UK Regional Seas Polylines for Marine Conservation, 2004

UK Regional Seas polylines developed by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee in 2004 as part of the Review of Marine Nature Conservation. The dataset was created using biogeographic principles and derived in part from GEBCO bathymetry data. It is available for use under the Open Government Licence.

Use Cases

• Marine spatial planning based on defined regional sea boundaries.
• Biogeographic analysis of UK marine ecosystems based on the defined polyline features.
• Visualizing and mapping jurisdictional or conservation zones in UK waters.
• Integrating regional sea definitions with other marine environmental datasets.

Strengths

• Developed by the authoritative Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).
• Includes a supporting scientific paper detailing the methodology.
• Explicitly licensed for reuse under the Open Government Licence.

Limitations

• Data is from 2004; ecological or administrative boundaries may have changed.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and spatial resolution are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)

Collection Method

Developed using biogeographic principles, derived in part from GEBCO bathymetry data.

Time Range

2004

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 09:47:59.713638; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom regional waters