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The EUNIS (European Nature Information System) habitat mapping classification system was used to help
describe the
habitats characterising the two potential cable landfall areas.
The EUNIS Classification system was developed by the European Topic Centre for Nature Protection and Biodiversity (ETC/NPB) for the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Environmental Information Observation Network (EIONET) and provides a useful descriptive tool. Habitats are divided into hierarchical levels; Level 1 splits marine, coastal and various terrestrial habitats. Due to the nature of the shores surveyed both coastal and marine habitat classifications are used to describe the areas. EUNIS Levels 2 and 3 use the physical characteristics of the environment to further split habitats.
The MNCR biotope classification system is also used extensively in the UK and Ireland. Both the EUNIS and MNCR biotope codes are presented in Table 5.
The southern and northern intertidal survey sites can be divided into two main habitats by using the EUNIS scheme to level three. The lower shore of both sites is described as littoral coarse sediment (A2.1) exhibiting the following characteristics:-
Shores of mobile pebbles, cobbles and gravel, sometimes with varying amounts of coarse sand
Sediments are highly mobile and subject to high degrees of drying between tides. As a result, few species are able to survive in this environment
Littoral coarse sediments are found along relatively exposed open shores, where wave action prevents finer sediments from settling
Further definition can be related to this habitat using the MNCR (Marine Nature Conservation Review) classification scheme, which describes this habitat as Barren littoral shingle (LS.LCS.Sh.Bar.Sh).
The upper part of the shore at both intertidal sites contained areas of vegetated shingle described under the EUNIS scheme as upper shingle beach with open vegetation (B2.3). This
habitat type exhibits the following characteristics:-
The upper beach of large shingle bars Open perennial vegetation mostly formed by Crambe maritima,Honkenya peploides, Lathyrus japonica and a few other specialised species.
B2 B2.3 Coastal Coastal Shingle Upper Shingle Beach with open vegetation
Table 5. Description of the important intertidal habitats of the southern and northern intertidal sites following the EUNIS and MNCR classification systems.