Climate Assessment Tool
The Climate Assessment Tool (CAT) provides guidance on the likely suitability of taxa to the predicted future climate scenarios of a selected location. It achieves this by taking datasets of current known occurrences of taxa – such as those observed in the wild, in botanic gardens, and in general cultivation – and compares the current climate of these known occurrences to the predicted climate. By comparing the two climates a suitability score can be generated.
It is this predictive modelling which supports informed decision-making on selection or evaluating plants for our living plant collections and landscapes.
See How to guide for information on how to use the CAT v.1
Suggested citation:
Climate Change Alliance of Botanic Gardens. [YEAR ACCESSED]. Climate Assessment Tool v1. Botanic Gardens Conservation International. Richmond, U.K. Available at https://cat.bgci.org. Accessed on DD/MM/YYYY.
Data used in CAT
Note that CAT v.1 uses some live and some static datasets:
- GardenSearch data on CAT was last updated 27 March 2022. This data provides the list of Botanic Gardens.
- GlobalTreeSearch data on CAT was last updated 7 September 2022. This data provides the list of tree taxa.
- PlantSearch data on CAT is a live link to PlantSearch
- GBIF-BGCI data on CAT was last updated 13 June 2019
- GBIF-Current data on CAT is a live link to GBIF
- Global Urban Plants data on CAT was last updated 30 June 2020
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Conservation Action Tracker
BGCI’s Conservation Action Tracker provides information on conservation actions for tree species.