Report Cover Vol I - Clare County Library

The County Clare Wetlands Survey Patrick Crushell & Peter Foss 2008
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1.4 Other reports holding wetland information on Clare
A series of other reports holding information on a limited number of wetland sites in County Clare were
consulted. A full list of these reports, studies and surveys can be seen in CWS Appendix 1.
In the case of each report the sites listed in County Clare were screened against the existing sites in the
CWS database. If a site was not located within the CWS database, a new database site record was
created.
In the case of both new and existing site records, data on the scientific interest present on the site,
previous research source, habitats present, and basic site information was recorded within the CWS
database.
The data for these sites was imported manually from the various published reports.
2.1 Sites from CWS site database
2 CWS GIS Database
A shapefile was created from an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet exported from the CWS site database. This
dataset contained point information showing the location of each CWS site recorded from the extensive
literature search and input from third parties.
Each point denoting a site had basic site information (originating from CWS site database) associated
with recorded in various attribute fields including CWS site name, CWS site code, designation etc. The
location of each point was subsequently checked using GIS to ensure that grid references were correct.
2.2 Designated sites – NHA/SAC/SPA
Site boundary files for all existing NHA, SAC and SPA site in County Clare were obtained from NPWS and
directly imported into the CWS GIS. These boundary files were subsequently used to denote the
boundaries of many CWS sites (those lying within designated sites). Where a CWS site was found to lie
within a designated site, the boundary of the appropriate designated site was exported into a CWS site
boundary shape-file. This shapefiles has a number of attributes including; source of the boundary, CWS
site Code(s), calculated area, X_coord (easting), Y_coord (northing) of the polygon centroid.
In many cases, CWS sites had no existing boundaries associated with them especially in the cases where:
they lay within a large designated site complex; or sites that had never been previously mapped
(including many cNHA’s). In the case where sites were contained within much larger designated sites,
individual boundaries were not drawn, but the subsites were recorded in the attributes of the larger
boundary. In the case where sites were outside of existing boundaries, a boundary was generated where
on inspection the site was clearly visible on the aerial photograph and other base-maps.
Unfortunately, in some cases, CWS sites do not have boundaries associated with them as it was not
possible to confirm the wetland area by referring to the relevant base-maps and background site data
available.
2.3 Habitat type datasets
Many existing datasets (as listed in Appendix 1) were imported directly into the CWS GIS. Each habitat
unit was then exported from its source into a CWS habitat (polygon) shapefile. This shapefile had a
number of attribute fields associated with it including source, area and habitat type recorded as the alpha
numeric code assigned by Fossitt (2000). Due to the different sources of the data it was often necessary
to transform the habitat data into an appropriate Fossitt category. Where it was not possible to attain
level 1 in Fossitt, then the habitat was assigned into a category ‘CWS unknown wetland type’.
In the case of rivers, data was extracted from one primary source and imported into a separate CWS
(linear) shapefile. Similarly with springs, the data was displayed in a separate (point) shapefile. The
same attributes were assigned to these shapefiles as the polygon one above.
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