Modelled gridded data of aquaculture potential in the Dorset and East Devon Fisheries Local Action Group area, 2018-2019

Gridded data (GeoTiff format) produced in the context of the FLAG Aquaculture Mapping project (2018-2019). The purpose of the project was to identify and map areas best suited (and with least conflict) to specific types of sustainable marine aquaculture, within the boundaries of the Dorset and East Devon Fisheries Local Action Group (FLAG) area. The aquaculture potential layers were derived by combining information on conservation and legislative boundaries, human infrastructure and activity constraints, with environmental requirements for various combinations of aquaculture species and growing system, to identify areas of potential for each species/system combination. The filenames of layers representing unique species/system combinations are in the format: ‘Dorset EDevon FLAG species-name growing-system AquaPotential.tif’. The filenames of layers representing grouped species/systems are in the format: ‘Dorset-EDevon-FLAG species-group ALL AquaPotential.tif’. The data layers represent a broad overview of aquaculture potential in the Dorset and East Devon FLAG area, but detailed site-specific investigations would be required for local planning applications and licensing purposes. Modelled raster layers (GeoTiff format) of aquaculture potential with values ranging between 0 and 1, where the value 0 represents no potential and 1 represents full potential. Each gridded layer was derived by modelling a suitability score based on environmental requirements for the specific combination of species and culture method, then masking with an exclusion layer based on relevant conservation, legislative, human infrastructure feature and activity boundaries, setting cells in areas of conflict to 0.