Broad habitat - Subtidal Sediments

Inshore subtidal and shelf sediments cover an extensive area of the sea bed. The east coast of Scotland in general has a relatively narrow fringe of largely sandy sediments with mud in the inner firths but there are more extensive areas of sand and mixed sediments in the Moray Firth and around the Orkney Islands. There is an extensive area of shallow sand in the south-west of Scotland off the coast of Dumfries and Galloway, whilst much of the sea bed in the Minches and many of the west coast sea lochs is of mud. These differences are the result of differences in depth, wave exposure and tidal currents with the mud habitats occurring in the deeper more sheltered areas. Much of the sea bed out to the continental shelf break comprises subtidal sediment.

The model was created using raster input layers with a cell size of 0.002dd (roughly 250 meters). The model includes the sublittoral zone only; due to the high variability of the littoral zone, a lack of detailed substrate data and the resolution of the model, it is difficult to predict littoral habitats at this scale.

For more information on the modelling process see the EMODnet Seabed Habitats on the ‘Data Sources’ tab.