The Potential for Native Woodland in Upland Scotland was created by the Macaulay Institute and Scottish Natural Heritage in 2004. It was developed to assist in the planning of native woodland expansion.
The Native Woodland digital data is © The Macaulay Institute and Scottish Natural Heritage 2004. NWM has been developed to assist in the planning of native woodland expansion. The base datasets are the 1:250,000 scale national soils map and the 1:25,000 scale Land Cover of Scotland 1988 dataset. Because of the scales of these datasets the model should not be used at scales below 1:50,000. These soil and land cover data have been related to the requirements of different types of native woodland, to predict potential woodland types - i.e. the woodland National Vegetation Classification (NVC) types - which would be expected to develop under current soil and vegetation conditions, with no or minimal ground intervention, including fertilisation, ground preparation and drainage. The resulting maps represent the potential-natural extent of native woodland cover under current environmental conditions; they are not aspirations for final woodland cover. The model covers upland Scotland, where soil types are generally semi-natural. Where soils have been heavily modified by cultivation and industry the model is considered less useful in predicting semi-natural woodland distribution patterns because the highly modified soils could now support many types of woodland. Comparisons of the NWM output with accumulated temperature, moisture deficit and exposure data suggest that the combined soils and land cover deposits provide robust surrogate for the main climatic variables at the resolution of the model output. A review of the NWM outputs for the Highlands, and comparisons with actual NVC surveys suggest that the NWM accurately predicts site suitability for oakwood, ashwood and pinewood. Comparison with NVC surveys has yet to be carried out for birchwood, mixed broadleaves and wet woodland. The NWM output has been classified according to Habitat Action Plan types to facilitate its use in biodiversity action planning.
The data is © The James Hutton Institute and NatureScot (2004).
