Web Services
A guidebook for those interested in the technical side of the NBN and the Gateway
As well as accessing the data available through the NBN via the website the NBN also provides a set of ‘web services’ to access and use the data. These essentially allow you to integrate the data directly into other websites or applications. So, for example, you could embed a distribution map of a species directly within your website perhaps with some text or images of the species. Find out more about web services and how they work.
The Services
There are currently 14 web services available. These broadly break down into data services and lookup services.
Data services:
- Grid map: Returns a grid map image showing the distribution of species records
- Taxon Reporting Category list: Returns a list of the species groups found within an area or dataset
- Species list: Returns list of the species according to some filter (eg. Geographic area, a list of datasets, a designation etc)
- One site data: Returns the species records for an area such as a user defined polygon, 10km square or known site
- One species data: Returns all the available data for a single species
- One species location data: Returns the locations in which records occur, at a specified resolution.
- Dataset summary list: Returns metadata information for one or more datasets on the NBN Gateway
- Habitat query: Returns habitat data, dataset details and raw polygon information for a user defined polygon.
Lookup services:
Getting started and help
Each of the web services is fully documented through the links above (including a range of examples). There are also some more general examples of .NET and Java implementations. If you encounter problems please check the NBN Forum for potential solutions or to raise new issues.