East Anglia Offshore Windfarm: Zonal Environmental Assessment Benthic Report
Faunal Group J was l ikely to occur across both Zones A and B, coveri ng areas of sand, gravelly sand, sandy gravel, slightly gravelly sand, slightly gravelly mud, slightly gravelly muddy sand and gravelly muddy sa nd; as well as all biological zones, water body types temperatures. Its prese nce within these conditions is only compromised by energy at the seabed, with its reduced likelihood in high energy areas in the northern sections of Zones A and B. Annelids such as Spiophanes bombyx and Nephtys cirrosa were the key species present.
The charts presented in Figures 44a-44 represent interpolations of the likelihood of occurrence of the faunal groups identified in Section C.2.3 and, as s uch, they re present an attempt to ‘join the dots’ between data acquired from each of the benthic survey stations.
Through examination of the more restri cted faunal groups (A , B, C, D, F, I), it can be concluded that the EAOW region is broadly divided into the foll owing sections: Area A (faunal group A), the west of area B (B), the north of areas A and B (C), the so uth of areas A and B (D), the south / central section of area B (F), the central / eastern section of area B and all of area B (G) and l astly the east of area A and majori ty of area B (I). However the occurrence of each of the faunal groups within these g eneralised areas i s mostly subject to sediment type.
A detailed summary of each faunal group is presented in Section C.2.3. Specific details on the taxa comprising each faunal group can be found in Appendix Table 12.
