BRISTOL CHANNEL SEDIMENT ENVIRONMENTS: INTEGRATING SCIENCE AND POLICY FOR THE REAL WORLD

摘要

A strategic review of the Bristol Channel sediment regime has been completed to provide a context which the main licensing authority can use to assess applications for marine aggregate extraction. The review includes the derivation of sediment environments which rationalise the regime into broad areas within which the local sediment populations demonstrate a similar general behaviour. These same sediment environments now provide the strategic framework for marine aggregate policy decisions. This paper describes the scientific basis for deriving sediment environments, summarises the present policy options for the area and presents a case study of Helwick Bank.