Sites of Special Scientific Interest Site (SSSI) Units are divisions of SSSIs based on habitat, tenure and management, and are the basis for recording all information on SSSI Condition and management. They range in Area from 0.004ha up to 18,000ha and only overlap where SSSIs overlap. A SSSI is the land notified as an SSSI under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981), as amended. Sites notified under the 1949 Act only are not included in the Data set. SSSI are the finest sites for wildlife and natural features in England, supporting many characteristic, rare and endangered species, habitats and natural features. The data does Not include "proposed" sites. Boundaries are generally mapped against Ordnance Survey MasterMap.Full metadata can be viewed on data.gov.uk.

Defra produces a range of publications which are available on the GOV.UK website. Each publication is given a unique reference number (URN) which is known internally as a PB number. This dataset lists the publications, their URN and the date the URN was issued.

A highly granular large dataset of 10,908,440 admissions, curated by PIONEER to look at matching DEFRA’s air pollution data to the patients registered address. The data includes demography, admission details, diagnostic codes (ICD-10 & SNOMED-CT), respiratory data, medications, presenting complaints all linked to DEFRA air quality. This dataset offers an exceptional resource for researchers seeking to understand the short- and long-term impacts of air quality on health outcomes. This dataset synergises DEFRA air pollution data with anonymised health records to offer an opportunity for multidisciplinary research in environmental health, epidemiology and beyond. The current dataset includes admissions from 01-01-2000 to 31-08-2023 but can be expanded to assess other timelines of interest.

Geography: The West Midlands (WM) has a population of 6 million & includes a diverse ethnic & socio-economic mix. UHB is one of the largest NHS Trusts in England, providing direct acute services & specialist care across four hospital sites, with 2.2 million patient episodes per year, 2750 beds & > 120 ITU bed capacity. UHB runs a fully electronic healthcare record (EHR) (PICS; Birmingham Systems), a shared primary & secondary care record (Your Care Connected) & a patient portal “My Health”.

DEFRA

Air quality data has been extracted from sampling stations in the Birmingham area, hourly rates of volatile and non-volatile particulates, hydrocarbons, sulphur dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. Each station covers a subset of the pollutants, so this may not necessarily be the full set. © Crown 2024 copyright Defra via uk-air.defra.gov.uk, licenced under the Open Government Licence (OGL).

Data set availability: Data access is available via the PIONEER Hub for projects which will benefit the public or patients. This can be by developing a new understanding of disease, by providing insights into how to improve care, or by developing new models, tools, treatments, or care processes. Data access can be provided to NHS, academic, commercial, policy and third sector organisations. Applications from SMEs are welcome. There is a single data access process, with public oversight provided by our public review committee, the Data Trust Committee. Contact pioneer@uhb.nhs.uk or visit www.pioneerdatahub.co.uk for more details.

Available supplementary data: Matched controls; ambulance and community data. Unstructured data (images). We can build synthetic data to meet bespoke requirements.

Available supplementary support: Analytics, model build, validation & refinement; A.I. support. Data partner support for ETL (extract, transform & load) processes. Bespoke and “off the shelf” Trusted Research Environment (TRE) build and run. Consultancy with clinical, patient & end-user and purchaser access/ support. Support for regulatory requirements. Cohort discovery. Data-driven trials and “fast screen” services to assess population size.

Annually produced 1x1km background concentrations from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) national Pollution Climate (PCM) models. These are typically (but not uniquely) annual mean concentrations. The download webpage shows the years available for each pollutant and provides additional information on the relevant units/metrics. The model results are used in conjunction with measured concentrations from Defra's national monitoring networks to provide an air quality assessment that is reported to the European Commission in accordance with European Directives. The methodology and results are described in a mapping report published by Defra on UKAIR website. Note that these background maps are distinct from the source sector split concentration maps produced for Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) purposes and should not be used for LAQM operations.

Policies requiring biodiversity no net loss or net gain as an outcome of environmental planning have become more prominent worldwide, catalysing interest in biodiversity offsetting as a mechanism to compensate for development impacts on nature. Offsets rely on credible and evidence-based methods to quantify biodiversity losses and gains. Following the introduction of the United Kingdom’s Environment Act in November 2021, all new developments requiring planning permission in England are expected to demonstrate a 10% biodiversity net gain from 2024, calculated using the statutory biodiversity metric framework (Defra, 2023). The metric is used to calculate both baseline and proposed post-development biodiversity units, and is set to play an increasingly prominent role in nature conservation nationwide. The metric has so far received limited scientific scrutiny. This dataset comprises a database of statutory biodiversity metric unit values for terrestrial habitat samples across England. For each habitat sample, we present biodiversity units alongside five long-established single-attribute proxies for biodiversity (species richness, individual abundance, number of threatened species, mean species range or population, mean species range or population change). Data were compiled for species from three taxa (vascular plants, butterflies, birds), from sites across England. The dataset includes 24 sites within grassland, wetland, woodland and forest, sparsely vegetated land, cropland, heathland and shrub, i.e. all terrestrial broad habitats except urban and individual trees. Species data were reused from long-term ecological change monitoring datasets (mostly in the public domain), whilst biodiversity units were calculated following field visits. Fieldwork was carried out in April-October 2022 to calculate biodiversity units for the samples. Sites were initially assessed using metric version 3.1, which was current at the time of survey, and were subsequently updated to the statutory metric for analysis using field notes and species data. Species data were derived from 24 long-term ecological change monitoring sites across the Environmental Change Network (ECN), Long Term Monitoring Network (LTMN) and Ecological Continuity Trust (ECT), collected between 2010 and 2020. Methods Study sites We studied 24 sites across the Environmental Change Network (ECN), Long Term Monitoring Network (LTMN) and Ecological Continuity Trust (ECT). Biodiversity units were calculated following field visits by the authors, whilst species data (response variables) were derived from long-term ecological change monitoring datasets collected by the sites and mostly held in the public domain (Table S1). We used all seven ECN sites in England. We selected a complementary 13 LTMN sites to give good geographic and habitat representation across England. We included four datasets from sites supported by the ECT where 2 x 2m vascular plant quadrat data were available for reuse. The 24 sites included samples from all terrestrial broad habitats (sensu Defra 2023) in England, except urban and individual trees: grassland (8), wetland (6), woodland and forest (5), sparsely vegetated land (2), cropland (2), heathland and shrub (1). Non-terrestrial broad habitats (rivers and lakes, marine inlets and transitional waters) were excluded. Our samples ranged in biodiversity unit scores from 2 to 24, the full range of the metric. Not all 24 sites had long-term datasets from all taxa: 23 had vascular plant data, 8 had bird data, and 13 had butterfly data. We chose these three taxa as they are the most comprehensively surveyed taxa in England’s long-term biological datasets. Together they represent a taxonomically broad, although by no means representative, sample of English nature. Biodiversity unit calculation Baseline biodiversity units were attributed to each vegetation quadrat using the statutory biodiversity metric (Defra, 2023) (Equation 1). Sites were visited by the authors between April and October 2022, i.e. within the optimal survey period indicated in the metric guidance. Sites were assessed initially using metric version 3.1 (Panks et al., 2022), which was current at the time of survey, and were subsequently updated to the statutory metric for analysis using field notes and species data.. Following the biodiversity metric guidance, we calculated biodiversity units at the habitat parcel scale, such that polygons with consistent habitat type and condition are the unit of assessment. We assigned habitat type and condition score to all quadrats falling within the parcel. Where the current site conditions (2022) and quadrat data (2010 to 2020) differed from each other in habitat or condition, e.g. the % bracken cover, we deferred to the quadrat data in order to match our response and explanatory variables more fairly. Across all samples, area was set to 1 ha arbitrarily, and strategic significance set to 1 (no strategic significance), to allow comparison between sites. To assign biodiversity units to the bird and butterfly transects, we averaged the biodiversity units of plant quadrats within the transect routes plus a buffer of 500 m (birds) or 100 m (butterflies). Quadrats were positioned to represent the habitats present at each site proportionally, and transect routes were also positioned to represent the habitats present across each site. Although units have been calculated as precisely as possible for all taxa, we recognize that biodiversity units are calculated more precisely for the plant dataset than the bird and butterfly dataset: the size of transect buffer is subjective, and some transects run adjacent to offsite habitat that could not be accessed. Further detail about biodiversity unit calculation can be found in the Supporting Information. Equation 1. Biodiversity unit calculation following the statutory biodiversity metric (Defra, 2023) Size of habitat parcel × Distinctiveness × Condition × Strategic Significance = Biodiversity Units Species response variable calculation We reused species datasets for plants, birds and butterflies recorded by the sites to calculate our response variables (Table S1). Plant species presence data were recorded using 2 x 2m quadrats of all vascular plant species at approximately 50 sample locations per site (mean 48.1, sd 3.7), stratified to represent all habitat types on site. If the quadrat fell within woodland or scrub, trees and shrubs rooted within a 10 x 10 m plot centred on the quadrat were also counted and added to the quadrat species records, with any duplicate species records removed. We treated each quadrat as a sample point, and the most recent census year was analysed (ranging between 2011-2021). Bird data were collected annually using the Breeding Birds Survey method of the British Trust for Ornithology: two approximately parallel 1 km long transects were routed through representative habitat on each site. The five most recent census years were analysed (all fell between 2006-2019), treating each year as a sample point (Bateman et al., 2013). Butterfly data were collected annually using the Pollard Walk method of the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme: a fixed transect route taking 30 to 90 minutes to walk (c. 1-2 km) was established through representative habitat on each site. The five most recent census years were analysed (all fell between 2006-2019), treating each year as a sample point. Full detail of how these datasets were originally collected in the field can be found in Supporting Information. For species richness estimates we omitted any records with vague taxon names not resolved to species level. Subspecies records were put back to the species level, as infraspecific taxa were recorded inconsistently across sites. Species synonyms were standardised across all sites prior to analysis. For bird abundance we used the maximum count of individuals recorded per site per year for each species as per the standard approach (Bateman et al., 2013). For butterfly abundance we used sum abundance over 26 weekly visits each year for each species at each site, using a GAM to interpolate missing weekly values (Dennis et al., 2013). Designated taxa were identified using the Great Britain Red List data held by JNCC (2022); species with any Red List designation other than Data Deficient or Least Concern were summed. Plant species range and range change index data followed PLANTATT (Hill et al., 2004). Range was measured as the number of 10x10 km cells across Great Britain that a species is found in. The change index measures the relative magnitude of range size change in standardised residuals, comparing 1930-1960 with 1987-1999. For birds, species mean population size across Great Britain followed Musgrove et al., 2013. We used the breeding season population size estimates to match field surveys. Bird long-term population percentage change (generally 1970-2014) followed Defra (2017). For butterflies, range and change data followed Fox et al., 2015. Range data was occupancy of UK 10 km squares 2010-2014. Change was percent abundance change 1976-2014. For all taxa, mean range and mean change were averaged from all the species present in the sample, not weighted by the species’ abundance in the sample. · Bateman, I. J., Harwood, A. R., Mace, G. M., Watson, R. T., Abson, D. J., Andrews, B., et al. (2013). Bringing ecosystem services into economic decision-making: Land use in the United Kingdom. Science (80-. ). 341, 45–50. doi: 10.1126/science.1234379. · British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), 2022. Breeding Bird methodology and survey design. Available online at https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/breeding-bird-survey/research-conservation/methodology-and-survey-design · Defra, 2023. Statutory biodiversity metric tools and guides. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statutory-biodiversity-metric-tools-and-guides. · Dennis, E. B., Freeman, S. N., Brereton, T., and

Monthly utility data for individual sites across the Defra estate from July 2012 to April 2016.

This dataset is currently updated every 6 months. Data on landfill sites that are surrendered or revoked will move from the Authorised Landfill Layer but may not be updated into this dataset on the same frequency.

This data is a national historic landfill dataset that defines the location of and provides specific attributes for known historic landfill sites. An historic landfill is a site where there is no environmental permit in force. The Environment Agency is not the regulator for historic landfills. The dataset includes sites that existed before landfills were regulated. Much of this pre-licensing data was derived from a national survey in the early 1990s so it may be incomplete. It also includes sites that were licensed (permitted) where that licence is no longer in force, in accordance with the legislation at the time. The Historic Landfill dataset includes information that is held by either the local authority or the Environment Agency. The data is available in ESRI shape file format, with the boundaries digitised from a base scale of 1:10,000 and an associated attribute table comprising 34 fields. Where information is available, the polygons and attributes describe where the sites were located, when they were used, who used them and what was deposited. Where sites were licensed, there are name and address fields, licensee and operator information, licence issue and surrender dates, first and last input dates and waste types, together with some historical comments. Where an attribute is incomplete, that detail is not available.

NOx data are from chemiluminescent NOx analysers (API T200). PM10 and PM2.5 data are from BAM instruments. Hourly observations are shown. BCC data have been ratified and corrected in accordance with UK air quality guidance LAQM TG.22. For the ratification of Defra data, please refer to the UK-AIR website. Data from the Defra sites are reproduced under © Crown 2019 copyright Defra via uk-air.defra.gov.uk, licenced under the Open Government Licence (OGL).

These data are based on the UK rainfall chemistry data held on the UK-AIR database operated on behalf of Defra (http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/). A subset of 20 sites was analysed, being those with the longest continuous data record from 1986 to 2011. Rainfall samples from bulk collectors were taken weekly or two-weekly at sites across the UK and analyzed by a central laboratory. The raw reported data contain some samples which were contaminated by bird droppings, or by wind-blown dust, and should not be used to estimate annual or long-term wet deposition at the measurement sites. Some samples were missing for other reasons, such as physical loss of the rain sample prior to analysis. Following identification and removal of contaminated sample data, the missing data were estimated, where possible, using statistical interpolation across both time and space with the GENSTAT procedure MULTMISSING. The final datasets contain the accepted and estimated data values, flagged as appropriate. The data filenames correspond to the sites as listed in the UK-AIR database (Allt a'Mharcaidh, Bannisdale, Barcombe Mills, Bottesford, Eskdalemuir, Flatford Mill, Goonhilly, High Muffles, Hillsborough, Loch Dee, Lough Navar, Preston Montford, Pumlumon, Stoke Ferry, Strathvaich, Thorganby, Tycanol Wood,Wardlow Hay Cop, Whiteadder, Yarner Wood). This cleaned dataset was prepared by Neil Cape, Ron Smith and David Leaver at CEH Edinburgh on behalf of Defra and the Devolved Administrations under the project Pollutant Deposition Processes. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/ada39609-ddec-4cbe-85c2-4fdd6bd774d7

Provisional Agricultural Land Classification Grade. Agricultural land classified into five grades. Grade one is best quality and grade five is poorest quality. A number of consistent criteria used for assessment which include climate (temperature, rainfall, aspect, exposure, frost risk), site (gradient, micro-relief, flood risk) and soil (depth, structure, texture, chemicals, stoniness) for England only. Digitised from the published 1:250,000 map which was in turn compiled from the 1 inch to the mile maps.More information about the Agricultural Land Classification can be found at the following links:http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130402200910/http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/landmanage/land-use/documents/alc-guidelines-1988.pdfhttp://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/35012.Full metadata can be viewed on data.gov.uk.

Monthly utility data for individual sites across the Defra estate from July 2012 to April 2016. Attribution statement:

This file was created from the data.gov.uk nightly data dumps from 23 February 2016

It was used it to build an understanding of the diversity of data that Defra Group publishes and apply themes at a more detailed level than those currently provided in the data.gov.uk data dump.

OpenDefra Attribution statement:

A Special Protection Area (SPA) is the land designated under Directive 2009/147/EC on the Conservation of Wild Birds. SPAs are strictly protected sites classified in accordance with Article 4 of the EC Birds Directive, which came into force in April 1979. They are classified for rare and vulnerable birds (as listed on Annex I of the Directive), and for regularly occurring migratory species. Data supplied has the status "Classified". The data does not include "Potential" sites. Boundaries are mapped against Ordnance Survey MasterMap.Full metadata can be viewed on data.gov.uk.

Natural England's focus areas for each Area Team. The focus areas are typically where Natural England (NE) are targeting more than one delivery programme. So these areas are the key opportunities for Natural England to integrate its delivery to achieve better outcomes. The focus areas are the best picture NE have about where we need to concentrate effort in order to achieve our biodiversity, landscape, access, engagement and other land management objectives. They show where we currently focus more effort. The focus areas are also the best overview we have of future priorities, but this is not yet a perfect picture. We expect this map to evolve. The focus areas are not intended to represent the views or priorities of all the organisations which contribute to natural environment outcomes. However, we have taken account of other Defra partners‟ delivery programmes and also those of some other key partners. We want to have more discussions with partners and stakeholders to hear whether our local delivery offer makes sense in the context of what we are all jointly trying to achieve. The focus areas are a broad guide as to where we anticipate focusing more effort in future; but it should not be interpreted too precisely. We can adjust boundaries locally as makes sense to our delivery programmes or customers. The focus areas capture the majority of our geographically targeted work and especially where different programmes overlap, but each programme will continue to target some of its delivery elsewhere. We want to focus proportionately more of our resource in focus areas and Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) over time, to maximise the benefits of our limited resource, and make a big difference in certain places, rather than not enough difference everywhere. This is a strong steer, but not a moratorium on projects that are outside focus areas. Small scale investment outside the focus areas, which act as a catalyst or lever for others‟ investment, may be legitimate. We have limited this approach to our terrestrial delivery at the moment. However, we have included many coastal stretches and have taken particular account of where the coast abuts a potential marine designation, to encourage integration with our marine work and to take account of the links with offshore processes such as sediment flow. While the current priority for marine work is the site designation process, we would aspire to develop marine spatial priorities over time.Full metadata can be viewed on data.gov.uk.

Monthly utility data for individual sites across the Defra estate from July 2012 to April 2016. Attribution statement:

A Ramsar site is the land listed as a Wetland of International Importance under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (the Ramsar Convention) 1971. Data supplied has the status of "Listed". The data does not include "Proposed" sites. Boundaries are mapped against Ordnance Survey MasterMap.Full metadata can be viewed on data.gov.uk.