2013 Natural England Verification Survey of Cumbria Coast

Published by:
Natural England
Last updated:
17 December 2015
Topic:
Environment
Licence:
Open Government Licence
View licence information

Summary

A Natural England commissoined verification survey of both intertidal sediments and intertidal rocky reef within the Cumbria Coast rMCZ. Phase I Biotope mapping was carried out across the rMCZ for broad scale habitats. Phase II infaunal sediment sampling was carried out to provide information on the benthic infaunal assemblages and particle size distribution of the study sites by means of core sampling. Sediment surface scrapes were obtained for heavy metals and organic contaminants analysis. Phase II quantitative survey of intertidal rocky reefs comprised of a quadrat survey with percentage cover of species present within each quadrat being recorded. The data was used to produce a EUNIS Level 3 boradscale habitat map of the Cumbria Coast rMCZ. Aerial imagery and OS mapping was digitised to produce baseline maps of biotope boundaries. The maps were annotated in the field to identify biotopes and boundaries as well as significant features. In addition, intertidal sediment cores were taken at 16 stations (0.01m2 cores 3 replicates at each station) distributed throughout the Cumbria Coast rMCZ at the low, mid and high shore, in order to assess the benthic species present, along with an additional sample for Particle Size Analysis. Samples were sieved over a 0.5mm sieve. Sediment scrape samples were also taken at 4 stations at the midshore for Tributyl tin, heavy metal and organic contaminant analysis. The Phase II quantitative survey of intertidal rocky reefs comprised of 9 quadrat sites per transect with 3 replicate quadrats at each low, mid and upper shore zone or the main biotope present. Percentage cover of species present within each 0.25m2 quadrat was recorded. The methods used for data collection and processing followed protocols and standards for biotope mapping and sampling. MEDIN Data Guideline for sediment sampling by grab or core for benthos.

More from this publisher

All datasets from Natural England

Related datasets

Search

Data links

Link to the data Format File added Data preview
EMODnet Seabed Habitats WMS WMS 17 December 2015 Not available
Interactive map HTML 17 December 2015 Not available
Download from the “EUNIS habitat maps from surveys” package, Broad, Medium and Fine scale data HTML 17 December 2015 Not available

Additional information

View additional metadata
Added to data.gov.uk
2015-12-17
Access contraints
Publicly accessible: NE-OS OGL
Harvest GUID
9cc29859-38bb-489f-8c41-3712e6f29958
Extent
Latitude: 54.53053° to 54.33813°
Longitude: -3.6405400000000006° to -3.429850122°
Spatial reference system
WGS 1984
Dataset reference date
2004-01-01 (publication)
Frequency of update
notPlanned
Responsible party
Natural England (custodian)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng
Source Metadata
XML
HTML

Contact

Enquiries

Contact Natural England regarding this dataset

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Contact Natural England regarding this dataset Freedom of information requests for this dataset

Licence information

No conditions apply. By using this data you are accepting the terms of the Natural England-OS Open Government Licence (https://www.gov.uk/how-to-access-natural-englands-maps-and-data#terms-and-conditions-for-use-of-data). For further info contact Natural England 0300 060 3900 enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk