Related EU Projects

‘Permanent Ecological Moorings’ was designed as a guide for managers of coastal or marine areas and for all the administrative and associative structures who face the recurrent problems of moorings. This guide summarizes key issues and shows the various choices available as well as being a technical guide. It wants to answer the main questions that one faces while managing the diverse activities involved in mooring and anchorage.

Anchorage or mooring? The authors of this guide have voluntarily considered that the two terms are synonymous. Two categories of anchorage (or mooring) can be defined : temporary mooring and permanent mooring. A permanent mooring cannot be moved quickly or easily. A temporary mooring is (usually) an anchor stored onboard a boat (or a floating structure that needs to be clamped down) and is re-hauled onboard when the boat starts to move again.

The act of mooring with an anchor means, dropping an anchor overboard to enable the immobilization of a boat because the anchor falls and is wedged onto the bottom. When removed , this anchor will be pulled up forcibly in order to be freed from the seabed. Depending on the fragility of the seabed or of the sea life (animals or plants) that are developing there, the impact can be significant. The areas most adapted to moorings are dependent on hydrological factors (currents, wave exposure) and meteorological factors (wind exposure). Along a stretch of coast these areas are not especially numerous and the pressure of moorings on the seabed can be frequent and significant.

Every manager or organization in charge of managing a coastal marine area will be facing this choice: preserve as good as possible the seabed or allow unregulated moorings with all the potential negative results that can ensue. In addition to general boat use, the managers themselves may need to moor: their own boats, permanent floating structures ( pontoon, barge, buoy) or immersed structures (canalization , sign for diving trail). How does one choose in cases like these an ecological solution that has minimal negative impact for the environment?

This guide will help in the choice of the most adapted ecological solution depending on the environment in question. It is divided into two main parts: the description of the major environments and the technical description of various permanent ecological moorings recommended.

Five main categories of environments have been selected: sand and mud, Pebbles and cobbles, Boulders and bedrock, Coralligenous formations, and Posidonia meadows. Each environment is briefly described and its ecological importance is detailed. The sensitivity and vulnerability of each of these environments are then evaluated depending on their particular characteristics: speed of regeneration, structural complexity (its architecture), ecological role, etc. These elements should enable us to understand why one environment is more or less fragile and why it is necessary to look for alternative solutions to moor with an anchor.

The technical solutions include a description of the immersed parts (the ones laid on or pushed into the sea bed) and the parts at the surface without forgetting the connecting elements between the surface and the bottom. Advice on the installation is also given. When many solutions are possible for a given environment they are presented in a comparative table in a synthetical manner that will help the manager to choose the optimum solution taking into account the usage, the quality of the substrate, and the estimated effort involved.

Please note: if this guide shows the various choices between the different technical solutions, in no way does it pretend to be nor replace a technical manual necessary to calibrate the mooring. Further more it does not address the juridical issues attached to problems of authorization or management of moorings.

If the place for a mooring does not need to be at a precise location, a manager might then have the choice between different substrates. In order to help this choice a table summarizes the vulnerability of each environment, from the least to the most sensitive and vulnerable.

At the end of this guide three appendixes give additional information: a list of bibliographic references, a glossary and a list of contact addresses. The glossary defines the terminology used in both the descriptive environment and the technical part. This terminology is written in blue in the text. The contact appendix contains a non exhaustive list of addresses or Internet sites in the assessment, installation, sale or calibration of ecological solutions for permanent moorings.

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This project aims to improve the evidence base for anchoring and mooring impacts to allow identification of risks to sensitive features from anchoring and mooring. This will help to inform socio-economic evidence used for designation decisions and will support the development of effective management measures. It will inform statutory nature conservation bodies and marine regulators.

Objective:

1. Undertake an independent review and analysis of available evidence on the impacts of anchoring and mooring. Summarise the UK MPA features that could be sensitive to impacts from anchoring and mooring and any published agreed limits and/or thresholds.

2. Summarise the location of MPA features which may be sensitive to anchoring and mooring within England and Wales. Collate spatial information on the scale and temporal frequency and intensity of anchoring and mooring within these potentially sensitive MPAs, and present an overview of this information.

3. Using information gathered under objectives 1 and 2, identify MPA sites where anchoring and mooring activities could result in impacts incompatible with site integrity and conservation objectives. Develop and present a methodology and sliding scale to describe the likelihood and level of environmental risks. Where sufficient evidence is available, apply this approach to identify the risk and scale of risk at protected sites.

4. Review the site history of a number of UK case studies including anchoring and mooring activities that have occurred within the site, why the activities have occurred there, and where and how management measures within the site have been developed (if applicable).

5. Provide a high level summary of the organisation responsibilities for control of anchoring/mooring in England and Wales. Map the cross-over between MPA conservation objectives and objectives for WFD, MSFD and existing marine plans (or the Marine Policy Statement) for England and Wales to highlight likely synergies and gaps regarding requirements for anchoring and mooring evidence and how these could be best met in a streamlined way by the organisation involved. Identify whether a central repository of anchoring/mooring information might be accessed by all to provide the most consistent and comprehensive management and conservation.

6. Draw conclusions with regards the adequacy of existing anchoring/mooring activity distribution and impacts evidence to inform management and whether it accounts for in-combination or cumulative impacts. Clearly summarise the major evidence gaps and limitations within this context and provide detailed recommendations in the form of a research action plan to address these evidence gaps and improve the future evidence base supporting conservation and management.

Two page summary: http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=13392_ME6003twopagesummary.pdf

Powerpoint presentation: http://swmecosystems.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/21.-Olivia-Langmead-Anchoring-Mooring-in-MPAs.pdf

DEFRA may be contacted for more detailed deliverables.

Recreational boating is a globally significant nature-based industry, which can degrade sensitive benthic habitats through physical damage from anchors. Mooring buoys can eliminate this impact and lead to additional benefits such as more efficient use of space, increasing the well-being and safety of boaters, and generating revenue through user fees. Evidence that buoys positively influence the well-being of users, especially if this is reflected in a willingness to pay, may provide motivation to decision-makers to invest in this management measure yet, to the best of our knowledge, relatively little is known about what motivates boaters to use buoys. Based on the theory of reasoned action, this study uses the classification tree method to model the influence of behavioral and normative beliefs on two dependent variables; boaters’ perceived likelihood to use buoys and willingness to pay (WTP) in a Marine Protected Area (MPA) located in a heavily

used Bay on the island of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands of Spain. This MPA was designated to protect Posidonia oceanica, an endemic seagrass in the Mediterranean, which has been significantly degraded by structural damage from anchors. Data were collected using a survey instrument administered to recreational boaters in the summer of 2011. The data showed overall user support for buoys, and a positive relationship between attitudes (associated with perceptions of safety, space, and minimizing impacts on P. oceanica) and WTP and behavioral intent. The data also indicated a positive influence of awareness of the potential negative impacts of anchoring on P. oceanica and the role of buoys in minimizing these effects on both dependent variables. Attitudes towards crowding in the study site had a very minor influence and normative beliefs did not feature as predictors in our models. The study is part of a larger research initiative to assess the physical, social, and environmental dimensions of recreational boating on the island of Mallorca. The theoretical framework, data collection and statistical assessment methods are broadly applicable to interdisciplinary research on use of coastal and marine space.

Academic paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569113000707  

Ports are coming under increasing pressure to manage their operations in an environmentally sustainable manner. This pressure comes from legal requirements, national agencies, planning inquiries and local activists (Wooldridge et al 1999). Ports have tended to react to such demands by making environmental policies and audits, always playing catch-up to the latest problem. An alternative approach is to be pro-active in seeking out environmental concerns at an early stage, assessing the scientific evidence of harm in the context of the specific port, and taking mitigating action according to the evidence. This is the basis of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the University of Plymouth and Falmouth Harbour Commissioners (FHC), who run a small trust port in South West England. The Port of Falmouth enjoys over thirty cruise calls a year. Smaller cruise liners can berth within the docks, but larger ships must anchor in Falmouth Bay, a Marine Special Area of Conservation, and tender their passengers ashore. Anchoring directly affects the benthic habitat through smothering, abrasion and disturbance. The noise and visual intrusion of vessels create an indirect impact. Studies into anchoring activities in fragile habitats such as eelgrass beds have led to the strict management of anchoring (Milazzo et al 2002). Falmouth Bay has a rare dead maerl habitat. This paper presents the on-going study, which is assessing the potential environmental impacts of anchoring in the Falmouth bay area. The steps include synthesising existing data on the nature of the seabed, recording actual anchor locations within the bay to identify areas of high anchoring density and identifying the threat that anchoring poses to the species in the maerl habitat. It is know that there are bivalves that live below the surface, so comparative core samples will be air lifted from high and low anchoring density areas.

Ebook: https://books.google.com.mt/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3XZr_gMA1F0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA93&ots=iS95HHHPbI&sig=TgjC8dderiihEHlL-JAxF1rzhgo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false    or   https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-8349-6871-5_6

Recreational boating is an important, growing leisure activity on the island of Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain. This spatial analysis of anchoring of recreational boating along the coast of Mallorca is intended to generate new data to contribute to the achievement of a comprehensive marine and coastal spatial planning on the island in addition to providing important information related to the pressure of increasing demand for anchoring space that, if not properly managed, could jeopardize the coastal and marine environments. The study combines data from the natural (habitats, geology), physical (wave patterns), and social sciences (survey interviews), using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as the main analytical tool. The final result is an estimate of the average amount of seabed available for anchoring during the highest levels of boating activity in Mallorca (i.e. summer high season) based on a number of different sustainability scenarios (i.e. average distance between boats, weather conditions). In addition to being applicable to any location wishing to manage recreational boating activity, the methodology presented in this study represents an integrated, multidisciplinary approach which could be applied to a number of management scenarios with a spatial dimension in marine environments.

This paper provides an approximation of the capacity of the coastal zones (seabeds available for anchoring).  The results can be a decision tool for the proper management of the coastal zone.  The work is based on the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems). The developed method is applicable to any coastal area and is considered useful for the future management.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569110002127?via%3Dihub