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Standardising the production of habitat maps in the UK: Seabed Mapping Working Group workshop report November 2015 2016

Abstract

This report highlights the priorities for marine habitat mapping standardisation in the UK, as agreed by a range of practitioners and users of habitat maps.

Summary

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) (2008/56/EC) requires each Member State to establish targets and indicators designed to guide progress towards achieving “good environmental status”; one of these indicators is “habitat area”. Reporting under the Article 17 of the Habitats Directive (92/14/EEC) has demonstrated that reported changes in habitat area between reporting periods are often not genuine changes and are more often a result of

  1. different and/or improved mapping methods,

  2. different and/or improved data and information sources, and

  3. different and/or improved habitat definitions (JNCC 2013).

In 2013 a workshop of experts reiterated that these issues would need to be addressed before a habitat area indicator based on real measurements of area change can become operational (Frost et al 2013).

Resource type Publication

Topic category Environment

Reference date 2016·09·01

Citation
Lillis, H., Strong, J., Diesing, M. & Green, S., (2016), Standardising the production of habitat maps in the UK: Seabed Mapping Working Group workshop report November 2015, JNCC Report No. 596, JNCC, Peterborough, ISSN 0963-8091.

Lineage
Through the Seabed Mapping Working Group the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) organised a workshop that aimed to develop a joint plan for carrying out the recommendations of Strong (2015) and developing the “uncertainty reduction solutions”.

Responsible organisation
Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC publisher

Limitations on public access No limitations

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0

Metadata date 2019·07·18

Metadata point of contact
Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

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