Article 17 of the EU Habitats Directive requires six-yearly reporting on the conservation status of habitats for which the UK has European-level responsibilities. This indicator, part of a suite of 24 published by JNCC on behalf of Defra, classifies habitats as Favourable, Unfavourable-Inadequate, Unfavourable-Bad, or Unknown, with trend assessments for unfavourable ones. The latest data for indicator C3a is from 2013, published in January 2016.
Use Cases
- Monitoring conservation status trends for UK habitats based on the Favourable/Unfavourable classification scheme
- Assessing the UK's compliance with EU Habitats Directive Article 17 reporting obligations
- Benchmarking habitat condition against European conservation targets using the published indicator methodology
Strengths
- Data is produced under a formal EU reporting directive (Article 17 of the Habitats Directive), ensuring a structured methodology.
- It is one of 24 official UK biodiversity indicators published by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, indicating institutional authority.
Limitations
- The latest data point is from 2013, published in 2016, which may limit analysis of recent trends.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) on behalf of the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).
- Collection Method
- Assessments conducted under the EU Habitats Directive Article 17 reporting framework, with methodology detailed in a supporting technical document.
- Time Range
- Latest data for the indicator is for 2013.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-07-08 13:31:44.585725; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- United Kingdom.