The following is a short summary of the habitat type and how to create/enhance it to a "good" condition. For an informed position, please refer to official up-to-date WFD Lakes typology or the UK Government's Condition Assessment Sheet.

Water body that is over 2ha and is classed as having low alkalinity. The geological category of a freshwater lake must be determined in accordance with its alkalinity (see special notes)

Has a hard-water, low-nutrient system. Will usually be dense lawns of Stoneworts Chara spp. that usually cover muddy marl (calcium carbonate) deposits. These lakes are characterised by a high pH and often have very clear water. Widespread, across a range of altitudes in NW and N Scotland, the outer Isles, Dumfries and Galloway, Cumbria, Pennines and mid and N Wales (Source: HM Government)

How to Create / Enhance to a "Good" condition

There are a set of criteria that are used to judge the condition of this habitat. These are listed below.

Condition Assessment Criteria

The Freshwater Biological Association ‘Habitat Naturalness Assessment’ is used to assess the condition of lakes. Scores for four attributes (physical, hydrological, chemical, and biological naturalness) are averaged to generate an overall 'habitat naturalness assessment score' which can then be translated into a condition score for use in the metric (see below).

There are other elements considered in the lake naturalness assessment, but these are not included when calculating the condition assessment score.

Details of the methodology for assessing naturalness of lakes are available at: Contribute naturalness data – Discovering Priority Habitats in England

The key documents are:

Lake naturalness assessment – guidance document (PDF)

Annex I – Printable lake naturalness survey form to use in field (PDF)

Annex II – Physical naturalness photographs (PDF)

Annex-III - Hydrological naturalness photographs (PDF)

Annex IV – Chemical naturalness photographs (PDF)

Annex V – Plant functional group photographs (PDF)

Annex VI – Further species recording (PDF)

We encourage recording of data on lakes on the Freshwater Biological Association ‘Habitat Naturalness Assessment’ website portal: Contribute data – Discovering Priority Habitats in England (wpengine.com)

Average 'Habitat Naturalness Assessment' Class	Condition Assessment Score
1 Natural	Good (3)
2	Fairly good (2.5)
3	Moderate (2)
4	Fairly poor (1.5)
5 Least natural	Poor (1)