Potential sandbanks (1110)

The marine habitat type data concerns the modelling work carried out within the Finnish Inventory Programme for the Underwater Marine Environment (VELMU) in spring 2015. The task was done in cooperation between the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and Åbo Academi University (ÅA). The work included the modelling of the marine habitats included in the Annex 1 of the Habitats Directive: reefs (1170) and sandbanks, which are slightly covered by sea water all the time (1110). The aforementioned marine habitat types are specified on the basis of seabed substrate type and topographic form and they can overlap one another. The objective was to produce comprehensive maps of the occurrences of reefs and sandbanks throughout the entire marine area of Finland based on the best data available. The criteria to determine the marine habitats were discussed with the responsible bodies and the instructions (version 5.1), which include more precise criteria for determining marine habitat types than the Natura 2000 Habitats Manual (Airaksinen & Karttunen 2001), for a Natura 2000 inventory were utilised. On the basis of different criteria and test analyses, a decision was made to model potential sandbanks which includes sites that are likely to have sandbank occurrences. The data covers only the Northern Bothnian Sea.