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Accessing and Developing the Required Biophysical Datasets and Datalayers for Marine Protected Areas Network Planning and Wider Marine Spatial Planning Purposes

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Accessing and Developing the Required Biophysical Datasets and Datalayers for Marine Protected Areas Network Planning and Wider Marine Spatial Planning Purposes Accessing and developing the required biophysical datasets and datalayers for Marine Protected Areas network planning and wider marine spatial planning purposes Report No 8 Task 2A. Mapping of Geological and Geomorphological Features Version (Final) 27 November 2009 © Crown copyright 1 Project Title: Accessing and developing the required biophysical datasets and datalayers for Marine Protected Areas network planning and wider marine spatial planning purposes Report No 8: Task 2A. Mapping of Geological and Geomorphological Features Project Code: MB0102 Marine Biodiversity R&D Programme Defra Contract Manager: Jo Myers Funded by: Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Marine and Fisheries Science Unit Marine Directorate Nobel House 17 Smith Square London SW1P 3JR Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) Monkstone House City Road Peterborough PE1 1JY Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) Maes y Ffynnon Penrhosgarnedd Bangor LL57 2DW Natural England (NE) North Minister House Peterborough PE1 1UA Scottish Government (SG) Marine Nature Conservation and Biodiversity Marine Strategy Division Room GH-93 Victoria Quay Edinburgh EH6 6QQ Department of Environment Northern Ireland (DOENI) Room 1306 River House 48 High Street Belfast BT1 2AW 2 Isle of Man Government (IOM) Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry Rose House 51-59 Circular Road Douglas Isle of Man IM1 1AZ Authorship: A. J. Brooks ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd [email protected] H. Roberts ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd [email protected] N. H. Kenyon Associate [email protected] A. J. Houghton ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd [email protected] ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd Suite B Waterside House Town Quay Southampton Hampshire SO14 2AQ www.abpmer.co.uk Disclaimer: The content of this report does not necessarily reflect the views of Defra, nor is Defra liable for the accuracy of the information provided, nor is Defra responsible for any use of the reports content. Acknowledgements: To Andrew Pearson and Nigel West of ABPmer for the front cover images. 3 Table of Contents Executive Summary 6 1. Introduction 8 1.1 Biophysical Data Layers Project 8 1.2 Aims and Objectives 9 1.3 Format of the Report 9 2. Adopted Approach Used to Identify, Categorise and Map Geological and Geomorphological Features 11 2.1 Sources of Data Used 11 2.2 The Categorisation of Features 11 2.3 The Mapping of Features 12 2.4 Key Observations 14 3. Key Findings of the Geological and Geomorphological Feature Mapping Phase 17 4. Adopted Approach used in the Conservation Importance / Value Assessment for Marine Geological and Geomorphological Features 18 4.1 Introduction 18 4.2 Conservation Assessment Methodology 20 4.2.1 Overall Approach 20 4.2.2 Feature Importance Assessment 22 4.2.3 Vulnerability Assessment 24 4.2.4 Conservation Assessment Confidence Evaluation 29 5. Key Findings from the Geomorphological and Geological Feature Importance / Value Assessment 32 5.1 Feature Importance Assessment Outcomes 32 5.2 Feature Vulnerability Assessment Outcomes 37 5.3 Confidence Assessment Outcomes 37 6. Conclusions and Options to Consider for the Way Forward 39 6.1 Conclusions 39 6.2 Considerations for the Way Forward 40 6.1.1 Continued Development of Scientific Understanding 40 6.1.2 Protecting Marine Geological and Geomorphological Features of Interest 40 6.1.3 Refinement of Feature Classes 41 6.1.4 Integration with Geological Conservation Review Coastal Sites 41 6.1.5 Consideration of Other Potentially Damaging Human Activities and Installations in UK Waters 41 Abbreviations 43 References 44 Acknowledgements 47 4 Appendices Appendix I. Project Expert Working Group 48 Appendix II. Bibliography 49 Appendix III. Geomorphological and Geological Features on the UK seabed 64 Appendix IV. Feature Categories and Description 75 Appendix V. Geological Conservation Review Site Details 82 Appendix VI. GIS Feature Attribute Table Description 97 Appendix VII. Users Guide for the Conservation Assessment Excel Spreadsheet 98 Appendix VIII. Susceptibility of Identified Feature Classes to Marine Activities and Infrastructure 100 Appendix IX. Assessment: Zones of Influence Around Identified Features 103 List of Figures Figure 1: Conservation assessment work plan and expert working group input 19 Figure 2: Summary of the linkages between the Irish Sea Pilot study and the conservation assessment presented here 21 Figure 3a: Human activities in UK waters (after Defra (forthcoming); ABPmer 2009) 27 Figure 3b: Human activities in UK waters (after Defra (forthcoming); ABPmer 2009) 28 Figure 4: UK regional seas (taken from JNCC, 2004) 33 Figure 5: Highest ranking features from the feature importance assessment as identified in Table 6 36 List of Tables Table 1: Look-up table detailing the category classifications and class weightings employed in the feature importance assessment 22 Table 2: Sensitivity look-up table 26 Table 3: Look-up table to assess the vulnerability of identified features to damaging human activities 28 Table 4: Confidence score look-up table for the sensitivity assessment 30 Table 5: Confidence score look-up table for the vulnerability assessment 30 Table 6: Summary table detailing the highest ranking features from the feature importance assessment 34 5 Executive Summary The UK is committed to the establishment of a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) to help conserve marine ecosystems and marine biodiversity. MPAs can be a valuable tool to protect species and habitats and can also be used to aid implementation of the ecosystem approach to management, which aims to maintain the ‗goods and services‘ produced by the healthy functioning of the marine ecosystem that are relied on by humans. A consortium1 led by ABPmer have been commissioned (Contract Reference: MB0102) to develop a series of biophysical data layers to aid the selection of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in England and Wales under the Marine and Coastal Access Act and the equivalent MPA measures in Scotland. Such data layers would also be of use in taking forward marine planning in UK waters. The overall aim of the project is to ensure that the best available information is used for the selection of MPAs in UK waters, and that these data layers can be easily accessed and utilised by those who would have responsibility for selecting sites. The Marine and Coastal Access Act allows for the designation of MCZs for geological and geomorphological features of interest. As such there has been a need to identify those geological and geomorphological features of interest. To deliver this requirement, the project has been divided into a number of discrete tasks, one of which is to map geological and geomorphological features found on the seabed in UK waters from the coast out to the limit of the UK Continental Shelf (Task 2A). The key findings of this report are outlined below: The first phase of Task 2A involved the identification, categorisation and mapping of geological and geomorphological features on the UK seabed. This was achieved through an extensive desk based literature search as well as the development of a detailed feature categorisation system which identified a series of process-based feature units and sub-categories. In total, over 70 separate feature categories have been established, each containing numerous individual features and/or fields of bedforms. Approximately 6,500 separate data entries have been made within a Geographical Information System (GIS) including rock exposures, active and relict landforms and sedimentary deposits formed by marine processes. The geomorphological and geological feature conservation importance / value methodology developed by Furze and Roberts for the Irish Sea Pilot study was reviewed. An adapted version of this methodology was developed and used to assess the conservation importance/value of geological and geomorphological features identified in the first phase of Task 2A. The need for this revised approach was, for the most part, due to the disparity in both the spatial scale and number of features under consideration in the two separate investigations. 1 ABPmer, MarLIN, Cefas, EMU Limited, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory (POL) and Bangor University. 6 The conservation importance / value assessment was undertaken on a feature- by-feature basis and represents the first step towards highlighting key geodiversity interests and their geographic distribution in the marine environment. In the future, the assessment presented here may help inform the identification of possible MPA‘s. The conservation importance / value assessment methodology adopted here comprises three separate components. These are (a) a feature importance assessment; (b) a feature vulnerability assessment and (c) a confidence assessment of scores. These three components have been considered separately and have been carried out using a highly automated procedure which combines ArcGIS, Excel and a sequence of ‗look-up‘ tables. The feature importance assessment follows a quantitative approach which takes into consideration the rarity of the features in a national and international context as well as the ‗exceptionality‘ of individual features. The feature vulnerability assessment uses a qualitative method to deliver a vulnerability score of either ‗high‘, ‗medium‘, ‗low‘ or ‗none‘ for each feature to a range of human activities taking place in the marine environment. The confidence assessment also follows a qualitative format and returns scores of ‗high‘, ‗medium‘
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