About the Habitats Dictionary Project

Habitat classification is not like species classification. There is no clearly agreed ‘taxonomy' and many different systems have been developed, often independently of each other and for different purposes. This website brings those in current use in the United Kingdom together as a single publicly accessible information resource, and allows you to compare them and select a classification suitable for your purpose. You should also refer to the website and/or publication source of the classification itself for more detailed information: this source information is contained in the metadata (select “List Classifications”). Where detailed information on individual habitat types is available on another website, the appropriate link is provided on the habitat factsheet.

The taxonomy for classification of species has been under development for over 200 years since the pioneering work of Linnaeus. The distinction between species is clearly understood by taxonomists, although they are not without disagreements and there are frequent revisions of some groups. The National Biodiversity Network has developed a Species Dictionary to provide information about the nomenclature and taxonomy of species occurring in UK.

By contrast, although botanists have been classifying vegetation for the past century, habitat classification which builds on the system of European vegetation classification so as to include abiotic features of the habitat is a relatively new development. The need for a classification has several driving forces: establishment of habitat protection legislation; inventory of habitats in a country, region, or site; biodiversity monitoring and reporting; description of a species' habitat requirements. Habitat classification systems which are scientific, unambiguous and easy to use are therefore required. Habitat classifications may either be comprehensive, enabling description of all the land and sea area concerned, or selective, covering only those habitats relevant to a particular application. An example of this distinction is that between the Biodiversity Action Plan Broad Habitats and Priority Habitats.

Habitat classifications attempt to define dividing lines between habitats, but these divisions are often much less clear-cut and more subjective than those between species. A fundamental requirement for collating and accessing habitat data in the NBN is a dictionary describing and enabling comparison between the many different systems of habitat classification used in the UK. This is necessary so that, for example, existing surveys can be used to provide information about priority habitats.

Prior to the NBN Habitats Dictionary, there was no single source of habitat information in use in the UK. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) collected together all habitat or biotope lists known to them in a central database, and made these available as the ‘Biotopes Dictionary' in the Recorder 2000/2002 software, but the translations between them so as to inter-connect different classifications have not been completed.

The NBN Habitats Dictionary was updated in March 2005 to include new versions of the Marine Habitat and EUNIS classifications and make available various obsolete versions of classifications which were used for past data collection.

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