Natural England commissioned ENVISION to undertake this mapping project with the aim of improving understanding of the distribution of broad-scale habitat features within the Holderness Inshore Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) and the wider Holderness coast. This is a geologically and biologically diverse region of the marine environment which has been shaped by glacial processes and continues to evolve in response to some of the strongest sedimentary processes in the UK. However, knowledge of the extent and distribution of habitat features to date has been hindered by data deficiency. The aims of this project were to:
• Make use of existing geophysical datasets and benthic sample data around the Holderness coast, and translate these into broad-scale benthic habitat features compatible with Level 3 of the European Nature Information System (EUNIS) habitat classification system.
• Provide Natural England with an evidence base which will inform our statutory conservation advice on infrastructure development within the region, particularly in relation to the Holderness Inshore MCZ.
• Understand the confidence and probabilities associated with the habitat predictions and use this to inform future ground-truthing survey work to strengthen our evidence base in the area.
The mapping outputs (the broad-scale habitat map and associated probability layer) are available to download both as GIS files, and as PDFs on Natural England’s Access to Evidence portal.