Site of Special Scientific Interest (Scotland)

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.

 
Citation proposal
. Site of Special Scientific Interest (Scotland). Scottish Natural Heritage https://services.mspdata.eu:/geonetwork/srv/api/records/ECA527A8-DC9A-49F3-8911-F4CF9C3019A5

Simple

Date ( Creation )
1997
Date ( Revision )
2019-11-27
Identifier

www.nature.scot

/

SSSI

Presentation form
mapDigital Digital map

  Publisher

Website
Natural Spaces  

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.

Maintenance and update frequency
continual Continual
Name

ESRI Shapefile

Version

1.0

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 ( Theme )

  • Protected sites

GEMET ( Theme )

  • nature conservation policy

Access constraints
otherRestrictions Other restrictions
Other constraints

No limitations on public access

Use limitation

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

Spatial representation type
vector Vector
Denominator
10000
Metadata language
eng English
Topic category
  • Environment
Geographic identifier

GB-SCT

 

Date ( Publication )
1999-03-16

N
S
E
W


Reference system identifier

EPSG

/

OSGB 1936 / British National Grid (EPSG:27700)

/

7.9

Distribution format

  • ESRI Shapefile

    (

    3.2

    )

  • GML

    (

    3.1.1

    )

  • KML

    (

    2.1

    )

Distributor

 

  01463 725067 
Name

ESRI Shapefile

Version

1.0

OnLine resource
2  

Sites of Special Scientific Interest WMS Layer

OnLine resource
Google Earth KML 2.1 (EPSG:4326, simplified geometry)  
OnLine resource
ESRI Shapefile (zipped, EPSG:27700)  
OnLine resource
GML 3.1.1 (zipped, EPSG:4258)  
OnLine resource
MapInfo MIF (EPSG:27700)  
Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset
Statement

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).

Metadata

File identifier
ECA527A8-DC9A-49F3-8911-F4CF9C3019A5   XML
Metadata language
eng English
Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset
Date stamp
2019-12-03
Metadata standard name

ISO 19115:2003/19139

Metadata standard version

1.0

  Point of contact

Website
Natural Spaces  

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.

 
 

  Overviews


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Associated resources

Not available