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  3. MMO Marine Character Areas

MMO Marine Character Areas

Summary

The National Marine Character Area (MCA) dataset for England (MMO 1134) is the resultant merged layer of the individual MCA datasets produced for the previous seascape character assessment reports (north east, east, south east, south, south west and north west Marine Plan Areas). The National Marine Character Area layer is divided into 63 MCAs, 10 of which are Natural England's Seascape Character Areas (SCAs) for the East Marine Plan Area. The report includes individual MCA profiles containing further information, including key characteristics, amended to reflect stakeholder comments on names and boundaries. These MCAs and accompanying descriptions will help inform the MMO's evidence base for marine planning in England. The dataset is a result of a desktop study based on the methodology first developed by LUC for the Seascape Assessment of the South Marine Plan Area, published in 2014 (MMO 1037). The boundaries of each MCA were defined using GIS datasets and other information representing the natural/physical, cultural/social and perceptual/aesthetic characteristics of the inshore and offshore marine plan areas. The MCA boundaries should be interpreted as transitional.

Categories

Use limitation statement

There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.

Attribution statement

© Marine Management Organisation copyright and/or database right 2022. All rights reserved.

Technical information

Update frequency

asNeeded

Lineage

The dataset was created by LUC in August 2018 as part of a commission by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to produce a National Marine Character dataset for all of England's Marine Plan Areas. The coverage of this dataset is based on the extent of all England's Marine Plan Areas as defined in the MMO's 'Marine Plan Areas in England' dataset (available from DATA.GOV.UK). The delineation of the internal Marine Character Area (MCA) boundaries was undertaken as part of a desktop study, creating 63 MCAs using heads-up digitising of natural breaks or clustering of characteristics/features. For specific information on the delineation of each MCA boundary please refer to the MCA profiles within Chapter 3 of the MMO 1134 reports. A full list of datasets used to delineate the MCAs is provided in Annex 1 of the reports, which should be used in conjunction with this dataset. The dataset was created using ESRI's ArcMap 10.4.1 software. The ArcMap Topology toolset was used to quality assure the dataset for topological errors (e.g. overlapping polygons). Caveats an MCA boundaries should be interpreted as transitional zones not hard boundaries (refer to section 2.2 of the reports), the recommended use/display scale is 1:250,000.

Spatial information

Geographic extent

  • Latitude from: 48.710684 to 56.010082
  • Longitude from: -9.027806 to 4.842738
Metadata information

Language

English

Metadata identifier

1186152f-240c-4c0d-9918-b366043ecfa6


Published by

Marine Management Organisation


Dataset reference dates

Creation date

27 September 2018

Revision date

22 October 2018

Publication date

N/A

Period

  • From: 01 October 2018

Search

Data and Supporting Information
Data services and download by area of interestLinkAction
Download data by area of interestN/AOpen link
MMO Marine Character Areas Web Mapping ServiceCopy linkPreview
MMO Marine Character Areas Web Feature ServiceCopy linkN/A
OGC API - Features serviceCopy linkOpen link
Full downloads and supporting documentationFormatAction
MMOMarineCharacterAreas-FGDB.zipZIPDownload
MMOMarineCharacterAreas-GeoJSON.zipZIPDownload
MMOMarineCharacterAreas-GML.zipZIPDownload
MMOMarineCharacterAreas-KML.zipZIPDownload
MMOMarineCharacterAreas-MID_MIF.zipZIPDownload
MMOMarineCharacterAreas-SHP.zipZIPDownload
MMOMarineCharacterAreas-TAB.zipZIPDownload