Minke Whale Critical Habitat in UK Waters, 2003-2009

The 2003-2009 North East Cetacean Project dataset identifies critical habitat and areas of interest for Minke whales in Scotland, England, and Wales. It was produced by the Government Digital Service and is based on a scientific review by Clark, Dolman, and Hoyt (2010). The dataset likely contains geospatial boundaries for conservation planning.

Use Cases

• Modeling Minke whale habitat suitability based on identified critical areas.
• Planning marine protected area networks based on the reported areas of interest.
• Analyzing spatial overlap between whale habitat and human activities based on the geospatial boundaries.

Strengths

• Dataset is based on a published scientific review with a detailed methodology.
• Covers a specific 7-year time period from 2003 to 2009.
• Focuses on a defined geographic region: Scotland, England, and Wales.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service, based on the WDCS report by Clark, Dolman, and Hoyt (2010).

Collection Method

Scientific review identifying critical habitat; methodology detailed in the referenced report.

Time Range

2003-2009

Freshness

Data collection ended in 2009; last update is unknown.

Geography

Scotland, England, and Wales (UK waters)