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Assigning the EUNIS classifications to UK’s Offshore Regional Seas 2020

Abstract

In March 2017, JNCC contracted the Marine Biological Association (MBA) to undertake a project entitled ‘Assigning the EUNIS classifications to UK’s Offshore Regional Seas’. This work followed the approach taken by Natural England in their equivalent UK regional seas project for the English territorial seas, however a slightly different method was followed. The JNCC project sub-divided the Charting Progress 2 (CP2) regional seas (known as ‘regions’) from the offshore environment into sub-regions, based upon their environmental characteristics.

The project assigned a list of relevant EUNIS biotopes to each bioregion based on a series of rules. Biotopes were listed as either ‘Yes’, ‘Possible’, ‘Unlikely’ or ‘No’ to show whether they were present in each bioregion, based upon survey data, environmental information, species records, literature and expert judgement. Two spreadsheets were produced as part of the JNCC project. The presence-absence spreadsheet (updated in July 2020 following some corrections) lists whether or not biotopes occur in each of the UK’s offshore regional seas and subregions. The biotope database provides the evidence behind these decisions.

Resource type Publication

Topic category Environment

Reference date 2020·04·24

Citation
Tillin, H.M., Hughes, E., Readman, J.A.J., Hiscock, K. & Last, E.K. 2020. Assigning the EUNIS classifications to UK’s Offshore Regional Seas. JNCC Report No. 647, JNCC, Peterborough, ISSN 0963-8091.

Lineage
Information contained here has been derived from data that is made available under the European Marine Observation Data Network Seabed Habitats project, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE).

Responsible organisation
Communications, JNCC publisher

Limitations on public access No limitations

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0

Metadata date 2020·07·15

Metadata point of contact
Communications, JNCC

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