Alternate title

Irish Semi-natural Grassland Survey

Date (Publication)

2013-01-01T00:00:00

Citation identifier

https://data.gov.ie/dataset/ / semi-natural-grassland-survey-2007-2012

Purpose

The purpose of the project was to record botanical data on semi-natural grasslands (GS and GM under Fossitt (2000)) and Annex I grassland habitats in the 26 counties of Ireland. Data on non-grassland habitats were occasionally also recorded if these were found to conform to Annex I grassland habitat in the broad sense, e.g. fen meadows found to conform to the definition of 6410 Molinia meadows, or 6430 Hydrophilous tall herb swamp communities, which is a swamp habitat.

Status

Completed

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage	National Parks and Wildlife Service	datadelivery@housing.gov.ie	Point of contact

Maintenance and update frequency

Not planned

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

• Habitats and biotopes

GEMET - Concepts, version 3.1

• habitat, biodiversity, woodland ecosystem,

National Parks and Wildlife Service

• National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, species, habitat protection, heritage, National Biodiversity Plan

ISO 3166

• Ireland

Use limitation

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Access constraints

Other restrictions

Other constraints

Copyright Government of Ireland. This dataset was created by National Parks and Wildlife Service, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. This copyright material is licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Spatial representation type

Vector

Denominator

10560

Language

English

Character set

UTF8

Topic category

• Environment
• Biota

Reference system identifier

EPSG / https://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/29903

EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset EPSG 2009-11-25

Distribution format

Name	Version
Esri shapefile	v10.x

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage	National Parks and Wildlife Service	datadelivery@housing.gov.ie.ie	Point of contact

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
application/zip	http://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/general/0202_ISGS13_grassland_20150225.zip	Zip file containing shapefiles download

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
text/pdf	http://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/IWM-78-Irish-semi-natural-grassland-survey.pdf	Publication Document

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
ESRI REST	https://services-eu1.arcgis.com/Jhij7i46ouO8Cc0N/arcgis/rest/services/IrishSemiNaturalGrasslandSurvey2013/FeatureServer	ESRI REST

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WFS	https://dservices-eu1.arcgis.com/Jhij7i46ouO8Cc0N/arcgis/services/IrishSemiNaturalGrasslandSurvey2013WFS/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilities	WFS

Hierarchy level

Dataset

Statement

Habitat maps of the sites were drawn in the field using the colour aerial photograph in the site pack as a base map. A handheld GPS (Garmin GPS 76 with MapSource) was used in the field to accurately map site boundaries, areas of Annex I grassland habitats (Anon. 2007), non-Annex semi-natural grasslands (Fossitt 2000) and semi-improved grassland habitats, particularly where these were not visible on the photograph. The minimum mapping unit for habitats was 400 m2, with a minimum habitat width of 4 m. A habitat map of each site was produced using these data within ArcMap 9.3

Six ArcMap shapefiles were consolidated to create one shapefile containing mapped polygons of all sites surveyed in all years, 2007-2011. This involved several changes to the ISGS shapefile from the pilot study in 2007 in order to bring it in line with the mapping practices applied in subsequent years. Once the changes were applied, all individual shapefiles were standardised to contain identical columns, with data following set labelling conventions. Consolidation of the shapefiles occurred after standardisation. The following data-checking procedures were performed on the consolidated shapefile using ArcMap toolbox and ET GeoWizards:

• All polygons and gaps below the minimum mapping size were examined

• Slivers and overlapping polygons were identified and investigated

• Any attribute lines with no corresponding polygon were eliminated

• Relevés lying outside of polygons were examined and addressed

• Conformity of all labels to labelling conventions was assured

• Label mismatches between relevés and polygons were investigated and addressed, as were label mismatches within polygons

• Multi-part features were examined and rendered single-part

• A final general geometry check was run.

Where anomalies with regard to irregular mapping or mismatching of habitats between relevés and polygons occurred, the original field data were consulted and the appropriate changes made to the GIS shapefile and/or consolidated Access and Turboveg databases.

A separate shapefile created for grassland habitats surveyed and mapped in 2012 was appended to this consolidated shapefile after the 2012 field season, and the checks as outlined above were performed again.

Data cross-checking

Data checks among the three datasets Shapefile, Access database and Turboveg database were carried out to ensure the integrity of the data within and between them. Any differences were investigated, the original files or field data were consulted and the appropriate changes made to the datasets.

Shapefile attribute fields:

SITE_ID: ISGS site number

ISGS_HAB: Habitat category according to Fossitt (2000) except that GSiX is used to denote semi-improved grassland habitat.

FOSS_HAB: Habitat category according to Fossitt (2000). GA1 is used for semi-improved grassland habitat.

ANNEX_I: Code of Annex I grassland habitat given if applicable. If non-Annex, this field has a value of "None".

MAP_HAB: Grassland habitat that is displayed on habitat map in final pdf layouts. For non-Annex grassland habitats, the value in this field is equivalent to FOSS_HAB (therefore all semi-improved grassland is displayed as GA1). For Annex I grassland habitats, the value is equivalent to ANNEX_I.

SURVEYED: Indicates whether the polygon has been walked through and had plant species recorded from it ("Yes") or not ("No").

COUNTY: County in which the polygon is located.

SOURCE: Source of data from which polygon is mapped. Most cases are "ISGS" followed by the year in which it was surveyed. Three polygons were sourced from the grassland monitoring survey data of Dwyer et al. (2007).

AREA_M2: Area of the polygon in square metres.

X_COORD: X-coordinate of polygon centroid.

Y_COORD: Y-coordinate of polygon centroid.

COMMENT: Notes on the polygon.

RELEVÉS

A minimum of one 2 m x 2 m relevé was recorded from within each semi-natural grassland habitat mapped in each site, and in semi-improved grassland habitats deemed to have some conservation merit. Multiple relevés were recorded where there was significant variation in the sward composition within a habitat type, or where Annex I grassland habitat assessments were conducted.

For each relevé, a 12-figure grid reference was obtained using a GPS unit.

The following data-checking procedures were performed:

• Relevés lying outside of polygons were examined and addressed

• Label mismatches between relevés and polygons were investigated and addressed

• Where anomalies with regard to irregular mapping or mismatching of habitats between relevés and polygons occurred, the original field data were consulted and the appropriate changes made to the GIS shapefile and/or consolidated Access and Turboveg databases.

Shapefile attributes:

RELEVE: ISGS releve number (<ISGS site number>_<releve number within site>).

HAB_TYPE: Fossitt (2000) habitat in which the releve was recorded, except that semi-improved grassland is denoted GSiX rather than GA1.

ANNEX_I: Annex I habitat (if any) in which the releve was recorded. If non-Annex habitat, value of field is "None".

STOP: Monitoring stop number, if applicable. If the releve is not a monitoring stop, value of field is "0".

VEG_TYPE: Vegetation type to which releve was assigned, according to proposed vegetation classification presented in O'Neill et al. 2013 ISGS report. A small number of plots with high-cover genus-level records were not assigned to a vegetation type. Non-grassland releves were also not assigned to a vegetation type.

CORE_REL: Value is Y if releve is a core releve used to derive the classification; N if releve is not a core releve used to derive the classification but has been assigned statistically to a VEG_TYPE on the basis of best-fit; N/A if releve is not assigned to a VEG_TYPE.

X_coord: X-coordinate of the point.

Y_coord: Y-coordinate of the point.

Metadata

File identifier

53cc49a0-ebb0-4e6f-ab32-5f8a7200b435 XML

Metadata language

English

Character set

UTF8

Hierarchy level

Dataset

Date stamp

2025-06-16T12:57:57

Metadata standard name

ISDI Metadata Profile

Metadata standard version

1.2

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage	National Parks and Wildlife Service	datadelivery@housing.gov.ie	Author