2005 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA6 Technical Report - Hydrography of the Irish Sea

Published by:
British Geological Survey (BGS)
Last updated:
15 March 2024
Topic:
Not added
Licence:
Other Licence
View licence information

Summary

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA6) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). This report describes the physical oceanography of the Irish Sea from St George's Channel in the south to the North Channel and the Clyde Sea in the north. The report covers the topography and depth of the sea floor, the tides, the impact of storms, stratification and its consequences and the mean circulation, all with a view to mean and extreme conditions.

The predominant dynamical process is the semi-diurnal tides, with areas of both high and low energy embraced. Superimposed on this is the full range of water column structure areas that are well mixed throughout the year; areas that stratify thermally in summer; areas of freshwater influence from river discharges, leading both to nearshore density gradients and stratification; frontal regions between the well-mixed and stratified regions.

The movement of the water and the amount of mixing prescribe physical effects, such as forces on structures and the movement and dispersion of contaminants, but also significantly influence biogeochemical processes including sediment erosion / deposition and movement, particularly of suspended sediment, benthic exchanges and primary productivity (via stratification, nutrient exchanges and light levels).

More from this publisher

All datasets from British Geological Survey (BGS)

Related datasets

Search

Data links

Link to the data Format File added Data preview
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal HTML 15 March 2024 Not available

Additional information

View additional metadata
Added to data.gov.uk
2011-08-30
Access contraints
Not specified
Harvest GUID
aba64100-c14e-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd
Extent
Latitude: 55.3° to 51.7°
Longitude: -6° to -4°
Spatial reference system
urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
Dataset reference date
2005-01-01 (publication)
Frequency of update
notPlanned
Responsible party
British Geological Survey (BGS) (custodian); Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) (originator)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng
Source Metadata
XML
HTML

Contact

Enquiries

British Geological Survey (BGS) | A world-leading geoscience centre

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Contact British Geological Survey (BGS) regarding this dataset Freedom of information requests for this dataset

Licence information

The SEAs data were produced as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme; Crown Copyright, all rights reserved. The DECC SEA must be acknowledged in any maps or publications that make use of the data. All the data files are freely available to the public. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS. BGS (NERC) has been contracted by DECC to publish SEA datasets on its behalf. All intellectual property rights (including , without limitation, copyrights, database rights and all other rights which subsist or may at any time in the future subsist in the Dataset(s)) in the Dataset(s) ('Intellectual Property Rights') are owned by DECC (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform). BGS has been authorised by DECC to use SEA datasets for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit basis'. BGS has been authorised by DECC to pass on SEA datasets to third parties so that they can use them for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit' basis.