A Framework for Marine Habitat Mapping in North West Europe (MESH)
Background
Industrial development in European seas is leading to an increased risk of conflict between users, which could lead to a greater potential for environmental damage. Yet scientists agree that we probably know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what lives on the bottom of our seas, and where precisely it can be found.
Marine Habitat Maps are a valuable tool for managing the sustainable use and conservation of shoreline coastal and offshore areas. The principal purpose of the MESH project is to harmonise the way in which such mapping initiatives are undertaken in the northwest European area, so that future mapping programmes produce compatible outputs that can contribute to a growing international resource top support marine spatial planning and management.
Objectives
MESH aims not only to produce a detailed and standardised marine habitat atlas for European waters, but also to provide a template for all marine habitats surveys in any part of Europe.
The following will be developed by the project:
- standards and protocols for surveying and mapping shoreline and seabed habitats.
- standard methodological approach for the application of remote sensing and direct sampling techniques in the context of habitat mapping projects.
- approaches to habitat modelling
- the concept of seabed ‘landscapes’ to describe the bio-geo-physical nature of habits over large areas, facilitating management at regional, national and international levels.
One of the most exciting outputs from this project will be the delivery of the MESH Guidance. This will be in the form of a web-based interactive multimedia document that will take the visitor through the processes and decisions required to design, carry out and interpret a marine survey. The Guidance will be launched in June 2007. Tools and applications to assist with all the processes of habitat mapping will be available as free downloads.
Cefas contribution
Cefas has contributed underwater surveying and mapping expertise plus images of the seabed. Recent advances in acoustic technology enabled us to get high-resolution images of the seabed. These images show, for instance: sand banks, rock outcrops and gravel patches. However, to find out what lives in or on the seabed, we have to ‘ground-truth’ the acoustic images using direct sampling techniques. For this project we have mapped the seabed by using a combination of techniques.
Partners
This project involves 12 partners from 5 different countries
