RFP QuestBeta
Awarded · ResultStage · contract

DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD & RURAL AFFAIRS

HQ Thresholds: Establishing critical loads from theshold values

R&DCPV 73000000
Value£35k
Awarded24 Nov 2014
Published23 Mar 2015
RegionUK-wide
Outcome — awarded

This is a contract result notice, not an open opportunity. Details from the official award data.

Contract value in context
£35ktotal contract value
median £66k
this tender£0£561k

This sits in the lower-middle of the Research & Development band — a mid-scale opportunity. Based on 20,405 valued Research & Development tenders in our corpus.

The brief

Under the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP), the UK will be requested by the Coordination Centre for Effects (CCE) to respond to a “Call for Data” by March 2015.

The HQThresholds project (AQxxxx) will prepare for this response, developing Critical Load (CL) functions which describe the maximum nitrogen and sulphur deposition compatible with long-term protection of habitats.

These functions will be based on acceptable limits for biodiversity, defined using a Habitat Quality Index (HQI) developed in Defra project AQ0828.

Habitat specialists from the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (SNCBs) were consulted, and agreement was reached that the basis for a biodiversity indicator should be habitat suitability for positive indicator-species.

UK results were presented at the 24th CCE Workshop in April 2014, and were instrumental in the decision by the CCE to request all Signatory Parties to provide data based on biodiversity indicator of this type.

Threshold HQI values will be developed, below which a habitat should be considered damaged.

Clearly there is more to biodiversity assessment than a binary choice (undamaged versus damaged) on a single axis, but this approach is necessary if biodiversity responses are to be explicitly included in CL modelling and integrated assessment of air pollution impacts.

The HQI metric was selected as most clearly related to overall assessments of the quality of habitat examples by the specialists.

To determine the most appropriate threshold values, HQI will be calculated for sites with deposition set to the empirical CLs for acidity and nutrient-N.

The greater of the two resulting HQI values can also be seen as a good estimate for the threshold.

Threshold HQI values will be assessed and a judgement made as to the most suitable value to use.

The approach will be illustrated using examples.

Requirements

What the notice asks for

01

Habitat specialists from the Statutory Nature Conservation

Habitat specialists from the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (SNCBs) were consulted, and agreement was reached that the basis for a biodiversity indicator should be habitat suitability for positive indicator-species.

02

UK results were presented at the 24th

UK results were presented at the 24th CCE Workshop in April 2014, and were instrumental in the decision by the CCE to request all Signatory Parties to provide data based on biodiversity indicator of this type.

03

Threshold HQI values will be developed, below

Threshold HQI values will be developed, below which a habitat should be considered damaged.

04

Clearly there is more to biodiversity assessment

Clearly there is more to biodiversity assessment than a binary choice (undamaged versus damaged) on a single axis, but this approach is necessary if biodiversity responses are to be explicitly included in CL modelling and integrated assessment of air pollution impacts.

Sentences from the notice that state an obligation, surfaced automatically and shown in the order they appear. Not an exhaustive list — always confirm against the tender documents.

The gates

What this notice demands of you

1 named, none in explicit obligation language. Each one is quoted from the notice.

These functions will be based on acceptable limits for biodiversity, defined using a Habitat Quality Index (HQI) developed in Defra project AQ0828.

Matched against the notice text, so this is a floor — the tender pack will demand things the notice never mentions. “Says must” means the quoted sentence itself used obligation language; anything ambiguous is left as a mention.

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Source & provenance
OCID
bb06f476-ddb9-4921-919d-fa3a13e19a22
Stage
contract · Contract
Source
Contracts Finder
Buyer ref
AQ0840
View the original notice on Contracts Finder

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source data © Crown copyright.

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