Gloucestershire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy Information User guide

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New to the site? Click the User Guide button above for video tutorials and tips on how to use the interactive maps.
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This website uses interactive maps to present the draft Local Nature Recovery Strategy for Gloucestershire. It is still at the pre-consultation stage and is designed to show the progress of the Strategy and provide an opportunity to try out the interactive maps. It is a preliminary to the consultation process which will open formally in early 2025. The Gloucestershire Nature Recovery Strategy is managed by Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership (GLNP) on behalf of Gloucestershire County Council.

Click the 'refresh this page' button below to make sure you're seeing the latest available map layers and updates.

The Natural Capital Mapping Project brings together a range of maps relevant to the development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy. click here to go to the Natural Capital Mapping Project website.

Both the Natural Capital Mapping Project and Local Nature Recovery Strategy websites are designed and maintained by Gloucestershire Centre for Environmental Records.

 About the map layers

 Click a category below to show/hide information.

Version date: October 2024
The baseline Local Nature Recovery Strategy map shows Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity. These consist of designated nature areas and habitats deemed to be irreplaceable. Date for this map has been derived from a range of the most up-to-date sources available, including Natural England (for statutory designations) and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (for Local Wildlife Sites). See the Local Nature Recovery Strategy documentation (available from the Library tab) for more details.

Version date: January 2025
The map layers for the Local Nature Recovery Strategy Potential Measures have been derived from a huge range of local and national expertise. For the Strategy Map on this website they have been collated for ease of reference; clicking on any 200m map square will show which Potential Measures apply to that square. For more detail about each Potential Measure, please refer to the Individual Measures map, which has a list of every mapped measure, not in grid squares but at full resolution.

If you wish to download either the Local Nature Recovery Strategy document or a detailed description of each individual Potential Measure, click on the library tab for a list of document download links.

Description
Version: November 2024
Nature Recovery Network mapping aims to show the prioritised distribution of opportunities for creating a more resilient network of habitats for people and nature. Four categories are included:

  • Open habitat (core habitat: largely grassland but also some lowland heath)
  • Woodland (core habitat: semi-natural woodland)
  • Arable (farmland bird and specialist arable plant habitats) and
  • Wetland (core habitat: all open water and wetland habitats). This layer is treated as an overlay to the other categories
Mixed habitats which are hard to define are treated simply as 'Open habitat or Woodland'.

The Nature Recovery Network opportunity areas form the basis of several of the Potential Measures in the Local Nature Recovery Strategy.

Rationale
Opportunity for the four main habitat categories to be extended into larger and more joined-up networks is calculated using the concept of 'cost distance' - in other words, for a key suite of species typical of the habitat type, how easy is it for those species to spread given that some surrounding areas 'cost' (in ecological terms) more than others to move through? A score for the cost distance is then combined with a number of other opportunity scores and an assessment of constraints to habitat restoration/creation.

The network thus illustrates both the existing hot-spots of habitat, and also the potential benefits of improving the landscape permeability (reducing the 'cost') to create better networks both for biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Scoring
Areas shown on the NRN map are broken into high, medium and low scores for nature restoration opportunity - plus the existing Priority Habitats which form the core habitats baseline. The high and medium priority opportunity areas have been used in calculating Potential Measures such as restoration of species-rich grassland and expansion of semi-natural core woodland areas.

Source layers
The NRN layer and accompanying Wetland Opportunities overlay relie on a detailed habitat inventory of Gloucestershire which is compiled from a wide range of sources. These include Natural England's Priority Habitat Inventory, the latest CEH Land Cover Map, Ordnance Survey MasterMap, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust's Habimap Survey and other site survey data, and specialist habitat assessments such as the UK National Forest Inventory and the People's Trust For Endangered Species' Traditional Orchards distribution map.

Future upgrades
The current NRN layer is a final draft of the version which will be used with the final post-consultation version of the Local Nature Restoration Strategy. Further updates, to take into account the latest available habitat information, will be created in spring 2025.

Data uses and restrictions
Image extracts from this website may be made (eg by utilising a screenshot tool) and used in reports, provided Gloucestershire County Council and Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership are attributed, along with the version number of the underlying map. Raw GIS data may not be copied or made use of without first agreeing authorisation from Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, as it contains licensed, proprietary data (see the main Acknowledgements tab).

Version date: October 2024
County, District and Parish boundaries are included on the main web maps for convenience. They are derived from the Ordnance Survey Data Hub Boundary-Line product. Usage is covered by an Open Government Licence; the boundary dataset is free for anyone to use.

Disclaimer

Information displayed on this website is subject to the limitations of the source data, which occasionally may be amended, updated or replaced. Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership provides the maps in good faith but cannot guarantee accuracy. Note that the Nature Recovery Network layers are the result of data modelling and should be viewed as indicative rather than precise.

The Baseline Map shows Areas of Particular Importance known to exist at the start of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy for the area covered by the Strategy. It will become out of date with time as it is intended to show the baseline natural capital for the area. It should not therefore be taken as a definitive map of currently designated areas.

Designated sites and other features on the Local Nature Recovery Strategy maps may or may not be open to public access. The is no guarantee of public right of access for any of the areas shown, either national or local designations or Potential Measures areas. Please note the disclaimer which is shown on the map when it first loads, and confirm that you have read and understood the caveats before viewing the map.

The Local Nature Recovery Strategy builds on the earlier Natural Capital Mapping Project - click to visit the Natural Capital Mapping Project and check out the Information panels for details of how those source layers were created.

This website was created by Gloucestershire Centre for Environmental Records using data from national agencies, other conservation NGOs, our own in-house data and ecosystem modelling by the Evidence Team at Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.

We are indebted to a range of code, data and hosting resources which have enabled us to develop the website. Many are Open Source and may be of use to others who want to create similar websites. Some were acquired on licence. Click a topic below for acknowledgements and links to related sources:

Note that GLNP and GCER do not control the sources of our online background maps ; please let us know if any of the layers has stopped working or is too slow to use. Our map viewer uses free online mapping from the following providers:

Detailed Ordnance Survey mapping is used under the following licences:

  • Ordnance Survey MasterMap vector data (forms part of some of the ecological modelling datasets) is sub-licenced from Gloucestershire County Council under PSMA licence no. 100019134
Please note that Ordnance Survey OpenData along with the other free online mapping resources listed above are free to use via a straightforward online account API, but licensed OS data may not be copied by third parties; to replicate those maps you would require a separate OS licence and/or API key. Please get in touch with GLNP if you would like to reproduce any of our map data in any way, as some layers contain licenced Ordnance Survey data and/or other proprietary data sources.

Website

This website has been designed and developed by Gloucestershire Centre for Environmental Records, using a mix of open source web framework, server and GIS software alongside proprietary ESRI ArcGIS Online applications. This enables us to benefit from free, up to date online mapping using well-established standards whilst also using the latest apps with which many of our users are familiar. In view of the huge community effort that goes into maintaining the open-source mapping resource we would particularly like to acknowledge the following:

Hosting

The Gloucestershire Local Nature Recovery Strategy website is hosted on an AcuGIS server. Tailor-made Mapbox styles are hosted on a Mapbox Studio account. The embedded ArcGIS Story Map and Experience Builder pages are from a ESRI account made available to Gloucestershire Centre for Environmental Records at a discounted rate. All these providers have been generous with their NGO support.

Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership
Conservation Centre
Robinswood Hill Country Park
Reservoir Road
Gloucester
GL4 6SX

GLNP Manager: Nicola Hillary
email: nicola.hillary@gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk

Sign up for regular updates: https://www.gloucestershirenature.org.uk/contact


X: @glosnature

Using the website

Test website! The videos and notes below are at the draft stage and may be updated from time to time. Click the button on the right of the control bar at the bottom to show the video at full screen size. When a video is playing, hover over the video to reveal the control bar at the bottom.

1: Introduction to the website

2: Exploring the map and library tabs

3: Using the map tools


Scroll down for more tips on using the online maps:

Potential Measures shown on the Strategy Map popups have a link to the pdf document for each measure. Clicking the link will download the document and/or open it in a new browser tab, depending on your browser settings. Some map layers have further information, e.g. methodology documents. Download links for these may be found by clicking on the Information button at the top of the page and choosing the Map Details tab.

Clicking the dropdown arrow at the left end of the map Search boxes will show a choice of search types: for example, the default type is a normal text search, but if you choose an alternative from the dropdown list you can enter a What Three Words code, a UK postcode or an Ordnance Survey grid reference.

Please note that copying and/or redistribution of some map layers may be restricted by licence - see Information>Map Details for general Conditions of Use.