Intertidal Sediment Verification in Stour and Orwell Estuaries

Natural England's 2013 survey collates data from verification work for a recommended Marine Conservation Zone (rMCZ). The dataset provides evidence on intertidal sediments and habitats, gathered following established methodologies for environmental assessment. It supports marine conservation planning and condition monitoring within the specified estuaries.

Use Cases

• Verifying habitat features for Marine Conservation Zone (rMCZ) designation based on survey standards.
• Conducting condition assessments of intertidal environments within the Stour and Orwell estuaries.
• Analyzing sediment characteristics for benthic habitat studies.
• Supporting spatial planning for marine protected areas using georeferenced survey data.
• Benchmarking intertidal conditions for long-term environmental monitoring programs.

Strengths

• Data collection follows specified standards and established methodologies, ensuring consistency.
• Cross-platform presence on eu_open_data and uk_data indicates recognized importance for marine evidence.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as column names, row count, and file format are unknown, limiting usability.
• The dataset's temporal scope is limited to a single survey year (2013).
• Conflicting metadata exists, as one source lists a future 'last updated' date of 2026-07-13, which is likely an error.

Provenance

Source

Natural England, Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Collation of field surveys following established methodologies for marine environment verification.

Time Range

2013

Freshness

2026-07-13 12:09:46.594509 (Note: This future date is likely a metadata error; the survey was conducted in 2013.)

Geography

Stour and Orwell Estuaries, United Kingdom