Maritime Cliff and Slope Habitat Network for Nature Recovery in Northern Ireland

A 2020 project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund produced habitat network maps for Northern Ireland. Ulster Wildlife, National Trust NI, RSPB NI, and Woodland Trust NI collaborated to create these vector datasets using a methodology from Natural England. The maps categorize land based on its potential for habitat restoration and connectivity enhancement.

Use Cases

• Prioritizing land for habitat restoration based on network connectivity potential.
• Supporting strategic conservation planning for maritime cliff and slope habitats.
• Enhancing ecological connectivity models using proximity to existing habitat patches.

Strengths

• Based on a defined methodology from Natural England (Edwards et al., 2020).
• Produced through a multi-organization collaboration including major conservation bodies.
• Covers all terrestrial and intertidal priority habitats in Northern Ireland.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The maps are explicitly described as not a fully comprehensive depiction of land cover.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Mapping based on the Natural England habitat network methodology.

Time Range

Project initiated in 2020.

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Northern Ireland