FeAST Replacement Development, Hosting & Support

The Feature Activity Sensitivity Tool (FeAST) Working Group made up of JNCC, Marine Scotland, Marine Scotland Science, NatureScot and SEPA are looking to redevelop the existing FeAST application. This is to address user feedback on areas where the current tool could be improved, allow the addition of different marine features and additional functionality. Additionally, the redevelopment is to provide a secure cloud-based hosting and support solution.

This project is the second stage in the redevelopment process and aims to take the functional requirements captured in the first stage and use these to realise a new solution. The successful bidder is expected to work with the FeAST Working Group and other application users, in developing, testing, implementing, then hosting and supporting a redeveloped FeAST application.

The Feature Activity Sensitivity Tool (FeAST) is a tool used to collate information on feature sensitivities, pressures, activities, and the evidence on which this is based for Scottish features of conservation importance. The sensitivity data contained in the FeAST tool originally came from a 2010 project, MB0102, led by the Marine Biological Association (MBA). The data was subsequently modified to make sensitivity assessments more applicable to Scottish features and activities, and pressures were altered to be in line with OSPAR work. The tool is currently hosted on the Marine Scotland (MS) website and has been live since 2013. A new introductory FeAST home page was published by NatureScot to help explain ongoing work .

It is possible through FeAST to search by either marine feature or activity. FeAST presents assessments of sensitivity of Scottish features of conservation importance to various pressures (e.g., siltation) and links these to marine activities that could be associated with these pressures. It evaluates and combines assessments of tolerance and recovery to derive an overall sensitivity score. It does not consider the intensity, frequency or cumulative impacts from activities taking place at specific locations.

Although there are other sensitivity tools a key distinction is that FeAST is the only tool that provides assessments at the wider feature level . The other tools assess sensitivity at a biotope level, i.e., a more detailed level in the habitat classification hierarchy. The aim in any redevelopment is to retain the current 'feature' level focus to help ensure its usability in the future. Much of the legislation and policy focus is on lists of habitats and species at a feature level, such as Priority Marine Features (PMFs),