NBN Index

The NBNIndex has been discontinued

As of October 2010 the NBN Index is no longer available online. After over ten years the Index has been discontinued pending a review of the requirement for and general interest in an online directory of such data. We regret any inconvenience this may cause but the project has not been supported by the NBN since 2000 and sub-projects such as WAPIS that require the online index have been discontinued. If you would like to see similar data provided online through UKWildlife please get in touch and as we may initiate a similar but community led project if there is enough interest.

The NBN Index

The NBN Index 1999-2010

The NBN Index was created in 1999 by the JNCC to provide a means by which datasets could be ‘described’ and therefore discovered online. The Index was based on a metadata schema that follows the philosophy of later RDFa schemes to enable the discovery of data by both human and machine methods. Simply put the idea was to highlight data sets that existed so that access could be encouraged for data use and sharing and to avoid duplication of recording effort. The project has been succeeded by the NBN Gateway. Although the NBN Index project was discontinued we have hosted the NBN Index since 2000 and it is integral to other ‘live’ projects such as The Woodpasture and Parkland Information System (WAPIS) which uses the NBN Index to host metadata about woodland data sets. The NBN Index is built using a custom content management system developed by Blue-Bag Ltd (pre-dating later systems such as Drupal).
The NBN Index 2010

The NBN Index 2010

The application was written in Delphi as an ISAPI web application and uses a tag based template system that enables re-skinning of the front end. This method also underlies the Species Dictionary project undertaken for the Natural History Museum. After 10 years of little attention (the NBN Index was taken over by the NBN Gateway) we then reskinned the NBN Index to link it into the new look UKWildlife site.

In October 2010 the NBNIndex was finally taken off line. If you would like to see similar data provided online thought UKWildlife get in touch and as we may initiate a similar but community led project if there is enough interest.

Indexing metadata

Metadata is information that describes a resource of information; such as data sets, web sites, web pages and other physical or electronic media. The NBN Index stores information that describes datasets associated with biodiversity conservation and research. The metadata provide details of what the data are about, who owns them, their format and species, locations and biotopes to which they relate. The NBNIndex enables you to ‘discover’ sources of information by listing or searching for any of the following.


  • Location

    You were able to search the NBN Index by location. These are locations listed in the resource

  • Species / Taxa

    Resources or Datasets may be linked to one or more ‘levels’ in a taxonomic hierarchy

  • Keywords

    Resources in the NBN Index are linked to keywords from a standard keyword ‘vocabulary’.

  • Resources

    We have provided a way of searching all of the data to find resources.

  • Organisations

    Organisations are linked to data in a number of ways. They may be the ‘owner’ or originator or they may provide access to the data.

  • Initiatives

    Data sets listed in the NBN Index may have been collected as part of a wider initiative. You can browse a list if the initiatives and list datasets linked to these.

  • Biotopes

    The NBN Index links data sets or resources as they are termed – to biotopes from the NBN Dictionary.

  • Update

    The data in the Index have not been revised or updated since 2000 and as such some of the contact details and other data may be out of date

  • Contribute

    Help us and let us know of any corrections to be made

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