Subtidal and Intertidal Seagrass Beds in Northern Ireland

The dataset contains digitized polygons of seagrass beds in Northern Ireland, created by the Marine Monitoring and Assessment Team. The data was collected using dive and towed camera surveys for subtidal Zostera marina and high-spec GPS data-loggers on foot and by hovercraft for intertidal Zostera noltei. The layer shows the latest data from repeated surveys intended to detect changes in area, density, or species number.

Use Cases

• Mapping coastal habitat extent based on digitized polygon boundaries.
• Monitoring changes in seagrass bed area and density over time based on repeated survey methodology.
• Assessing habitat connectivity for marine spatial planning based on geospatial polygon data.
• Ground-truthing remote sensing data based on field survey points mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Data collection followed specific SAC guidance for boundary digitization.
• Surveys were repeated over multiple years to enable change detection.
• Includes data from multiple collection methods: dive, towed camera, GPS on foot, and hovercraft.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Surveys in Larne Lough and Carlingford Lough are incomplete, as noted for health and safety reasons.
• A second seagrass bed in Castleward Bay was identified but its extent was not mapped.

Provenance

Source

Marine Monitoring and Assessment Team, with data provided by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) in the Republic of Ireland.

Collection Method

Digitized from survey data including dive, towed camera, and high-spec GPS data-logger surveys.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Northern Ireland, specifically mentioning Ballyhenry Bay, Castleward Bay, Larne Lough, and Carlingford Lough.