Coastal Saltmarsh Monitoring

Quality Control

Confidence in this data is High and field work carried out by Central Environment Surveys (CES) under contract to the former Countryside Council for Wales.

Method steps

1. Within each Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) a series of transects were established, totalling 39 transects across the four SACs. At each point along the transect presence and absence of a suite of species was used to determine the saltmarsh zone present. Additional information was recorded at each point such as presence of vehicle tracks, bare patches due to poaching damage, anoxic algal mats, Spartina anglica, grazing indicators, pollution damage, turf cutting and rare species. Targets were set for what constituted good condition on a point, transect and SAC level. For some sites estuary specific targets were also set. Surveys were conducted as follows: - Glannau Mon 28-30 Sept 2006 - Pen Llyn a’r Sarnau 1-6 Oct 2006 - Pembrokeshire Marine 7-11 Oct 2006 - Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries 17-20 Oct 2006

Glannau Mon Cors Heli SAC, Pen Llyn a’r Sarnau SAC, Pembrokeshire Marine SAC, Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries SAC.