| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 | |
  Location within Somerset | |
| Area of Search | Somerset |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | ST390360 |
| Coordinates | 51°07′12″N2°52′23″W / 51.12002°N 2.87293°W Coordinates: 51°07′12″N2°52′23″W / 51.12002°N 2.87293°W |
| Interest | Biological |
| Area | 226 hectares (2.26 km2; 0.87 sq mi) |
| Notification | 1985 |
| Natural England website | |
Moorlinch (grid reference ST390360 ) is a 226.0 hectare (558.4 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Moorlinch in Somerset, notified in 1985.
The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, distinct from latitude and longitude. It is often called British National Grid (BNG).
The hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides, or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres.
Moorlinch is a village and civil parish where the Polden Hills meet the Somerset Levels in the Sedgemoor district of Somerset, England.
Moorlinch is part of the extensive grazing marsh grasslands and ditch systems of the Somerset Levels and Moors. Lying in the Parrett Basin at the foot of the Polden Hills, the area drains by gravity into the King’s Sedgemoor Drain. The water table is high for most of the year with frequent winter flooding from high ground and surface water remaining on many fields throughout the winter and early spring. Moorlinch contains a good proportion of botanically rich ditch systems. Regularly maintained field ditches are often species-rich and diverse. Notable species include Lesser Water-plantain (Baldellia ranunculoides), Tubular Water-dropwort (Oenanthe fistulosa) and Hairlike Pondweed (Potamogeton trichoides). The channels and banksides support a rich fauna; rare species include the water beetle (Hydrophilus piceus) and the soldier fly (Odontomyia ornata). Large populations of dragonflies and damselflies occur, including the Hairy Dragonfly (Brachytron pratense) and the Variable Damselfly (Coenagrion pulchellum). [1]
The Somerset Levels are a coastal plain and wetland area of Somerset, England, running south from the Mendips to the Blackdown Hills.
The River Parrett flows through the counties of Dorset and Somerset in South West England, from its source in the Thorney Mills springs in the hills around Chedington in Dorset. Flowing northwest through Somerset and the Somerset Levels to its mouth at Burnham-on-Sea, into the Bridgwater Bay nature reserve on the Bristol Channel, the Parrett and its tributaries drain an area of 660 square miles (1,700 km2) – about 50 per cent of Somerset's land area, with a population of 300,000.
The Polden Hills in Somerset, England are a long, low ridge, extending for 10 miles (16 km), and separated from the Mendip Hills, to which they are nearly parallel, by a marshy tract, known as the Somerset Levels. They are now bisected at their western end by the M5 motorway and a railway, the Bristol and Exeter Railway, part of the Great Western Main Line.
