Scotland's Ecosystem Service Capacity Maps for Seven Key Functions

NatureScot's Natural Capital Tool provides seven geospatial raster files covering Scotland. The dataset models the landscape's capacity to provide inland flood mitigation, insect pollination, access to nature, air quality improvement, noise regulation, local temperature regulation, and carbon sequestration. It was published by the Scottish Government via SpatialData.gov.scot.

Use Cases

• Modeling flood risk mitigation based on the landscape's capacity to slow runoff.
• Assessing pollination support for agriculture based on pollinator travel estimates from source habitats.
• Evaluating equitable access to green spaces based on natural areas within a short walk from dwellings.
• Analyzing urban air quality improvement based on vegetation's capacity to trap particulate matter.
• Planning for urban heat island reduction based on vegetation's capacity for local temperature regulation.

Strengths

• Covers seven distinct, well-defined ecosystem services.
• Provides full spatial coverage across the entire country of Scotland.
• Each service capacity is defined by a specific, described model (e.g., inland flood mitigation as slowing runoff).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to uk_data.

Provenance

Source

Scottish Government SpatialData.gov.scot

Collection Method

Modelled outputs from NatureScot's Natural Capital Tool.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 21:07:23.553106; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Scotland