Not Planned

The Crown Estate has awarded 11 lease agreements to marine energy developers in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters. This is the world's first commercial leasing round for wave and tidal renewable energy generation. 11 agreements were signed for six wave and five tidal projects with a potential capacity to generate 1.6 GW of marine energy, sufficient capacity to power over one fifth of Scottish households. The capital investment required within the Pentland Firth and Orkney waters is estimated to be between £2-3 billion between 2010 and 2020. The Crown Estate has also estimated that this could build up to £300 million per annum of operation and maintenance service requirements by 2020. The award of leases was an important milestone for the global sector and shows Scotland's position at the forefront of marine energy development. The Pentland Firth and Orkney waters projects will be an important contribution to UK and European renewable energy targets. Scottish Ministers are responsible for licensing and consenting the projects, utilising the new streamlined marine planning and consenting regime in the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010.

This layer is a simplified representation of the data available through the North Sea Interactive (NSI) project carried out by Heriot Watt University, BGS and National Oceanography Centre. It combines information from the NSI product and the oil and gas licensed areas layers to highlight what type of sampling has been conducted in each area as part of the offshore environmental surveys carried out by oil and gas operators.

Salmon Fishery Statistical Region boundaries, used by Scottish Government Marine Scotland for reporting annual statistics obtained from salmon catch returns made by the owners/occupiers/agents of salmon fisheries. (Salmon Fishery Statistical Districts amalgamated into Regions.)  Salmon Fishery Statistical Region boundaries were derived by Scottish Government Marine Scotland from Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Catchment boundaries, Institute of Hydrology 1:50,000 DTM data and the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1868, with some input from District Salmon Fishery Boards.

* Please Note * This layer was derived by the Scottish Government from a licensed dataset. It is not downloadable or routinely available.

The data can be shared on request if a user provides evidence that they hold a licence from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) for the 1:50,000 Digital Terrain Model (DTM).

Marine planning zones set out the boundaries for local planning authorities responsibilities for planning controls of marine fish and shellfish farms in Scottish waters.

The Town and Country Planning (Marine Fish Farming) (Scotland) Order 2007 as amended by The Town and Country Planning (Marine Fish Farming) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2025 describes marine planning zone boundaries for each designated planning authority.

Please note that for simplicity, this illustrative layer might contain planar lines (straight lines derived on the British National Grid Co-ordinate Reference System) in place of loxodromic lines (lines of constant bearing).