The map displays simplified boundaries for either Government Regions, National Character Areas, or Counties.

The tabular information accompanying the map was compiled by overlaying the digital boundaries of the different agreements (Wildlife Enhancement Scheme (WES), Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA), and Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS)), with Sites of Special Scientific Interest Unit boundaries using a Geographical Information System. The condition of the SSSI units with Agri-environment agreements was then calculated, along with the cost of those agreements and the areas involved.

This data was then aggregated at three different geographical levels - Region, County and National Character Area. The analysis was repeated for the four financial years for which adequate data exist, and for the changes between the different combinations of those financial years.

The table of data accompanying the map presents this information for the time period you select, and for the geographic feature that you select, either using the map or the drop-down list.

The columns in the table show the area in hectares covered by agreements within SSSIs ("Agreement Area (ha)"), the total amount spent on these particular agreements ("Total Cost (£)") and the percentage of the area covered by agreements that meets the PSA Target ie is in favourable or recovering condition ("% area meeting PSA Target"). The rows in the table represent the different agreement types as described above.

Next year we hope to introduce summary figures showing the contribution that the new Higher Level funding scheme agreements will begin to make to SSSI condition.

The Counties data in this map is different to the Counties presented elsewhere in Nature on the Map. These Counties are derived from... The Counties in the other maps are derived from the Ordnance Survey BoundaryLine product and represent the boundaries of local government authorities.

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