Great Crested Newt Risk Zones for Development Impact in Greater Manchester

A 2022 dataset from Natural England categorizes areas in Greater Manchester based on great crested newt occurrence and development impact risk. It defines four risk zones—red, amber, green, and white—based on population importance and habitat connectivity. The data is derived from land cover mapping and other environmental sources.

Use Cases

• Prioritizing ecological surveys for planning applications based on the described risk zone categories.
• Modeling habitat connectivity for great crested newts based on the described amber zone function.
• Identifying areas for conservation priority based on the described red zone criteria for key populations.

Strengths

• Dataset is attributed to authoritative sources including Natural England, Ordnance Survey, and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.
• Provides a clear, multi-tiered risk classification (red, amber, green, white) based on described ecological criteria.

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.

Provenance

Source

Natural England, Greater Manchester Local Record Centre, Tameside MBC, Ordnance Survey, NERC (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology), Cranfield University (NSRI).

Collection Method

Likely derived from species records, land cover mapping (LCM2015, LCM2007), and soils data.

Time Range

Data reflects a 2022 assessment, based on underlying sources from 2007-2020.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-13 13:01:18.658346; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Greater Manchester, England.