Detailed results: Condition by reporting category

Common Standards Monitoring was piloted in 1998 and implementation commenced in April 1999.  This report is based on data for the period April 1998 - March 2005.  The data were provided by the country agencies to JNCC in July and August 2005, using a standard proforma. 

 

JNCC collated these four sets of data (one each for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales) into a UK wide database of condition assessments for features on SSSIs (ASSIs in Northern Ireland), SACs, SPAs and Ramsar sites.  The database contains a row for each feature reported on each designated site.  A feature on a double-badged site (e.g. a site designated both as a SSSI and as a SAC) is recorded as two rows in the database - one row for each designation type.  Any reader wishing access to the raw data on which this report is based should make their request to the relevant country agency monitoring contact.

 

Data were split into 44 reporting categories based on Biodiversity Action Plan broad habitats, taxonomic groups, and broad divisions of earth science.  Every assessment was assigned to a single reporting category.  JNCC developed standard graphs, maps, and tabulations for each reporting category. For SACs and SPAs, JNCC are able to collate lists of qualifying features that have not yet been assessed.  This cannot be done for SSSIs because there is not yet a UK-wide list of notified interest features. 

 

In addition to the condition assessments, data were also collated on 'adverse activities' and 'management measures'.  'Adverse Activities' are those factors which are thought to be leading the feature into unfavourable condition.  'Management Measures' are the actions which are helping to maintain favourable condition, or return a feature from unfavourable to favourable condition.  More than one activity or measure can be recorded for each assessment of the condition of a feature.

 

To facilitate map display on the website and hard copy report, it was decided to display the spatial locations of the assessments on a 10km square basis.  For each and every monitoring assessment a 10km square is calculated based on the site centroid. 

 

The condition maps use this 10km square to group all of the condition assessments within a reporting category - for example, ten different assessments are reported for lowland calcareous grassland on SSSIs within grid square ST45.  As only one of these ten, i.e. 10%, is currently favourable, this square is coloured red on the 'current' SSSI condition map for lowland calcareous grassland.  The 'future' map shows this square as green.  This is because seven of the ten features are currently 'unfavourable-recovering'.  Assuming that recovery is achieved for these seven features, at a point in the forseeable future, eight out of ten, i.e. 80%, of the lowland calcareous grassland features within square ST45 will be favourable.  Note that no prediction is made on the timescale for recovery for any feature. 

 

For large SACs (i.e. those falling into more than one 10km squares), condition assessments have been allocated to all the 10km squares which, to the best of our knowledge, host the feature.  This has been possible because for SACs there are 10km square distribution maps for each interest feature.  JNCC do not hold equivalent spatial data for SPA, Ramsar or SSSI sites and have, therefore, only been able to use the site centroid to locate the interest features on these site types.

 

The figure for favourable condition in a few of the precharts is marginally different from that shown in the summary statistics table - this is a result of rounding to show small segments effectively; the figures in the summary statistics table are correct.

 

Pie charts and summary statistics

	Section	Site type(s)
Geology	Ice Age landforms and sediments Volcanic rocks Folds, faults and rock movements Minerals Active landforms	SSSI SSSI SSSI SSSI SSSI
Species	Aggregations of breeding birds Aggregations of non-breeding birds Amphibians Butterflies Flowering plants and ferns	SPA SSSI Natura 2000 and SSSI SSSI SSSI
Habitats	Limestone pavement, inland cliffs and screes Standing water Dunes, shingle and machair	Natura 2000 SSSI SSSI