Climate Assessment Tool

Launch CAT

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.

Examples of applied use of CAT

We would like to thank William Hinchliffe (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) who compiled the following list of projects/papers that reference the applied use of the CAT in research and adaptive management of botanical collections and arboreta. Compiled as part of his thesis “The Climate Resilience of Tree Collections in UK Botanic Gardens”.

  • Caravella, G., 2023. The Role of Botanic Gardens in the Era of the Anthropocene and a Changing Climate. Case study on the Botanic Garden of Bergamo,“Lorenzo Rota”. Submitted as a thesis for the Masters Degree Programme in Environmental Humanities. University of Venice. Available online at: https://unitesi.unive.it/handle/20.500.14247/14749
  • Carden, M., 2025. The Last Stand: Investigating the potential for Linn Botanic Garden Gardens to home future ‘at risk’ woody taxa from other botanical gardens. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Honours Degree of BSc in Horticulture with Plantsmanship. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
  • Cunha, A.R., et al., 2025. Assessing the vulnerability of urban tree species to climate change: The case study of Lisbon gardens. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 104, p.128664
  • D’Antraccoli, et al., 2023. The trees of the Pisa botanic garden under climate change scenarios: what are we walking into?. Sustainability, 15(5), p.4585.
  • Entwisle, T., 2022. GUEST ESSAY Vive l’horticulture de conservation. Sibbaldia: the International Journal of Botanic Garden Horticulture, (22).
  • Kindt, R., 2023. TreeGOER: A database with globally observed environmental ranges for 48,129 tree species. Global Change Biology, 29(22), pp.6303-6318.
  • Kum, T., et al., 2023. Targeting effective plant conservation using the climate assessment tool. Australasian Plant Conservation: Journal of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation, 31(4), pp.3-6.
  • RBGE, 2025. Living Collection Policy. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Available online: https://www.rbge.org.uk/media/enndkwpg/rbge-living-collection-policy-2025.pdf
  • Toomer, S., et al., 2024. Planting for the Future: Kew’s Landscape Succession Plan. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Available online: https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/11KbKvSWwp.
  • Volk, G.M., et al., 2023. Chapter 7 – Climate adaptation planning for plant collections and conservation. Conserving and Using Climate-Ready Plant Collections. Colarado State University. E-book. Available online: https://colostate.pressbooks.pub/climatereadyplantcollections/chapter/climate-adaptation-planning/
  • Webborn, T., Grimshaw, J., 2024. Analysing Arboretum/Botanic Garden Collections for Climate Change and Disease Resilience: a Case Study from the Yorkshire Arboretum. The Yorkshire Arboretum, Castle Howard, York.

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.

Conservation Action Tracker