Data
Natural England publishes much of its geographic information in the form of Geographic Information System (GIS) datasets.
You can download GIS datasets for protected sites, habitats, and other information either as national datasets covering all of England or in 100km tiles for the larger datasets. GIS Digital Boundary Datasets
.
Natural England and INSPIRE
Natural England has statutory obligations to progressively publish metadata and data for datasets within the scope of the INSPIRE Regulations 2009.
Phase 1 of INSPIRE covers the publication of existing datasets. These are the milestones:
- December 2010 - Compliant Discovery Metadata published for INSPIRE Annex I & II datasets
Download this Zip file containing XML files: (45kb)
of Natural England’s metadata for datasets that are in scope of Annex Ior access the Metadata from data.gov.uk
- May 2011 - View Services published for INSPIRE Annex I & II datasets (initial operating capability only)
Access the View Service
from data.gov.uk
November 2011 - Full View Services to be published for INSPIRE Annex I & II datasets
June 2012 - Download Services to be published for INSPIRE Annex I & II datasets (dependent on entry into force of EC regulation)
December 2013 - Discovery Metadata to be published for INSPIRE Annex III datasets
December 2013 - View Services published for INSPIRE Annex III datasets
December 2013 - Download Services to published for INSPIRE Annex III datasets
The following Natural England datasets fall into the scope of Annex I. (We have no Annex II datasets).
- Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (England)
- Biosphere Reserves (England)
- Limestone Pavement Orders (England)
- Local Nature Reserves (England)
- Marine Conservation Zones (England)
- National Nature Reserves (England)
- National Parks (England)
- Ramsar (England)
- Sites of Special Scientific Interest (England)
- Special Areas of Conservation (England)
- Special Protection Areas (England)
We will be identifying the datasets that fall within the scope of Annex III during 2012.
Phase 2 of INSPIRE runs from 2012 to 2019 and requires us to progressively make the datasets compliant with the INSPIRE specifications.
N.B. The Metadata published on data.gov.uk is licensed under the Open Government Licence, but use of our GIS Datasets is currently subject to the Natural England Terms of Use.
Natural England is in the process of changing to use the version of the Open Government Licence that allows free commercial reuse instead of our own terms and conditions as the basis for licensing many of our GIS datasets. We anticipate implementing this change in the first quarter of 2012 but please note that the Open Government Licence can only be used to license datasets that we fully own or with the agreement of any third parties with Intellectual Property Rights in the data. Personal or sensitive data will also not be provided under the Open Government Licence. In the meantime we have now suspended the administrative charge for commercial reuse of our datasets.
Use of the View Service published on data.gov.uk requires access to a suitable GIS product. Please refer to your product help files to determine the best way to add a Web Mapping Service (WMS) to your GIS product of choice.
