aspects of extinction risk modelling and incorporate these into GeoCAT, thus contributing and advancing this field.