Wood Pasture and Parkland Habitat Network Maps for Northern Ireland

Ulster Wildlife, National Trust NI, RSPB NI, and Woodland Trust NI produced habitat network maps for Northern Ireland in 2020. The vector datasets categorize land based on its favorability for restoration or creation of priority habitats and its effectiveness for enhancing habitat connectivity. The maps serve as a decision-support tool for ecological planning.

Use Cases

• Prioritize land for habitat restoration based on the network categories indicating favorability.
• Assess landscape connectivity for wood pasture and parkland habitats based on proximity to existing patches.
• Support strategic conservation planning by integrating the network maps with on-site survey data.

Strengths

• Based on a defined methodology (Natural England, Edwards et al., 2020) with a published report.
• Produced by a consortium of established conservation organizations including Ulster Wildlife and the National Trust.
• Data is provided in the ESRI Shapefile format, a standard for geospatial analysis.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The maps are not a comprehensive land cover depiction and do not replace on-site ecological surveys.

Provenance

Source

Ulster Wildlife, National Trust NI, RSPB NI, Woodland Trust NI

Collection Method

Mapping based on the Natural England methodology for habitat networks.

Time Range

Project started in 2020.

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Northern Ireland