© OpenStreetMap contributors
Welsh water support nationally and internationally important populations of marine mammals (whales, dolphins and seals) which use the area at various stages of their life histories such as feeding and breeding. Since the early 1990s the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) has been a major supporter of studies that have recorded the distribution and abundance of marine mammals in Wales. These studies, often undertaken using dedicated networks of volunteers, have helped to inform conservation objectives for Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), monitoring targets and the assessment of proposed developments and impacts. This dataset brings together the best available effort-related survey data on marine mammals in Welsh waters and adjacent parts of the Irish Sea, to provide the highest resolution analysis carried out to date of the spatial and temporal variation in their distribution. The Atlas contains distribution maps, including variations both seasonally and over the long terms of the five most common species (harbour porpoise, bottlenose dolphin, short-beaked common dolphin, Risso's dolphin and minke whale). The purpose of this data capture is to describe the temporal distribution, spatial distribution and relative abundance of all marine mammal species sighted, detected or stranded in Welsh waters. This dataset is concentrated on species regularly sighted and is designed to help meet obligations under the EU Habitats Directive. In addition is help former Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) now Natural Resources Wales (NRW) advise on marine activities including renewable energy exploitation, fisheries, waterborne recreation and oil and gas exploitation. The study area consists primarily of Welsh territorial seas out to the median line with Ireland and the Isle of Man, and English territorial seas. It was assumed that data contributed were reliable with respect to species identification and had been checked for errors in date, time and position fields; however factors affecting sight ability, survey characteristics and ecological factors may have affected sighting rates. Survey effort remains inadequate in all but a few small areas.
Natural Resources Wales (NRW)
There are no access restrictions to this data. NRW may release, publish or disseminate it freely.
| Other details | ||
| Internal code | Internally assigned metadata identifier | 1879 |
| Title | The title is used to provide a brief and precise description of the dataset such as 'Date', 'Originating organisation/programme', 'Location' and 'Type of survey'. All acronyms and abbreviations should be reproduced in full. | Atlas of the Marine Mammals of Wales |
| Alternative title | The purpose of alternative title is to record any additional names by which the dataset may be known. | Marine mammal atlas, Atlas Mamaliaid Morol Cymru |
| File Identifier | The File Identifier is a code, preferably a GUID, that is globally unique and remains with the same metadata record even if the record is edited or transferred between portals or tools. | 4f4c4942-4343-5764-6473-313131383133 |
| Resource Identifier | This is the code assigned by the data owner. | 111813 |
| Resource type | The resource type will likely be a dataset but could also be a series (collection of datasets with a common specification) or a service. | dataset |
| Start date | This describes the date the resource starts. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 1990-01-31 |
| End date | This describes the date the resource ends. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2009-12-31 |
| Spatial resolution | This describes the spatial resolution of the dataset or the spatial limitations of the service. | 10000 |
| Spatial resolution unit | This describes the unit of spatial resolution which for distance must be metres. | http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/ISO_19139_Schemas/resources/uom/gmxUom.xml#m |
| Frequency of updates | This describes the frequency with which the resource is modified or updated i.e. a monitoring programme that samples once per year has a frequency that is described as 'annually'. | notPlanned |
| Abstract | The abstract provides a clear and brief statement of the content of the resource. | Welsh water support nationally and internationally important populations of marine mammals (whales, dolphins and seals) which use the area at various stages of their life histories such as feeding and breeding. Since the early 1990s the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) has been a major supporter of studies that have recorded the distribution and abundance of marine mammals in Wales. These studies, often undertaken using dedicated networks of volunteers, have helped to inform conservation objectives for Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), monitoring targets and the assessment of proposed developments and impacts. This dataset brings together the best available effort-related survey data on marine mammals in Welsh waters and adjacent parts of the Irish Sea, to provide the highest resolution analysis carried out to date of the spatial and temporal variation in their distribution. The Atlas contains distribution maps, including variations both seasonally and over the long terms of the five most common species (harbour porpoise, bottlenose dolphin, short-beaked common dolphin, Risso's dolphin and minke whale). The purpose of this data capture is to describe the temporal distribution, spatial distribution and relative abundance of all marine mammal species sighted, detected or stranded in Welsh waters. This dataset is concentrated on species regularly sighted and is designed to help meet obligations under the EU Habitats Directive. In addition is help former Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) now Natural Resources Wales (NRW) advise on marine activities including renewable energy exploitation, fisheries, waterborne recreation and oil and gas exploitation. The study area consists primarily of Welsh territorial seas out to the median line with Ireland and the Isle of Man, and English territorial seas. It was assumed that data contributed were reliable with respect to species identification and had been checked for errors in date, time and position fields; however factors affecting sight ability, survey characteristics and ecological factors may have affected sighting rates. Survey effort remains inadequate in all but a few small areas. |
| Lineage | Lineage includes the background information, history of the sources of data, data quality statements and methods. | As with almost any data covered in the marine environment, there are variations in, coverage and confidence levels. Great care has been taken in the analysis to minimise errors by. The maps have been carefully interpreted, counting for variations in effort and other factors. Sixteen groups or survey projects have contributed to the project database that forms the basis of this Atlas. The minimum requirement for data contributed to the project were that they should include associated effort data, including data for effort periods when no sightings were made and that the effort data should include records of sea state. Approximately 216,031 hours of effort are from vessel and aerial surveys and 133,999 hours of land based effort are analysed spanning a 20 year period. The project database contains 12 species. In addition the Welsh Strandings Database managed by Marine Environmental Monitoring was reviewed. As well as this grey seal data were sourced from CCW comprising of approximately 3500 individuals. A grid with resolution of 10' latitude and 10' longitude was used, and effort partitioned into segments that could be assigned to a particular grid cell. Effort and sightings formed three separate tables (vessel, aerial and land) and these were then linked to a third table holding data on position and sea area of each cell. Count rates of animals at the surface were calculated for the 5 regular species. Edition 1 of the Atlas was produced in 2009. The report and data was subject to a detailed peer review by international scientific experts with the supervision of CCW and JNCC staff. A second edition of the Atlas was subsequently produced in 2012. Information Warning: The data is for sightings per hour (relative abundance) absolute densities cannot be derived from the data but relative abundance and distribution may be visualised |
| Related keywords | ||
| Keyword | General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Species distribution |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Cetacean abundance | |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Marine Environmental Data and Information Network | |
| Geographical coverage | ||
| North | The northern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 53.512067 |
| East | The eastern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | -2.608865 |
| South | The southern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 51.240829 |
| West | The western-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | -5.777741 |
| Regional sea | Wales (WLS) | |
| Responsible organisations | ||
| Role | The point of contact is person or organisation with responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the metadata for the resource. | pointOfContact |
| Organisation name | Natural Resources Wales (NRW) | |
| Phone | 0300 065 3000 | |
| Delivery point | Maes-y-Ffynnon | |
| Postal code | LL57 2DW | |
| Role | The distributor is the person or organisation that distributes the resource. | distributor |
| Organisation name | Natural Resources Wales (NRW) | |
| Phone | 0300 065 3000 | |
| Delivery point | Maes-y-Ffynnon | |
| Postal code | LL57 2DW | |
| Role | The custodian is the person or organisation that accepts responsibility for the resource and ensures appropriate care and maintenance. If a dataset has been lodged with a Data Archive Centre for maintenance then this organisation is be entered here. | custodian |
| Organisation name | Natural Resources Wales (NRW) | |
| Phone | 0300 065 3000 | |
| Delivery point | Maes-y-Ffynnon | |
| Postal code | LL57 2DW | |
| Role | The originator is the person or organisation who created, collected or produced the resource. | originator |
| Organisation name | Sea Watch Foundation | |
| Phone | 01407 832892 | |
| Delivery point | Head Office, Ewyn y Don | |
| Postal code | LL68 9SD | |
| Role | The originator is the person or organisation who created, collected or produced the resource. | originator |
| Organisation name | Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) | |
| Phone | 0300 065 3000 | |
| Delivery point | Countryside Council for Wales, Maes y Ffynnon | |
| Postal code | LL57 2DW | |
| Dataset constraints | ||
| 21 Conditions for Access and Use - Use limitation | Any restrictions imposed on accessing the resource such as the need to agree to certain licence conditions. | © CNC/NRW 2012 There are no use restrictions on this data. Recipients may re-use, reproduce, disseminate this data free of charge in any format or medium, provided they do so accurately, acknowledging both the source and NRW's copyright, and do not use it in a misleading context. It is the recipient's responsibility to ensure the data is fit for the intended purpose, that dissemination or publishing does not result in duplication, and that it is fairly interpreted. Advice on interpretation should be sought where required. To avoid re-using old data, users should periodically obtain the latest version from the original source. |
| 20 Limitations on Public Access - Access constraints | ISO restriction code chosen from ISO 19115-1 Codelist | otherRestrictions |
| Use constraints | Any restriction on the use of the resource such as the need to agree to certain licence conditions. | There are no access restrictions to this data. NRW may release, publish or disseminate it freely. |
| Available data formats | ||
| Data format | Format in which digital data can be provided for transfer | Documents |
| Version info | ||
| Date of publication | The publication date of the resource or if previously unpublished the date that the resource was made publicly available via the MEDIN network. | 2012-06-30 |
| Date of last revision | The most recent date that the resource was revised. | 2012-09-03 |
| Metadata date | The date when the content of this metadata record was last updated. | 2019-08-05 |
| Metadata standard name | The name of the metadata standard used to create this metadata | MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard |
| Metadata standard version | The version of the MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard used to create the metadata record | Version 2.3.8 |
© OpenStreetMap contributors