Irish Spatial Data Exchange
Site Specific Conservation Objectives
Site-specific conservation objectives aim to define favourable conservation condition for Habitats Directive Annex I habitats, Annex II species at a site level and the SPA special conservation interest "wetlands and waterbirds". This project relates to the following Annex I habitats and Annex II species at specific SAC sites and SPA special conservation interest "wetlands and waterbirds"at specific SPA sites:
- Sandbanks which are slightly covered by sea water all the time (1110)
- Estuaries (1130)
- Mudflats and sandflats not covered by sea water at low tide (1140)
- *Coastal lagoons (1150)
- Large shallow inlets and bays (1160)
- Reefs (1170)
- Annual vegetation of drift lines (1210)
- Perennial vegetation of stony banks (1220)
- Vegetated sea cliffs of the Atlantic and Baltic coasts (1230)
- Salicornia and other annuals colonising mud and sand (1310)
- Atlantic salt meadows (Glauco-Puccinellietalia maritimae) (1330)
- Mediterranean salt meadows (Juncetalia maritimae) (1410)
- Mediterranean and thermo-Atlantic halophilous scrubs (Sarcocornetea fruticosi) (1420)
-Embryonic shifting dunes (2110)
- Shifting dunes along the shoreline with Ammophila arenaria ('white dunes') (2120)
- *Fixed coastal dunes with herbaceous vegetation ('grey dunes') (2130)
- *Decalcified fixed dunes with Empetrum nigrum (2140)
- *Atlantic decalcified fixed dunes (Calluno-Ulicetea) (2150)
- Dunes with Salix repens ssp. argentea (Salicion arenariae) (2170)
- Humid dune slacks (2190)
- Machairs (* in Ireland) (21A0)
- *Turloughs (3180)
- Watercourses of plain to montane levels with the Ranunculion fluitantis and Callitricho-Batrachion vegetation (3260)
- European dry heaths (4030)
- Juniperus communis formations on heaths or calcareous grasslands (5130)
- Calaminarian grasslands of the Violetalia calaminariae (6130)
- *Petrifying springs with tufa formation (Cratoneurion) (7220)
- *Active raised bogs (7110)
- *Limestone Pavements (8240)
- Submerged or partially submerged sea caves (8330)
- Old sessile oak woods with Ilex and Blechnum in the British Isles (91A0)
- *Bog woodland (91D0)
- *Alluvial forests with Alnus glutinosa and Fraxinus excelsior (Alno-padion, Alnion incanae, Salicion albae) (91E0)
- *Taxus baccata woods of the British Isles (91J0)
- Marine Community Types
- Geyer's Whorl Snail - Vertigo geyeri (1013)
- Narrow-Mouthed Whorl Snail - Vertigo angustior (1014)
- Desmoulins Whorl Snail - Vertigo moulinsiana (1016)
- Freshwater Pearl Mussel - Margaritifera margaritifera (1029)
- White Clawed Crayfish - Austropotamobius pallipes (1092)
- Sea Lamprey - Petromyzon marinus (1095)
- Brook Lamprey - Lampetra planeri (1096)
- River Lamprey - Lampetra fluviatilis (1099)
- Lesser Horseshoe Bat - Rhinolophus hipposideros (1303)
- Bottlenose Dolphin - Tursiops truncatus (1349)
- Harbour Porpoise - Phocoena phocoena (1351)
- Otter - Lutra lutra (1355)
- Grey Seal - Halichoerus grypus (1364)
- Common / Harbour Seal - Phoca vitulina (1365)
- Petalwort - Petalophyllum ralfsii (1395)
- Killarney Fern - Trichomanes speciosum (1421)
- Slender Naiad - Najas flexilis (1833)
- Nore Freshwater Pearl Mussel - Margaritifera durrovensis (1990)
Favourable conservation condition of a habitat is achieved when:
- its natural range, and area it covers within that range, is stable or increasing, and
- the ecological factors that are necessary for its long-term maintenance exist and are likely to continue to exist for the
foreseeable future, and
- the conservation condition of its typical species is favourable
Habitat mapping is used to help define the area and range parameters for conservation objectives
Favourable conservation condition of a species is achieved when:
- population dynamics data on the species concerned indicate that it is maintaining itself on a long term basis as a viable component of its natural habitats, and
- the natural range of the species is neither being reduced nor is likely to be reduced for the foreseeable future, and
- there is, and will probably continue to be, a sufficiently large habitat to maintain its populations on a long-term basis
Mapping of species distribution and suitable habitat is used to help define distribution, population and range parameters for conservation objectives.
This is a national dataset that consists of several resources:
- Shapefiles with spatial SSCO data
- GeoPackage file with spatial SSCO data
- CSV, Excel, JSON and SQLite files with tabular SSCO data
Simple
- Alternate title
-
SSCO
- Date (Publication)
- 2025-04-01T00:00:00
- Citation identifier
- https://data.gov.ie/dataset/ / site-specific-conservation-objectives
- Purpose
-
Site-specific conservation objectives outline attributes with targets, which define favourable condition for a habitat or species at a particular site. They are used for appropriate assessment of plans or projects. In addition, they can provide useful information for conservation management planning.
The maintenance of habitats and species within Natura 2000 sites at favourable conservation condition will contribute to the overall maintenance of favourable conservation status of those habitats and species at a national level.
- Status
- On going
- Point of contact
-
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
National Parks and Wildlife Service
Point of contact
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
-
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
-
-
Protected sites
-
-
GEMET - Concepts, version 3.1
-
-
protection of animals, protection of species, protection of birds, wildlife protection, terrestrial ecosystem, biodiversity, ecological, habitat, ecology, animal species,
-
-
National Parks and Wildlife Service
-
-
Special Area of Conservation, SAC, Special Protection Area, SPA, National Parks and Wildlife, NPWS, biodiversity, habitats, species, habitat protection, species, protection, heritage, National Biodiversity Plan
-
-
ISO 3166
-
-
Ireland
-
- Use limitation
- Use limitation
- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
-
Copyright Government of Ireland. This dataset was created by the 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 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- Spatial representation type
- Vector
- Denominator
- 50000
- Language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Topic category
-
- Environment
- Biota
))
Vertical extent
- Minimum value
- 0
- Maximum value
- 1014
Vertical CS
Vertical datum
- Reference system identifier
-
Irish National Grid
/
https://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/29900
EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset EPSG 2009-11-25
- Distribution format
-
Name Version Shapefile, Geopackage, CSV, Excel, JSON, SQLite
various
- Distributor contact
-
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
National Parks and Wildlife Service
Point of contact
- OnLine resource
-
Protocol Linkage Name zip
https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/SSCO_March2025_shp.zip Site Specific Conservation Objectives ESRI shapefiles
- OnLine resource
-
Protocol Linkage Name zip
https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/SSCO_March2025_gpkg.zip Site Specific Conservation Objectives ESRI GeoPackage file
- OnLine resource
-
Protocol Linkage Name zip
https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/files/SSCO_Tabular_Open_Data_v1_2_20250701.zip Site Specific Conservation Objectives ESRI tabular data files
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Conformance result
- Title
-
INSPIRE Data Specification on Protected sites
- Alternate title
-
INSPIRE Data Specifications v3.2
- Date (Publication)
- 2014-04-17
- Explanation
-
The INSPIRE Directive or INSPIRE lays down a general framework for a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the purposes of European Community environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment.
- Pass
- Yes
Conformance result
- Title
-
COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services
- Alternate title
-
INSPIRE Interoperability Regulation
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
- Explanation
-
Level of conformance with the COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services
- Pass
- Yes
- Statement
-
This spatial dataset and any associated web services is currently presented in Irish National Grid projection. The data presented in the dataset has been derived from a number of source datasets. More detailed metadata for each layer of habitat/species information is available in the download file.
Metadata
- File identifier
- 6eb57c37-6356-41ed-be93-d275c87833e1 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2025-07-16T13:01:04
- 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
Author
)))
