Site-specific conservation objectives aim to define favourable conservation condition for species and habitats within SPAs and SACs. This project relates to the SPA special conservation interest "wetlands and waterbirds" under EU Birds Directive (2009/147/EC).

The CO_A999_Wetlands_and_Waterbirds feature class is a polygon dataset representing the wetland component within SPA sites for which Conservation Objectives have been set. This dataset has used the OSi Discovery Series (1:50,000) mapping as its base mapping. The following datasets have also been used in the creation of the CO_A999_Wetlands_and_Waterbirds dataset:

• OSi 2005 Orthophography (1:40,000),
• smp_national_sm_resource_revised_GIS_2011.shp dataset which contains Saltmarsh habitat information from a number of different surveys,
• Inventory_of_Irish_Coastal_Lagoons_2011_polygons.shp dataset which contains information on the lagoons identified in the Inventory of Coastal Lagoons 2007 report.

It should be noted that the primary motive of this exercise is to define the overall boundary of what is regarded as wetland habitat in the context of CO_A999.

Favourable conservation condition of wetland habitat is achieved when:

• the permanent area it occupies is stable and not significantly less than the area given other than that occurring from natural patterns of variation.

Mapping of the wetland area is used to define the area of wetland habitat at site level.