What Wetland are We Protecting and Restoring? Quantifying the Human Creation of Protected Areas in Scotland

Figures & data

Figure 1. The naturalness axis in biodiversity conservation favours wetlands which are apparently unmodified by drainage. States 1 and 2 represent the range of wetlands impacted by drainage and other physical changes (e.g. eutrophication) which restoration would aim to remove. States 3 and 4 represent wetlands which have been impacted by perceived negative changes in biodiversity (e.g. invasive species). States 5 and 6 represent functional and ‘natural’ wetlands – the most highly valued positions. Wetland restoration aims to move any particular wetland towards higher states. Generalised scheme developed by Hobbs & Harris (2001) (but see also, Machado 2004), image adapted from Keenleyside et al. (2012, 6).

Table 1. Various forms of ‘natural’ appear in legislative and policy frameworks that guide the designation, management and restoration of wetland Protected Areas. This has been a defining force of ecological conservation for more than 50 years.

Legislation/Framework/Agreement	Jurisdiction	Excerpts from Legislation/Framework/Agreement	Reference
Ramsar Convention (1971)	International	Criterion 1 to meet Ramsar’s threshold for a wetland of ‘international importance’ is that it should ‘contain a representative, rare, or unique example of a natural or near-natural wetland type found within the appropriate biogeographic region’(emphasis added).	Ramsar Convention (1971)
Water Framework Directive (2000)	European Union	In guidance defining reference states for lakes and rivers ‘natural’ is not used specifically, but is implied with the replaced terminology of ‘pressure’ meaning human influence, ‘High status or reference conditions is a state in the present or in the past corresponding to very low pressure, without the effects of major industrialisation, urbanisation and intensification of agriculture, and with only very minor modification of physicochemistry, hydromorphology and biology’	WFD 2000/60/EC Guidance Document No. 10
Criteria for selecting lakes and rivers as Sites of Special Scientific Interest	United Kingdom	Sites should be selected primarily on the basis of: ‘1) their contribution to representing the full range of natural variation in freshwater habitat conditions in the wider habitat resource (based on consideration of typicalness and rarity); and 2) their naturalness, to ensure that the most natural remaining examples are selected’	Mainstone et al. 2018, 8.

Table 2. Habitat definitions for SSSI features identified and used in this analysis. Compiled from Ratcliff 1977; Palmer, Bell, and Butterfield 1992; Mainstone et al. 2018.

SSSI habitat features	Definition
Flood-plain/meadow fens	Develops on a waterlogged, often periodically inundated flood-plain adjacent to a river or stream
Basin Fen	Develops in a waterlogged basin with limited through-flow of water. The proportion of open water, if present, is small.
Basin Fen – Shwingmoor type	A repeated process of rafting vegetation colonising an open water surface eventually sinks to form a layer of peat.
Open water transition fen	Develops around a body of open water, the proportion of open water is large.
Valley Fen	Develops along the lower slopes and floor of a small valley.
Spring Fen	Arises on a slope beneath a spring or line of water seepage. It is discrete and not part of an elongated mire.
Wet Woodland	Woodland found in poorly drained soils of different kinds. Usually dominated by Alder glutinosa, Betula (sp.) and Salix (sp.).
Loch trophic range	A loch (or series of lochs) which could be categorised within multiple trophic types.
Base-rich loch	Standing open water with pH greater than 7.4 with moderate to rich nutrient levels.
Oligotrophic Loch	Standing open water with pH between 6–7 and characteristically nutrient poor.
Mesotrophic Loch	Standing open water with pH around 7 with moderate nutrient levels.
Eutrophic Loch	Standing open water with pH greater than 7 and typically nutrient rich.
Dystrophic Loch	Standing open water with pH below 6 and characteristically nutrient poor.
Hydromorphological mire range	A series or mosaic of mire types occurring together as part of a coherent group.
Raised Bog	Can be located in lowland or upland zones, where peat has accumulated over 50 cm and forms (or formed) a dome.
Transition grassland	Community of grass species that form a transition from mire to dry species communities

Figure 2. Lochs depicted on the Roy Military Survey of Scotland (1747–1755) now designated as wetland SSSIs.

Figure 3. Lidar Composite Digital Terrain Model Scotland (Phase 3) 50 cm resolution hillshaded with modelled former maximum extent of Dowalton Loch at (c. 43 m OD) and current extent of Dowalton Loch SSSI. © Open Government Licence, accessed from EDINA Digimap service.

Figure 4. A novel ecosystems perspective on wetland value revising Figure 1. Heavily modified ecosystems can be highly valued (State A). Notably, there is no longer a single axis upon which any particular wetland can slide up or down. Restoration is represented by the sinuous arrows with restoration choosing to move ecosystems to higher valued positions (usually restoration targets ecosystems like X and Y with a goal of achieving states B and C). This framework also provides a blueprint for identifying where and what wetland archaeological perspective is useful as well as helping avoid conflict between wetland restoration and wetland archaeology preservation. Movement across abiotic barriers should include wetland archaeological analysis of drainage to improve the restoration programme while also identifying and avoiding conflicts with preservation of archaeology possibly at risk. Movement across biotic barriers could use wetland archaeology as an archive of past states if necessary to achieve higher value states.

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Data availability statement

The Roy Military Survey of Scotland data used in this paper is available in Stratigos (2016a) <https://doi.org/10.1080/14732971.2016.1248129>. Data on habitat and condition for Scottish Sites of Special Scientific Interest are available from <https://sitelink.nature.scot/home> and boundary data for Scottish Sites of Special Scientific Interest are available from<https://gateway.snh.gov.uk/natural-spaces>.