Summary

This publication presents a fully revised version of the national classification of benthic marine habitats (seashore and seabed habitats and their associated communities of species) for Britain and Ireland. It was originally developed by JNCC's Marine Nature Conservation Review (MNCR) as part of the EC Life Nature-funded BioMar project (Connor et al. 1997 a, b).

The classification provides a tool to aid the management and conservation of marine habitats. It has been developed through the analysis of empirical data sets, the review of other classifications and scientific literature, and in collaboration with a wide range of marine scientists and conservation managers. It is fully compatible with and contributes to the European EUNIS habitat classification system.

The classification is presented in hierarchical format, and through a series of habitat matrices. It comprises:

Level 1	Environment (marine)	1
Level 2	Broad habitat types	5
Level 3	Habitat complexes	24
Level 4	Biotope complexes	75
Levels 5 & 6	Biotopes and sub-biotopes	370

This website contains an introductory section covering the rationale, uses, overall structure and development methods of the classification system, as well as a full listing of newly defined and revised classification types, a detailed description of each type, distribution maps and, where possible, colour photographs. A downloadable version of the classification is also available, as a series of word documents, images and spreadsheets.

IMPORTANT

This classification supersedes versions 97.06 and 03.02.

Users of the classification must ensure they state which version has been used
in any reports, data interpretation or field survey.

This report should be cited as:
DAVID W. CONNOR, JAMES H. ALLEN, NEIL GOLDING, KERRY L. HOWELL, LOUISE M. LIEBERKNECHT, KATE O. NORTHEN AND JOHNNY B. REKER (2004)
The Marine Habitat Classification for Britain and Ireland Version 04.05© 2004 Copyright JNCC, Peterborough ISBN 1 861 07561 8 (internet version)
www.jncc.gov.uk/MarineHabitatClassification