OWLS:
About us
For a number of reasons many of Oxfordshire's diverse landscapes and habitats have changed radically over the past 40-50 years.
To gain a better understanding of these changes Oxfordshire County Council has just completed a three year landscape and biodiversity appraisal of the county. It is called the Oxfordshire Wildlife and Landscape Study (OWLS) and it was jointly sponsored by:
It is also being promoted as a national demonstration project by the main government agencies.
Its main purpose was to investigate the landscape character and biodiversity resource of the county and use the results of the survey work to help safeguard, maintain and enhance this resource. All the data collected has been incorporated into a large database accompanied by a final report. This website is a simplified version of the database which displays the information as a series of separate map layers which link to relevant parts of the report.
Potentially, it will be of interest to a wide range of different user groups including planners, conservationists and local communities.
The study has only recently been completed and no doubt it can be improved both in style and content. We would welcome any views you may have on the project so that we can take them on board and hopefully build on the work so far. Please email us at owls@oxfordshire.gov.uk. In particular, any information or images of the landscapes and wildlife habitats within your parish would be particularly useful and would add value to the overall database.
You can read the methodology behind the study here - methodology statement (pdf format, 6.4Mb).
Go to the help section for more information about how the site works. We recommend viewing this site at the highest possible screen resolution.
