County Wildife Site Criteria for Cornwall Appendices

BLANKET BOG: CommentsData SourcesSoil data for SW EnglandNCC Upland VegetationSurveyThe DefinitionGoodReliability of PHTInterpretationAverageOverall AssessmentPoorCommentThe soil data is held as a dataset on GIS.The Upland Vegetation Survey was carried out using acombination of NVC and the Birks and Ratcliffe classification,but there is no significant problem in converting Birks andRatcliffe to NVC.CommentThere is a clear definition that is easy to understand.ExplanationIf there are any blanket bogs in Cornwall they are severelydegraded. They depend for their identification on acombination of peat depth and NVC community to separatethem from wet Lowland Heath. The NVC community mustoverlie peat with a depth of more than 50cm to qualify asBlanket Bog rather than wet heathCommentsWe decided to map the extent of this PHT by using acombination of the peat depth of more than 80cm and the M15NVC community. This may mark out the areas of severelydegraded blanket bog or it might be better considered to besome form of wet heath.As there is doubt whether any of these areas even qualify aswet heath, it seems reasonable to doubt whether any of theselected areas can really be considered to be Blanket Bog PHT.Appendix 4 - Information Relating to Priority Habitat TypesCounty Wildlife Sites Criteria