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Marine Monitoring Handbook 2001

Abstract

The Marine Monitoring Handbook addresses the principles behind, and the procedures for, monitoring the habitats and species within marine SACs in UK waters to assess their condition. These assessments are intended to fulfil the requirements of the EC Habitats Directive and the UK's Common Standards for Monitoring.

The UK Marine SACs project was set up to establish management schemes on selected marine Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). It focussed on twelve marine SACs around the UK coastline to build our knowledge and establish the best practise needed for the management and monitoring of marine sites. The Marine Monitoring Handbook is one of the key outputs of the project and will be used as guidance by the UK government's statutory nature conservation agencies and their key partners in drawing up monitoring schemes for marine SACs.

The Handbook provides guidance on the different options and their relative costs and benefits, and describes best-practise through a series of procedural guidelines for the common survey/monitoring techniques. It draws on the information gathered from extensive trials of different techniques and their deployment undertaken during the UK Marine SACs project to ensure all advice has a sound practical basis.

The Handbook should be viewed as a toolkit to assist those with responsibility for monitoring to select and use appropriate methods. It is not prescriptive, rather it aims to support good decision-making in marine SAC monitoring in the light of resource availability and other practicalities.

The Handbook is available as one complete document, and also in sections:

  • Introduction
  • Section 1: Background
  • Section 2: Establishing monitoring programmes for marine features
  • Section 3: Guidance for establishing monitoring programmes for Annex I habitats
  • Section 4: Guidance for establishing monitoring programmes for some Annex II species
  • Section 5: Advice on selecting appropriate monitoring techniques
  • Section 6: Procedural guidelines

Please note, several of the procedural guidelines (see section 6) were produced in 2005, following publication of the Handbook, and are therefore provided as separate documents:

  • PG 1-5. Mosaicing sonar images
  • PG 1-6. Point sample mapping
  • PG 4-5 Photo ID of bottlenose dolphin.

Resource type Publication

Topic category Oceans

Reference date 2001··

Citation
Davies, J., Baxter, J., Bradley, M., Connor, D., Khan, J., Murray, E., Sanderson, W., Turnbull, C. & Vincent, M. (eds). 2001. Marine Monitoring Handbook, JNCC, Peterborough, ISBN 1 86107 5243.

Lineage
The Marine Monitoring Handbook addresses the principles behind, and the procedures for, monitoring the habitats and species within marine SACs in UK waters

Responsible organisation
Communications, JNCC resourceProvider

Limitations on public access No limitations

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0

Metadata date 2020·06·17

Metadata point of contact
Communications, JNCC

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