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Andrew provides GIS analytical support within the Land Use and Ecosystem Services programme.  Areas of focus include the assessment of ecosystem services, species distribution mapping, ecological network modelling, and development of spatial models.  Andrew works closely with other colleagues in different disciplines and with a wide range of researchers outside FR.

Andrew Rattey joined Forest Research in 2016.  He has specialised in GIS and spatial data analysis in research covering a wide range of subjects including Ecosystem services, species distribution modelling and spatial modelling in R.  More recently he has worked closely with SNH and the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Green Network Partnership to construct ecological networks and opportunity mapping data to help inform land management practices in central Scotland.  He studied for a BSc (Hons) in Ecology at the University of Stirling and two MSc’s in Ecology and GIS, both at Aberdeen University.

Affiliations

  • Member of the Association for Geographic Information.
  • Member of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (Iale UK).
GIS Analyst
Land use and ecosystem services (LUES)

Forest Research

Northern Research Station

Roslin

Midlothian EH25 9SY

UK

Related Research

Research

Land Use and Ecosystem Services

The research aims to increase our understanding of how woodlands and wooded landscapes provide a diverse range of ecosystem services (ES), and to help policymakers, forest managers and planners understand and assess how the specific placement and management of woodlands affects ES delivery at various scales.

Status current
Strathard: a landscape to live, work and play

This project aims to develop more sustainable and resilient land and water management plans in Strathard by taking an ecosystems approach which considers the wider impacts and benefits of a range of management plans on ecosystem services, the landscape and communities living there.

Related Publications

Publication

Niches for species: a multi-species model to guide woodland management

To protect biodiversity in the face of environmental change, there is a need to designate and manage areas of habitat for rare and threatened species. However, to identify the right areas usually requires detailed data on species distributions. Reliable data for rare and protected species are sparse as many species are cryptic and under-recorded. The […]

Published

Other Research

Responsibilities

  • GIS User Group organiser
  • LUES webpage publisher

Current projects

  • PURPOSE project – Provide GIS support in developing project-specific spatial analysis methodologies.  Work involves using a species distribution mapping approach to produce a probabilistic Oak woodland map of the UK and combine this with soil and oak climate suitability data to develop a final oak stress map which will be used to identify where oak woodland is potentially vulnerable to acute oak decline.
  • Glasgow & Clyde Valley ecological networks – Developing ecological networks and opportunity mapping data for a range of generic focal species in project commissioned by Glasgow and Clyde Valley Green Network Partnership and SNH.  Opportunity mapping outputs allow for targeted land management to improve local and landscape-scale patch and network connectivity.
  • Niches for Species – Co-developing spatial model to support woodland managers and policy makers when accounting for conservation needs of protected species.  The model integrates species habitat requirements with spatial data on woodland types, structures, and microhabitats, as well as species ranges to define suitable locations for woodland specialist species.

Recently completed projects

  • Strathard project – Managing the collection, analysis, and visualisation of project spatial data. Responsible for production of final opportunity maps to identify optimal locations for land/water management actions in project area.
  • Oak Processionary Moth project – Role entails data exploration and spatial analysis including spatial location queries and cluster analysis.

Peer reviewed journal articles

Peer-reviewed papers:

Broome, A., Bellamy, C., Rattey, A., Ray, D., Quine, C.P. and Park, K.J., (2019) Niches for Species, a multi-species model to guide woodland management: An example based on Scotland’s native woodlands. Ecological Indicators, 103: 410-424. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.04.021

FC and FR publications and other reports

Broome, A., Rattey, A., Bellamy C., (2018), Niches for Species, a multi-species model to guide woodland management. Forestry Commission Research Note FCRN035.

Blogs, newsletters and other online content

Bellamy & Rattey (2018) ‘Story Map – harnessing the power of maps’ Forest Research News, February 2018.