FGS Climatic Site Suitability for Native Broadleaves in Scotland

A dataset from the Scottish Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Scottish Government. It contains polygons representing the climatic suitability of sites for native broadleaf tree species, based on factors like accumulated temperature and moisture deficit, to support woodland creation grants. The data is provided by the Government Digital Service.

Use Cases

• Assessing climatic suitability for native broadleaf species based on accumulated temperature and moisture deficit factors.
• Supporting grant applications for woodland creation under the Scottish Rural Development Programme.
• Identifying areas with 'suitable' or 'very suitable' ratings as an initial step for species selection.
• Integrating climatic data with local soil assessments for comprehensive site planning.

Strengths

• Directly supports a government programme with a £1,326m funding pool for rural development.
• Climatic factors are explicitly defined, including accumulated temperature, moisture deficit, exposure, and continentality.
• Linked to a specific policy target to extend woodland cover by 100,000 hectares from 2012 to 2022.

Limitations

• Row count and file formats are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset explicitly does not take into account any soils information, requiring supplemental data for full site assessment.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Likely generated using the Forestry Research 'Ecological Site Classification' (ESC) decision support system.

Time Range

Associated with the Scottish Rural Development Programme 2014-2020.

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Scotland