Statutory Plant Health Notices in Scotland for Phytophthora Ramorum and Other Pests

Statutory Plant Health Notices issued by Scottish Forestry since 2010 define boundaries for biosecurity measures against tree pests and diseases. The majority of notices target Phytophthora ramorum, with extents often based on a 250-meter buffer from infected sites. This layer includes both active and expired notices, though it is not exhaustive and some attributes may be incomplete due to changes in record-keeping over time.

Use Cases

• Modeling the spatial spread of Phytophthora ramorum based on notice extents and buffer zones.
• Analyzing compliance timelines and extension reasons for regulatory enforcement studies.
• Mapping host species vulnerability by correlating pest/disease type with tree species area (host_*_ha).
• Assessing land ownership patterns in disease management by examining notice splits across multiple parcels.

Strengths

• Includes notices issued as long ago as 2010, providing over a decade of temporal coverage.
• Attributes detail host species areas, compliance dates, extension reasons, and management zones.
• Explicitly documents a 250-meter buffer rule for Phytophthora ramorum, a key spatial parameter.

Limitations

• The layer is not exhaustive and excludes some old, expired notices, such as those for Chalara ash dieback.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analysis.
• Not all attributes are completed for all features due to changes in data collection formats over time.

Provenance

Source

Scottish Forestry, aggregated via the Government Digital Service on eu_open_data.

Collection Method

Issued to landowners as statutory notices, likely compiled into a geospatial layer by the forestry authority.

Time Range

Notices from 2010 onward.

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Scotland.