Identification

Title

Site of Special Scientific Interest (Scotland)

Abstract

Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) are those areas of land and water (to the seaward limits of local authority areas or MLWS) that Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) considers to best represent our natural heritage - its diversity of plants, animals and habitats, rocks and landforms, or a combinations of such natural features. They are the essential building blocks of Scotland's protected areas for nature conservation. Many are also designated as Natura sites (Special Protection Areas or Special Areas of Conservation)..The national network of SSSIs in Scotland forms part of the wider GB series. SNH designates SSSIs under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004. SSSIs are protected by law. It is an offence for any person to intentionally or recklessly damage the protected natural features of an SSSI. SSSIs were first designated under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The majority of these were later re-notified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. All 1981 Act SSSI designations are carried forward, and all new SSSI designations are now made, under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://cagmap.snh.gov.uk/arcgis/services/snh_protected_sites/MapServer/WMSServer?

protocol: OGC:WMS

name: 2

description: Sites of Special Scientific Interest WMS Layer

https://cagmap.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces/download/SSSI/kml

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name: Google Earth KML 2.1 (EPSG:4326, simplified geometry)

function: download

https://cagmap.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces/download/SSSI/shp

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name: ESRI Shapefile (zipped, EPSG:27700)

function: download

https://cagmap.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces/download/SSSI/gml

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name: GML 3.1.1 (zipped, EPSG:4258)

function: download

https://cagmap.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces/download/SSSI/mif

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name: MapInfo MIF (EPSG:27700)

function: download

https://cagmap.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces/dataset.jsp?code=SSSI

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name: NatureScot Natural Spaces

function: information

Unique resource identifier

code

SSSI

codeSpace

www.nature.scot

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

authority code

EPSG

code identifying the spatial reference system

OSGB 1936 / British National Grid (EPSG:27700)

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

environment

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Protected sites

originating controlled vocabulary

title

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-06-01

Keyword set

keyword value

nature conservation policy

originating controlled vocabulary

title

GEMET

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-07-20

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-9.32202825

East bounding longitude

-0.093512624999999

North bounding latitude

61.8049055

South bounding latitude

54.422093

Extent

Extent group

authority code

title

ISO 3166

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

1999-03-16

code identifying the extent

GB-SCT

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1940

End position

2012

Dataset reference date

date type

creation

effective date

1997

date type

revision

effective date

2020-12-09

Frequency of update

continual

Quality and validity

Lineage

SSSIs were first designated under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The majority of these were later re-notified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. All 1981 Act SSSI designations are carried forward, and all new SSSI designations are now made, under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004.The 2004 Act strengthens the protection of sites and gives legal backing to the increased involvement of land owners and managers and local communities. SNH's SSSI Data has been captured over a long period of time using a range of different source data made available to SNH through the Scottish Central Government SLA, the Pan Government Agreement and subsequently through the One Scotland Mapping Agreement. The data was revised and re-issued in 2012. Please see Access Constraints for more details. SNH also supplies a copy to Registers of Scotland for publication under the Scottish SSSI register. Designating Authority SNH Legislative Context Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 (section 3). Previously the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Section 28 (as amended) and the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, Section 23 (which still applies to a few sites).

Conformity

Data format

name of format

ESRI Shapefile

version of format

3.2

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

No limitations on public access

Constraint set

Use constraints

Contains SNH information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

Geographic Information Group

organisation name

Scottish Natural Heritage

full postal address

Great Glen House

Inverness

IV3 8NW

United Kingdom

email address

data_supply@nature.scot

web address

https://cagmap.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name: Natural Spaces

description: Natural Spaces allows you to download a wide range of the spatial data held by SNH. You can browse through the data available, and use your SNH account to access the data in several GIS formats. You can also create a direct connection to our OGC Web Map Services from within your desktop GIS application. More details about this option is available on the Direct connection page.

responsible party role

publisher

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

Geographic Information Group

organisation name

Scottish Natural Heritage

full postal address

Great Glen House

Inverness

IV3 8NW

United Kingdom

email address

data_supply@nature.scot

web address

http://gateway.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces/index.jsp

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name: Natural Spaces

description: Natural Spaces allows you to download a wide range of the spatial data held by SNH. You can browse through the data available, and use your SNH account to access the data in several GIS formats. You can also create a direct connection to our OGC Web Map Services from within your desktop GIS application. More details about this option is available on the Direct connection page.

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2022-03-02

Metadata language

eng