Geokuup Metadata Catalogue
Recommended riparian buffer strip width
Recommended riparian buffer strip widths for natural water bodies and drainage ditches in Estonia, calculated based on soil and terrain characteristics to estimate how wide the buffer strip should ideally be if agricultural land is located adjacent to the water body (Uuemaa et al. 2026). Buffer strips were calculated for all water bodies subject to water protection zone requirements; however, where no agricultural land is present near the water body, a buffer strip may not be necessary.
Attributes
Name: stream name for which the buffer applies
ehitise_ko: drainage system construction code
ehitise_ni: drainage system construction name
ms_kood: drainage system code
References:
Uuemaa, K., Kmoch, A., Kull, A., Mõisja, K., Tominga, H.I., Mander, Ü., 2026. National-scale geospatial modelling of recommended riparian buffer widths. Ecological Engineering.
Simple
- Date (Publication)
- 2026-05-04
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Landscape Geoinformatics Lab, Univesrity of Tartu
Evelyn Uuema
Principal investigator
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
- Theme
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- Place
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World
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- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- otherRestictions
- Other constraints
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License CC-BY 4.0 ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Please cite:
Uuemaa, K., Kmoch, A., Kull, A., Mõisja, K., Tominga, H.I., Mander, Ü., 2026. National-scale geospatial modelling of recommended riparian buffer widths. Ecological Engineering.
- Spatial representation type
- Vector
- Denominator
- 10000
- Language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Topic category
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- Inland waters
- Begin date
- 2025-01-01
- End date
- 2025-12-31
))
- Reference system identifier
- L-EST97 (EPSG:3301)
- Distribution format
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Name Version
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name OGC:WMS
https://maps.landscape-geoinformatics.org/geoserver/veemajandus/wms soovituslik_puhverriba_geomeetria
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Statement
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The recommended riparian buffer strip width dataset was generated using a national-scale geospatial modelling workflow implemented in Python and QGIS, based on the empirical nomograph of Mander and Kuusemets (1998). Input data included a 5 m digital elevation model (Estonian Land and Development Board, 2025), EstSoil-EH soil dataset, natural water bodies, and drainage ditch datasets for Estonia. Slope, flow accumulation, flow length, and LS-factor were derived from the elevation model and combined into a composite specific slope length index. Soil texture classes were reclassified according to the nomograph requirements. Estonia was processed in 22 overlapping zones with 5 km buffers to preserve hydrological continuity and minimise edge effects. The resulting raster of recommended buffer widths was vectorised along water bodies into 5 m segments and then dissolved into one continuous buffer.
Estonian Land and Spatial Development Board, 2025. Elevation Data. URL: https://geoportaal.maaamet.ee/eng/spatial-data/elevation-data-p308.html (October 2025).
Kmoch, A., Kanal, A., Astover, A., Kull, A., Virro, H., Helm, A., Pärtel, M., Ostonen, I., and Uuemaa, E., 2021. EstSoil-EH: a high-resolution eco-hydrological modelling parameters dataset for Estonia. Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 83–97, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-83-2021.
Mander, Ü., Kuusemets, V., 1998. Mander, Ü. and Kuusemets, V. 1998. Non-point pollution control by riparian buffer strips: Dimensioning and efficiency assessment., in: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Diffuse Pollution. Edinburgh, pp. 136–143
Uuemaa, K., Kmoch, A., Kull, A., Mõisja, K., Tominga, H.I., Mander, Ü., 2026. National-scale geospatial modelling of recommended riparian buffer widths. Ecological Engineering.
Metadata
- File identifier
- ba333a33-88a6-453f-b2bb-e5c1ac121527 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Date stamp
- 2026-05-24T15:07:01.933Z
- Metadata standard name
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ISO 19115:2003/19139
- Metadata standard version
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1.0
- Metadata author
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Landscape Geoinformatics Lab, University of Tartu
Evelyn Uuemaa
Point of contact
- Other language
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Language Character encoding Estonian UTF8 English UTF8
