UK OSPAR Marine Protected Areas with Underlying UK Designations

A shapefile containing all UK marine sites nominated to the OSPAR Commission. The data shows the relationship between an MPA's OSPAR status and its underpinning UK designation, such as Special Areas of Conservation or Marine Conservation Zones. The dataset is provided by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and was last updated on 2026-04-14.

Use Cases

• Spatial analysis of marine conservation area overlap based on the described overlapping SAC, SPA, and MCZ/NCMPA polygons.
• Mapping the distribution of OSPAR MPAs by UK country and inshore/offshore status using the COUNTRY field.
• Tracking the nomination timeline of protected sites using the STATUS_YR (year nominated) field.
• Linking OSPAR site codes (WDPAID) to UK administrative codes (UKSITECODE) for data integration.

Strengths

• Includes area calculations in square kilometers (AREA_KM2 field).
• Explicitly documents the relationship between OSPAR and UK designation types (EQUIV_SITE, UK_DESIG fields).
• Supported by an external Excel spreadsheet for additional reference.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last updated 2026-04-14 09:45:30.912189; freshness should be verified.

Provenance

Source

Joint Nature Conservation Committee

Collection Method

Nominated to the OSPAR Commission, forming all or part of an existing UK marine protected area.

Time Range

Year of nomination provided in STATUS_YR field.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 09:45:30.912189.

Geography

UK waters, up to mean high water (or mean high water springs in Scotland).