Opening up the underwater landscape
Thursday 3rd June 2010
As World Oceans Day is celebrated on 8th June, an advanced seabed map has become the first in the UK to be made freely available to the public, making it possible to see the sea floor in all its glory, including reefs, wrecks and rocky ledges. Showing not only the contours but, via linked photographs, many of the habitats of the seabed from Abbotsbury to Swanage, the DORset Integrated Seabed study (DORIS) map allows divers, conservationists and marine planners to see exactly what is located at the ocean floor, whether for recreational diving or for decision making about the use of Dorset’s marine sites.
Peter Tinsley, marine conservation officer at Dorset Wildlife Trust, said: “This map marks a huge step for the marine environment. Already it has enabled us to find important wildlife hotspots and we want to continue pushing back the boundaries of knowledge about a part of the county that still holds many mysteries.”
The DORIS project has been undertaken by Dorset Wildlife Trust, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Channel Coastal Observatory, with a major biodiversity grant of £300,000 from Viridor Credits Environmental Company, through the Landfill Communities Fund. Starting with an acoustic survey, plotting the exact contours of the sea floor, the final stage involved hundreds of dives, photographs and surveys to add the detailed habitat element of the map. People can now zoom in on any part of the mapped area and link to actual images of the seabed and even species lists from the surveys.
The map is already causing great excitement among marine agencies, eager to make use of it: the Maritime and Coastguard Agency will use the map to update navigation charts, the Channel Coastal Observatory will provide information to coastal engineers and Dorset Wildlife Trust will use it to identify important and vulnerable seabed habitats. It will be used by the Dorset Coast Forum’s C-SCOPE project to create a marine plan for Dorset, but the map is also available to the public, opening up the underwater world as never before.
Peter added: “Recreational divers can now choose an interesting or unexplored spot from the map, take the GPS co-ordinates and head straight to it. We are particularly keen for volunteer divers to help us to continue the surveying so that we can fill in more habitat information.”
Lisa Nelson, general manager of Viridor Credits, said: “We are delighted to have been able to support such an interesting and unusual biodiversity project. There is still so much to learn about the seabed and the marine environment. I know that the DORIS map will make a huge difference to everyone from scientists to leisure divers and be quite fascinating for older children.”
Following the success of the project, there is now an opportunity to continue the work over the next 2 years, to extend the map to the western tip of the Isle of Wight in the east and to cover the whole of Lyme Bay in the west, giving full coverage of the Dorset coast.
You can see the DORIS map in Google Earth at http://tinyurl.com/dorismap, with linked photos appearing as you zoom in. (Google Earth can be downloaded on to your computer, free of charge). Divers who are interested in helping to record Dorset’s underwater wildlife can contact Dorset Wildlife Trust on 01305 264620 or see www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk
Story by Dorset Wildlife Trust