dataset · United Kingdom
Marine Hard Substrate Dataset
The Marine Hard Substrate dataset maps areas of rock or hard substrate outcropping or within 0.5m of the sea-bed. For the purpose of this dataset, Hard Substrate was defined as the presence of either rock or clasts >64 mm (boulders or cobbles) within 0.5 m of the seabed. This definition includes sediment veneer overlying hard substrate in some areas. This is used in order to include both infaunal and epifaunal communities and is considered beneficial for habitat mappers. The interpretation was b
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Licence: ["The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in an
Evidence quality: 32.1
Listed in data.gov.uk public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z
What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- hard substrate polygons (rock or clasts >64 mm within 0.5 m of seabed)
- Coverage docs-verified
- UK Continental Shelf, bounding box lat 48.26 to 62.09, lon -22.09 to 2.85 · 2011-04-01 (dataset reference date, creation)
- Resolution docs-verified
- Intended for 1:250 000 scale; vector polygons
- Update frequency docs-verified
- irregular
- Formats docs-verified
- ESRI Shapefile (.shp) · OGC GeoPackage (.gpkg)
- Access docs-verified
- No auth listed; download from data.gov.uk; NERC/BGS copyright, reproduction requires prior permission of the copyright holder
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Regional screening of rock and hard-substrate constraints for MCZ and marine planning inputs · Benthic habitat baseline context for offshore renewables or aggregate site scoping (not site-specific) · GIS overlay of hard substrate with bathymetry and habitat layers for marine habitat mapping
- Audience llm-inferred
- marine ecologists · marine planners · GIS analysts · marine renewables consultants · hydrographic and seabed survey consultants
Limitations
- Constraints docs-verified
- Produced for 1:250 000 scale; detail is often finer but should not be relied on for local or site-specific geology · Update frequency is irregular · Reference date is 2011-04-01 · Hard substrate includes sediment veneer over hard substrate in some areas
Evidence
- https://www.bgs.ac.uk/datasets/seabed-sediments-250k/
- https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/9fa37f18-fced-4799-ac1c-59990bf12213/marine-hard-substrate-dataset1
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.