Priority Marine Habitats of Wales: Subtidal Sand and Gravels

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Not released
Published by:
Marine Environmental Data & Information Network
Last updated:
31 December 2012
Topic:
Not added
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Summary

UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) priority habitats cover a wide range of semi-natural habitat types, and were those that were identified as being the most threatened and requiring conservation action under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP). The UK BAP habitats and species lists have been used to draw statutory lists of priority habitats as required under Section 42 of the Natural Environmental and Rural Communities (NERC) Act 2006. The habitats listed as priority habitats include; blue mussel beds, Fragile sponge and anthozoan communities, Tide swept channels, Horse mussel beds, Maerl beds, Honeycomb worm reefs, Seagrass beds, Oyster beds, Intertidal boulder communities, Intertidal mudflats, mud habitats in deep water, Sheltered muddy gravels, subtidal mixed muddy sediments , Estuarine rocky habitats, Peat and clay exposures, Carbonate reefs, Musculus discors beds, Saline lagoons, Coastal Saltmarsh and Subtidal sands and gravels.

The data is related to Subtidal sand and gravels only. Sand and gravel seabeds are widespread. Those found to the west of the UK include a high proportion of shell fragments, whereas those from the North Sea are mainly formed from rock. They occur in a range of environmental conditions, from wave-sheltered, enclosed bays and estuaries to highly exposed open coasts. The mix of sand or gravel, and any sand waves or ripples present on the surface of the seabed, depend on factors such as the strength of the waves and tides. The communities of animals that live in this habitat are also determined by the environmental conditions. There tend to be fewer animals where waves and tides are strong, and the communities there will be characterised by rapid burrowers such as bristleworms, tube worms, bivalve shells and shrimp-like creatures, and perhaps by crabs, hermit crabs and sea snails on the surface of the seabed. Majority of the records are from the 1960s onwards. This data is still in draft format and has not yet been finalised. All habitat records include a confidence measure. Decisions about how these were applied are documented in the processing notes for each habitats.

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Added to data.gov.uk
2019-02-13
Access contraints
This data is comprised of a mixture of third party owned records and NRW records. NRW policies permits access to and release of this data under the same terms as its own data. There are no access restrictions on this data. NRW may release, publish or disseminate it freely.
Harvest GUID
4f4c4942-4343-5764-6473-313134373432
Extent
Latitude: 54.01383829° to 50.92259066°
Longitude: -6.82342256° to -2.66292742°
Spatial reference system
urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::WGS84
Dataset reference date
2012-12-31 (publication)
2011-04-26 (revision)
Frequency of update
asNeeded
Responsible party
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) (custodian); Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) (originator); Various (originator)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng
Source Metadata
XML
HTML

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© CNC/NRW 2011 NRW owns the copyright of the collation, but the ownership of the records themselves rests with the originator. Data may be re-used under the terms of the Open Government Licence providing it is done so, acknowledging both the source and NRW's copyright. It is the recipient's responsibility to ensure the data is fit for the intended purpose.