Identification

Title

Third UK Habitats Directive report (2013) - pressures and threats to UK habitats and species

Abstract

This dataset lists pressures and threats for habitats and species listed under the Habitats Directive. Every six years, all EU Member States are required (under Article 17 of the Directive) to report on the implementation of the EU Habitats Directive. The 3rd UK Habitats Directive Report was submitted to the European Commission in 2013. This report includes the need to report on Pressures and Threats. The main pressures and threats affecting species and habitats were identified and matched against a standard list of pressures and threats set out by the EC. The time period pressures were assessed over was the reporting period 2007-2013, whilst for threats the period was the next two reporting periods, i.e. 2013-2025. The relative importance of pressure and threats was categorised into high, medium and low importance. For pollution pressures and threats the type of pollutant was recorded where known (eg Nitrogen or toxic organic chemicals).

Resource type

nonGeographicDataset

Resource locator

http://data.jncc.gov.uk/data/56095ee7-9619-4322-bd63-eacde5f48050-Habitats-Directive-A17-2013-UK-reporting-info-Pressures-and-threats.csv

name: Habitats-Directive-A17-2013-UK-reporting-info-Pressures-and-threats.csv

Unique resource identifier

code

56095ee7-9619-4322-bd63-eacde5f48050

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

biota

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Freshwater

Marine

Terrestrial

European Reporting

Article 17

Habitats

Habitats Directive

Species

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

2007-01-01

End position

2012-12-31

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-10-21

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

For each habitat and species , a list of the main pressures currently affecting the habitat/species was identified. These related to the reporting period 2007-2012. The pressure codes/categories were based on a standard list provided via the EC Reporting Guidelines. The full list of EC pressures amounted to 400 separate categories – for UK reporting purposes only the second-level of categories were used, which reduced the list to 79 categories. The time period pressures were assessed over was the reporting period 2007-2013, whilst for threats the period was the next two reporting periods, i.e. 2013-2025. Only those threats that were considered reasonably likely to occur were considered. The relative importance of pressure and threats was categorised as follows: · H = High importance/impact (important direct or immediate influence and/or acting over large area); · M = Medium importance/impact (medium direct or immediate influence, mainly indirect influence and/or acting over moderate part of the area/acting only regionally); · L = Low importance/impact (low direct or immediate influence, indirect influence and/or acting over small part of the area/acting only regionally). In some cases, a pollution qualifier was identified [these were optional to report on]. The qualifiers used were: · N = Nitrogen input;· P = Phosphor/Phosphate input;· A = Acid input/ acidification;· T = toxic inorganic chemicals;· O = toxic organic chemicals;· X = Mixed pollutants. The UK list of pressures and pollution qualifiers was based on an aggregation of the corresponding, country-level lists supplied by the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (as detailed in the country-level reporting information). This was achieved for each pressure by: (i) converting the ranks assigned at a country-level to a value (i.e. L = 1, M = 2, H = 3); (ii) weighting (multiplying) these values by the proportion of habitat in each country based on the surface area (see 2.3.1) (or, where this was incomplete, the count of 10-km squares at a country-level (see 2.2.1) or estimates of range surface area were used – see 2.2.2); and (iii) summing these weighted values and using this number and the following classes as a guide to select the UK rank: <1.1 = L, 1.1-2.1 = M, >2.1= H. The overall list was reduced to a maximum of 20 pressures, by eliminating those with the lowest weighted overall score. In addition, no more than five pressures were ranked as H. This was achieved by ranking the five pressures with the highest aggregation scores as H, and the remainder as M. Pollution qualifiers were added to each pressure wherever these had been listed by the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies. A maximum of 20 pressures and 20 threats (the highest scoring) were included in the UK list, and only five of these could be categorised as high. If more than 5 pressures came out as high after aggregating the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies scores, only the 5 highest scoring pressures/threats were classified as ‘high’ on the UK list. Any others had their classification re-graded to ‘medium’. Any pollution qualifiers from the country assessments were included with the pressures/threats in the UK list. The Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies used data from a variety of sources when assessing pressures and threats, for example: the adverse factors reported as part of the Common Standards Monitoring site condition assessment process; current factors affecting the status of the UK BAP priority species as listed in their Habitat Action Plans; data on specific pressures, and expert knowledge. For mobile marine species, pressure rankings were based on ‘expert opinion’ gathered through the Inter Agency Marine Mammals Working Group to assign a UK-level ranking. For pressures, the method used was classified as: · based exclusively or to a larger extent on real data from sites/occurrences or other data sources; · mainly based on expert judgement and other data; · based only on expert judgements. For threats, the method used was categorised as being based mainly on modelling or expert opinion. The responses for ‘method used’ were combined at a UK-level, after weighting them according to the proportion of the species population found in each country. For 41 habitats, where a specific method was applied to take account of air pollution impacts (see Appendix 6 for details), a different approach was taken to the listing of: (i) pressure code ‘H04 Air pollution, air-borne pollutants’; and (ii) pollution qualifiers for Nitrogen (N) and Acid (A) input. In these cases, nutrient Nitrogen critical load exceedance data for current deposition was used to rank code H04 and list N as a pollution qualifier, depending on the area of habitat where the nutrient N critical load was exceeded:

Conformity

Data format

name of format

Comma Separated Values

version of format

Unknown

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Released under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Attribution statement: "Contains public sector data © JNCC/NE/NRW/SNH/DOENI. Licence: OGL"

Limitations on public access

no limitations

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

email address

data@jncc.gov.uk

responsible party role

custodian

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

email address

data@jncc.gov.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2018-05-17

Metadata language

eng