Ecological Unit Typology & Designated Areas

 

Ecological Unit Typology

Saline lagoons Straits and Sounds Estuaries Bays Fjord (sealochs) (with or without sill) Rias Voes Sand waves fields Lag gravel pavements Carbonate mound fields Pockmark fields (gas seeps) Seamounts Canyon Systems Channel systems Deep sea sediment fans Submarine ridge systems (including hydrothermal vents) Iceberg plough mark zones Sponge fields (with massive sponges or glass sponges) Coral grounds (scattered Lophelia or gorgonian fields)

Contourites (sand features) Shelf slope Enclosed 'deeps' on the shelf Sandbanks and linear tidal sand ridges Turbidites, slumps and slides Mud basins Shelf islands Oceanic islands Polynias Sea ice Glacial moraines Marginal ice zone Static bathymetric features - shelf break Persistent hydrographic features - currents and frontal systems Predictable but non-permanent hydrographic features upwellings, eddies, seasonal fronts

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These special areas form part of the 4 scales that consider the marine environment under a proposed new framework for marine nature conservation.

Specific areas of national importance

• Site of Special Scientific Interest/Areas of Scientific Interest
• Marine Nature Reserves
• National Nature Reserves

• Local Nature Reserves
• Special Areas of Conservation
• Special Protection Areas
• Ramsar sites
• Areas of Special Protection/Bird Sanctuaries
• Candidate MEHRAs
• Nitrate Vulnerable Zones
• Voluntary marine nature reserves
• Fisheries protected areas
• and, to the extent practicable, non-statutory sites forming part of the national series