Identification of areas suitable for restoration of boulder reefs in the south-eastern Great Belt

Sammendrag

During the last decade, there has been a growing interest in the role and conservation of the protected marine nature type ’stone reefs’. A number of restoration projects have taken place in Denmark and the potential role of stone reefs for environmental and conservation status has been analyses, e.g. with regard to their role as a supplementary measure in areas affected by seasonal hypoxia. The objective of this report, and the analysis on which it is based, has been to designate areas of potential interest with regard to restoration of stone reefs in the south-eastern parts of the Great Belt, Denmark. The driver has been a long-term wish from Slagelse Municipality to potentially restore stone reefs in a potentially interesting and ecologically-relevant coastal waterbody. This report and the results should been seen as a first step in this process. The report, which has been written in collaboration with GEUS (The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland), is based on data from the BALANCE, EUSeaMap 1 and EUSeaMap 2 projects, which have been re-analysed with a specific focus on the south-eastern parts of the Great Belt, Denmark. Key focus was put on ecologically-relevant data sets, e.g. bathymetry, sediment types, light conditions, salinity and exposure. Based on this, we have produced high resolution broad-scale seafloor habitat maps including an identification of those combinations of features indicative of stable stone reefs with thriving benthic communities.