Salmon and Sea Trout - Salmon Stock Assessment Areas

The display of this map layer is hidden when zoomed in beyond 1:50,000 scale.

Salmon Stock Assessment Areas boundaries, used by Scottish Government Marine Scotland to demarcate rivers where salmon stocks are assessed under the Salmon Conservation (Scotland) Regulations 2016. The regulations are amended annually to introduce measures for protecting stocks. Salmon Stock Assessment Areas are also used for reporting annual statistics obtained from salmon catch returns made by the owners, occupiers and agents of salmon fisheries. See links on the Statistical boundaries page for more information on the annual assessment, river grades and salmon stock management. 

Salmon Stock Assessment Areas are a subset of Scottish rivers, where there is sufficient information on salmon stocks in rivers, or groups of rivers, that their status can be assessed annually and graded for the subsequent fishing season. There are 173 Salmon Stock Assessment Areas (SSAA), made up of 215 individual or grouped rivers, 17 of which are Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) for Atlantic salmon. See information on the map layer fields below.

Salmon Stock Assessment Areas boundaries were derived by Scottish Government Marine Scotland from Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) 1:50,000 river catchment boundaries, based on 1:50,000 DTM data from the Institute of Hydrology (now the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology). For SAC rivers, the outflow boundaries include information from Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) (now NatureScot) and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

* 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 the 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). 

Salmon Stock Assessment Areas Layer:

SSAA_ID
Salmon Stock Assessment Areas ID
River and river group areas, ordered alphabetically by Salmon Fishery District and SSAA_Name

SSAA_Distr
Salmon Stock Assessment Areas District
101 District names. Eight Salmon Fishery Districts currently do not contain an assessable river or river group 

SSAA_Name
Salmon Stock Assessment Areas Name
River and grouped rivers names, including the group name (Group_Name and River_Name)

SSAA_Grade
Salmon Stock Assessment Areas Grade
River grade for the current or most recent fishing season

SSAA_NGR
SSAA National Grid Reference 
Ordnance Survey British national grid reference at river outflow

SFD_ID
Salmon Fishery District ID 
109 Districts, ordered and numbered alphabetically by SFD_Name

SFD_Name
Salmon Fishery District Name 
No record for eight Districts which currently do not contain an assessable river or river group

SFD_Order
Salmon Fishery District Order 
109 Districts, numbered consecutively in anti-clockwise order around the coast from River Tweed

SFSR_ID
Salmon Fishery Statistical Region ID
11 Regions, numbered consecutively in anti-clockwise order around the coast from River Tweed

SFSR_Name
Salmon Fishery Statistical Region Name
Regional areas used in Marine Scotland statistical reporting

GIS_ID
River catchment GIS ID
Alphanumeric ID, 'AR' (Assessment River) with number by SFD_Order and River_Name, including any GIS_GrpID

River_Name
River or Loch system Name
River_Name excludes any Group_Name

GIS_GrpID
Grouped rivers catchment GIS ID
Alphanumeric ID, 'AR' (Assessment River) with number by SFD_Order, Group_Name and River_Name

Group_Name
Grouped rivers name
Group_Name included in SSAA_Name with River_Name

SSAA_Type
Salmon Stock Assessment Areas river Type
Assessable River, Assessable River Group, SAC River

Bnd_Type
River catchment Boundary Type
SEPA Baseline, SEPA Baseline - part, SEPA Baseline & Coastal or SEPA Coastal 

BndChange
River catchment Boundary Changes
Boundary changes to SEPA catchments made by Marine Scotland

Area_sqkm
Area in square kilometres
River or SAC catchment Area calculated from British National Grid projection

Grade_2018
2018 Grade (river or river group)
2017 assessment for 2018 season. Category 1 - 3 

Grade_2019
2019 Grade (river or river group)
2018 assessment for 2019 season. Category 1 - 3 

Grade_2020
2020 Grade (river or river group)
2019 assessment for 2020 season. Category 1 - 3 

Grade_2021
2021 Grade (river or river group)
2020 assessment for 2021 season. Category 1 - 3 

Grade_2022
2022 Grade (river or river group)
2021 assessment for 2022 season. Category 1 - 3 

Grade_2023
2023 Proposed Grade (river or river group)
2022 assessment for 2023 season. Category 1 - 3