Marine Species of Principle Importance and OSPAR Status in Wales

A spatial dataset detailing the location of marine species in Wales considered of 'Principle Importance' under Section 7 of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and regarded as 'threatened or declining' under the OSPAR Convention. The data includes species such as the pink sea fan, ocean quahog, and various types of maerl and jellyfish. It is aggregated by the Government Digital Service from eu_open_data.

Use Cases

• Mapping habitats for threatened marine species based on the listed species locations.
• Assessing conservation priority areas in Welsh waters based on the combined Section 7 and OSPAR status.
• Analyzing spatial overlap between species of principle importance and other marine pressures.
• Supporting environmental impact assessments for marine developments using the geospatial species data.

Strengths

• Data is derived from legal frameworks (Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and OSPAR Convention), providing a formal basis for conservation status.
• Specific species are named in the description, including Alkmaria romijni, Eunicella verrucosa, and Arctica islandica.
• The dataset is spatial, enabling geographic analysis of species distributions.

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, via eu_open_data.

Collection Method

Likely compiled from biodiversity lists required by law and OSPAR convention assessments.

Time Range

The legal framework (Environment (Wales) Act) is from 2016, but the specific data temporal coverage is unknown.

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown.

Geography

Wales and the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR region).