Strategic Opportunity Areas for Great Crested Newt Habitat in North East England

This dataset identifies areas where new ponds would benefit Great Crested Newt populations in Northumberland, Durham, Tyne & Wear, and Tees Valley. It classifies areas as 'Core' (2+ ponds per 25x25m square) or 'Fringe' (1 pond or within 250m of a Core Area) based on predicted newt presence. The data was produced by Natural England in 2021, incorporating land cover, soil, and environmental records from multiple sources.

Use Cases

• Prioritizing pond creation sites based on pond density and proximity to predicted great crested newt presence.
• Modeling habitat suitability based on features like distance from rivers (100-1250m), elevation (0-200m), and distance from deciduous woodland (0-100m).
• Identifying areas negatively impacted by features scored -2, such as the presence of coniferous woodland, heather, or acid grassland.
• Assessing landscape connectivity for great crested newts by analyzing distances between existing ponds (0-500m).

Strengths

• Defines specific, rule-based classifications for 'Core' and 'Fringe' opportunity areas.
• Quantifies habitat suitability using scored features with defined ranges, such as grassland density (10-60%) and distance from urban areas (>350m).
• Integrates data from multiple authoritative sources, including Natural England, Ordnance Survey, and the Freshwater Habitats Trust.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and spatial resolution are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the North East England study area.

Provenance

Source

Natural England

Collection Method

Likely derived from spatial analysis of land cover (LCM2015, LCM2007), soil data, pond survey data (PondNet 2018), and predicted species presence models.

Time Range

Based on source data ranging from 2007 to 2020, with a dataset attribution date of 2021.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-13 13:00:58.996398; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northumberland, Durham, Tyne & Wear, and Tees Valley in North East England.