JNCC was leading an international marine habitat mapping programme entitled 'Development of a framework for Mapping European Seabed Habitats, or MESH for short, which started in spring 2004 and finished in January 2008. A consortium of 12 partners across the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France gained financial support from the EU INTERREG IIIB fund for an international marine habitat mapping programme. The MESH partnership covered all five countries in the INTERREG (IIIb) north-west Europe area, drawing together scientific and technical habitat mapping skills, national data collation and management expertise, and experience in the use of habitat mapping in management and regulatory frameworks.

 

The other partners were IMARES and TNO (Netherlands); IFREMER (France); Marine Institute (Ireland), and; University of Gent (Belgium), British Geological Survey, CEFAS, AFBI, Natural England (formally English Nature), Envision and the National Museum Wales.

 

The MESH Project produced seabed habitat maps for north-west Europe (see MESH study area) and developed international standards and protocols for seabed mapping studies. The final products are a meta database of mapping studies, a web-delivered geographic information system (GIS) with habitat maps, a guidance framework for marine habitat mapping including protocols and standards, a report on case histories of habitat mapping, a stakeholder database and an international conference (March 2007) with published proceedings.

 

Further information about the MESH Project available on the JNCC website includes: