Morecambe Bay SAC Subtidal Cobble and Boulder Skear Communities Drop-down Video Survey

Morecambe Bay is an ecologically diverse area, encompassing the coastal plain estuaries of the rivers Wyre, Lune, Keer, Kent and Leven which form an extensive area of shallow coastal sediments (Sotheran and Walton, 1997). The Morecambe Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC) was designated under the Natura 2000 programme in 2005 due to the substantial amounts of Annex I habitat present within the Bay which include; ‘estuaries,’ ‘mudflats and sandflats not covered by water at low tide,’ ‘large shallow inlets and bays,’ ‘sandbanks which are slightly covered by sea water all the time’ and ‘reefs.’ In order to inform site condition monitoring, Seastar Survey Ltd. were contracted by Natural England to undertake a drop-down camera survey in the Morecambe Bay SAC in order to define the distribution and extent of any subtidal cobble and boulder skear communities present.