Sullom Voe Benthic Biotope Map for a Scottish Marine Conservation Area

A benthic biotope map of Sullom Voe, a large shallow inlet and ria in the Shetland Isles, produced for Scottish Natural Heritage. The boreal-arctic species-rich communities are unique to Shetland voes and not represented elsewhere in the UK's SAC series. The map was created by Envision Mapping, sub-contracted by Heriot Watt University, using acoustic remote sensing combined with grab and video sampling.

Use Cases

• Identify and classify unique boreal-arctic benthic communities based on the described acoustic and sampling data.
• Support marine conservation planning for the Sullom Voe cSAC based on the mapped biotope features.
• Analyze the distribution of species-rich communities in a large shallow inlet (ria) environment.
• Compare this northern Scottish ria site to other large shallow inlets and bays in the UK SAC series.

Strengths

• Focuses on a unique and geographically restricted boreal-arctic community not found elsewhere in the SAC series.
• Created using a combination of acoustic remote sensing, grab, and video sampling methods.
• Covers Sullom Voe, the most northerly UK site selected as a representative of large shallow inlets and bays.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the single-site focus of uk_data.

Provenance

Source

Joint Nature Conservation Committee

Collection Method

Acoustic remote sensing techniques combined with grab and video sampling.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 09:45:57.245178; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Sullom Voe, Shetland Isles, Scotland, UK.