NatureScot Biodiversity Audit Habitat and Features Key

Broad category	Specific category	Unit of measurement	Summary habitat description	Detailed habitat description
Boundaries	Farm Boundary	hectares	Map the boundary of the whole holding, showing all land for which you are responsible for management, including any land which is not currently mapped as an LPID.	No further guidance
Designations	Designated site (SSSI,SAC,SPA)	hectares	The boundary of any designated sites (SSSI, SAC, SPA) that are present on the holding. No further guidance	No further guidance
Designations	Scheduled Monument	point	Indicates the location of any Scheduled Monuments present on the holding.	No further guidance
Cropped Land	Arable	hectares	All land used for arable crop production, horticulture, fallow and temporary grass leys (TGRS).	All cropped land including arable / combinable crops, fodder brassicas, arable silage, legumes, potatoes, fruit, vegetables, fallow and temporary grass leys following any cropping and that was established less than 5 years ago (this would be categorised as TGRS in a SAF).
Cropped Land	Managed Crops for Nature	hectares	Cultivated land managed to benefit biodiversity (e.g. wild bird cover crop) or improve organic matter or fertility of soil (e.g. sown with green manure).	Cultivated land specifically planted with the intention of benefitting particular native species, increasing biodiversity and stabilising soil e.g. Wild Bird Seed mix, pollinator mixes, and for soil health (e.g. green manure for nutrients, tillage radish and deep-rooted species for compaction).
Cropped Land	Field Margin	metres	Land adjacent to an arable crop or temporary grassland which may be in grass or sown with a mix to benefit biodiversity and is managed differently from the majority of the field.	Larger areas may be mapped as Managed Crops for Nature if it meets the description.
Grasslands	Improved Grassland	hectares	Productive grassland (for grazing or forage) subject to regular reseeding and inputs of fertiliser and lime.	Improved Grassland is productive grassland that may be reseeded, limed or fertilised. This includes slurry, farmyard manure and bio solids. Improved grasslands are permanent pasture with more than 30% content of Perennial Ryegrasses, Timothy and/or white clover. Management of grazing and cutting has led to persistence of this species mix overtime meaning reseeding may be more than 10 -15 years ago.   This would also include short term repeat leys of for example Italian Ryegrass, Westerwolds or similar that are resown at regular, usually less than 3 year, cycles.
Grasslands	Semi-improved Grassland	hectares	Grassland with wider species diversity than improved grassland, that is not part of your normal crop rotation but does not meet the unimproved grassland definition.	Cover of agricultural grass varieties such as ryegrass, timothy and clover will be less than 30% of the field.  There may be some wildflower presence and may occur where unimproved grasslands have undergone some modification through the use of, for example, fertilisers, lime, herbicides or where formerly improved grasslands are being less intensively managed. These habitats have a reduced range of plant species compared to unimproved grassland but a wider diversity than improved grassland.
Grasslands	Unimproved Grassland	hectares	Grassland that has not been ploughed, reseeded or fertilised including species rich grassland; or species rich grassland created on previously improved grassland or arable. Can also apply to uncultivatable areas in arable land.  This excludes grazed Machair and areas above the hill dyke.	Grasslands that have not been ploughed, reseeded or had chemical inputs in the recent past, or ever, and consequently have very little or no ryegrass or white clover (less than 10% cover of the field).  They may have noticeable wildflower and sedge coverage with a diverse sward.    In an agricultural sense they may be considered to be low-productive in-bye grassland, or rough grassland. Grassland habitats are considered to be species rich if they have a good representation of indicator species; grasslands on alkaline soils will have a greater range of species than those on acidic soils. Unimproved grasslands in large unenclosed areas of hill, moor, or mountain, often above a hill dyke, could be mapped as upland grassland.
Grasslands	Rush Pasture	hectares	Grassland pasture dominated by soft rush.	Can be scattered soft rush or dense stands of soft rush with limited diversity of other plant species.
Wetlands	Ponds and Lochs	hectares	Any open water including seasonally dry ponds and scrapes.	Any open water. These may be permanently wet e.g. lochs, lochans, and permanent ponds, or seasonally dry (wader scrapes, seasonal ponds).
Wetlands	Water Margins	hectares	Uncultivated land next to a pond/loch or running water.	An area of uncultivated land next to a ditch, burn, river, pond, loch, lochan etc., and may be managed as grassland or may contain other habitats such as shrubs, trees, or wetland.
Wetlands	Wet/marshy Grassland	hectares	Wet or marshy ground used for grazing with flowering species, not dominated by soft rush. Can also apply to uncultivatable areas in arable land.	Wet or ‘marshy’ ground with mostly tussock forming grasses and rushes used for grazing. Variety of flowering plants, sedges and rushes. Any sites dominated by soft rush should be mapped as rush pasture.
Wetlands	Wetlands	hectares	Wetland that is too wet for livestock such as swamp, reedbeds etc.	A wide and sometimes overlapping group of very wet habitats on mineral or peaty soils. Generally, of high conservation value. Usually too wet for stock. Fen – A peat-accumulating wetland, fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water, often forming in shallow valleys and loch basins.  Marsh – a wetland on mineral soil dominated by herbaceous plants, often forming a transition between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Transition mire – a wetland transition between acidic bog and alkaline fen.  Reed bed – a transitional wetland found between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Usually dominated by the common reed and can form extensive areas in lowland floodplains or fringe streams, rivers, ditches, lochans, lochs and ponds.
Woodlands	Conifer Plantation	hectares	Planted stands of conifers, excluding Scots pine. Use this category when the majority of the trees are conifers.  Includes newly planted woodland.	No further guidance
Woodlands	Natural Woodland	hectares	Woodland where the majority of trees are broadleaved species or Scots pine. (Broadleaved species such as, birch, oak, ash, hazel, or rowan).	This category includes beech and sycamore woodland, newly planted and coppiced woodland. Also, wet woodland, and woodland along rivers and streams.
Woodlands	Mixed Woodland	hectares	Woodland with a mix of broadleaved and/or Scots pine trees and conifers like spruce and larch. Including newly planted and coppiced woodland.	No further guidance
Woodlands	Scrub	hectares	Areas dominated by native species such as willow, juniper, broom, gorse, and blackthorn but not rhododendron.	Areas of scrub dominated by species such as broom, gorse, hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, elder and bramble. This refers to specific areas where scrub dominates, not scattered scrub on other habitats. Also includes areas of scrub above the natural treeline, which may include montane willows, dwarf juniper and dwarf birch.
Woodlands	Wood Pasture	hectares	Grassland interspersed with trees including agro-forestry, orchards and ancient wood pasture.	Often found in estate parklands that include large mature trees or as newly established trees in grazing situations. Timber is not the main output of this habitat.
Uplands and Peatlands	Upland Mixed Habitats	hectares	Land where it would be difficult to map individual upland habitats separately.	To be used when an area with a complex mix of Heath and/or Bog and/or Upland Grassland is difficult to map individually, in large upland areas particularly. Defined areas of the component habitats can be mapped if obvious and distinct and peatland areas of more than 0.5 ha must be mapped.
Uplands and Peatlands	Peatland	hectares	Blanket bog (or moorland bog), or lowland raised bog.	Blanket bog: often referred to as ‘moorland bog’. Waterlogged ground on peat with a substrate more than 50 cm deep, which is dominated by sphagnum mosses with cotton grasses and sometimes with extensive bog pool systems. Large, open, and relatively flat areas.  Lowland raised bog: normally an individual/distinct gently sloping dome of peat. It forms over thousands of years through accumulation of dead plant matter where a pool or lake once was. Dominated by bog mosses (sphagnums), heather species and cotton grasses. Usually evident as a raised area in the landscape compared to its surroundings (sometimes by several metres).
Uplands and Peatlands	Upland Grassland	hectares	Rough grazing grassland areas normally in large unenclosed areas of hill, moor, or mountain. Often above a hill dyke.	This is grassland often referred to as rough grazing, away from lowland in-bye, and above any hill dyke if present, (it can be found at sea level in the north and west of Scotland). Land that hasn’t been ploughed or reseeded but can include hay meadows and permanent pastures on upland farms, and fields that may have been regularly limed and/or fertilised.
Uplands and Peatlands	Heath	hectares	Land dominated by heather species. Can be dry, wet, or lowland heath.	Heathland is dominated by heather species, typically by ling heather. Drier areas will also have blaeberry and bell heather and wetter areas will have cross-leaved heath.
Coastal	Saltmarshes	hectares	Inter-tidal land or ‘merse’ ground.	Any vegetated inter-tidal land that is immersed by seawater during mean spring high tides. Also known as ‘merse’ ground.
Coastal	Sand Dunes	hectares	Coastal sand hills and ridges, and dune slacks.	No further guidance
Coastal	Grazed Machair	hectares	Machair grasslands.	Machair grasslands are dune grasslands on calcium rich sands, usually derived from wind-blown shell sand, and mostly on west facing coasts. Grazed machairs can be important nesting sites especially for wading birds and are usually very diverse in plant species.
Coastal	Cropped Machair	hectares	Machair land under rotational cropping.	Machair that is under rotational cropping and may include fallow areas usually not grazed during spring and early summer.
Coastal	Coastal Heath	hectares	A herb-rich form of heathland that occurs in exposed locations where the vegetation is strongly influenced by salt spray.	Species indicating maritime influence such as spring squill, sea plantain, thrift and sheep’s bit scabious are frequent.  Heather and other dwarf shrub growth is stunted or prostrate.
Linear	Drystone or flagstone dyke	metres	A drystone or flagstone dyke field boundary, which may be intact or not.	No further guidance
Linear	Hedge	metres	A boundary line of shrubs (generally dominated by hawthorn and blackthorn in Scotland), which can include some trees at full height and may not be continuous.	The hedge can be a single line or wider and with or without fencing. Where the hedge has been allocated its own Land Parcel Identifier (LPID), it should still be mapped as a linear feature and no other area habitat category is required.
Linear	Field Margin	metres	Land adjacent to an arable crop or temporary grassland which may be in grass or sown with a mix to benefit biodiversity and is managed differently from the majority of the field.	Larger areas may be mapped as Managed Crops for Nature if it meets the description.
Linear	Rivers & streams	metres	You only need to map rivers, streams and ditches that run water for the majority of the year that do not appear on Ordnance Survey.   We will add all rivers, streams and ditches that appear on Ordnance Survey on your farm or croft for you.	Any rivers, streams and ditches that run water for the majority of the year that do not appear on Ordnance Survey.
Linear	Line of trees	metres	A single line of trees in which individual trees have space to grow to their full size, i.e. not as part of a hedge.	No further guidance
Other habitats	Bracken	hectares	Areas of dense bracken with no forage at the base.	Individual (not cumulative) areas of dense bracken, defined as having no forage at the base within a land parcel.  Small pockets of bracken of less than 0.01 hectares do not need to be mapped.
Other habitats	INNS (Invasive non-native species)    or	hectares or point	Areas covered by invasive non-native plants such as rhododendron, Himalayan balsam, and Japanese knotweed.	Areas or point features. INNS species to note are as follows: Rhododendron ponticum, Himalayan balsam, Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed, American skunk cabbage and giant rhubarb.
Other habitats	General point feature	point	A point feature for anything that is not an Invasive non-native plant species (INNS).	Anything of note that you would like to record such as individual trees, rocky knolls or small wader scrapes.