The purpose of this survey was to establish re-locatable monitoring stations and gather baseline field data from each station at a Marine Nature Conservation Review (MNCR) Phase 2 level of recording. The two principle objectives being to gather sufficient data to form judgement on the current condition of the interest features of the sites, and to establish a baseline biological dataset that will facilitate future site condition monitoring surveys of the Papa Stour caves and reefs features. To achieve this goal, the survey methodology included several elements: 1) marking and measurement of reef and cave transects, to facilitate their re-location and the production of near-scale transect diagrams; 2) recording of epibiota to MNCR Phase 2 level within defined re-locatable areas representative of each habitat identified at the transect; 3) production of a video and/or photographic stills record of: a) the extent and distribution of substrata and habitats within the transect, and b) the extent and distribution of epibiota and biotopes within each transect; 4) a remote video survey using a drop-down camera system to record the extent and distribution of substrata, habitats, epibiota and biotopes at survey stations. The outcome of this work was a total of five cave transects (all sublittoral) and ten reef transects (ten littoral and nine sublittoral) surveyed, in addition to which five sublittoral sites were sampled remotely using the drop-down video system.
