Habitat Mapping

Habitat maps of the marine environment are required to provide a better understanding of the distribution and extent of marine habitats, both at particular protected sites and across the wider environment. Knowledge of the distribution of marine habitats serves to establish sensible approaches to the conservation needs of each habitat and to facilitate better management of the marine environment through an understanding of how particular human activities are undertaken in relation to marine habitats.

Seabed habitat maps for the UK continental shelf area are currently being updated as part of UKSeaMap 2010. UKSeaMap 2010 will use the EUNIS habitat classification system to classify seabed habitats. Results from the project will be made available in Spring 2010.

JNCC led a 3-year international marine habitat mapping programme entitled 'Development of a framework for Mapping European Seabed Habitats', or MESH for short, which started in spring 2004. A consortium of 12 partners across the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France gained financial support from the EU INTERREG IIIB fund for this international marine habitat mapping programme.

A Review of Marine Nature Conservation (RMNC) was established in 1999, by Defra, to examine how effectively the UK system for protecting nature conservation in the marine environment is working and make proposals for improvements. The final report was submitted to Ministers. As a contribution to the RMNC a pilot scheme was undertaken in the Irish Sea to test the potential for an ecosystem approach to managing the marine environment at a regional sea scale. The Irish Sea pilot project, led by JNCC commenced in 2002 and included the development of a broadscale ecological map of seabed and water column features-'marine landscape' maps.

This approach to broadscale mapping, has being extended in the UKSeaMap 2006 project to cover the rest of the UK continental shelf.

With increasing pressure being put on our coastal and offshore marine environment through industry and leisure activities, new methods and technologies are required to allow rapid site evaluation and appraisal. Such technologies already in use include Acoustic Ground Discrimination Systems(AGDS), Multi-beam and Side-Scan sonar. JNCC has produced a Marine Monitoring Handbook that holds procedural guidelines to many of these techniques and technologies. Further work is underway within MESH on protocols and standards for habitat mapping.

In addition, JNCC contributes to International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) work on marine habitat mapping through the ICES Working Group on Marine Habitat Mapping (WGMHM). JNCC's David Connor has been chair of the ICES WGMHM since 2003. JNCC also provides advice to the UK conservation agencies (CCW, EHS, SNH, Natural England (formally English Nature)), Government bodies and others on various mapping techniques and technologies.