MaRePo: Marine Restoration Potential

Status: Complete

Start Date: September 2022

Lead Organisation: Natural England

This project is a proof-of-concept study which explores the habitat restoration potential of some key threatened and declining (subtidal) marine habitats as defined by the OSPAR convention: kelp, maerl, native oysters, horse mussels, and sea pen and burrowing megafauna communities. These habitats were chosen as they occurred within English waters and were known to have some possibility for active or passive restoration interventions. The project used a spatial analysis approach to investigate the current, historic, and potential future distribution of these habitats in English waters (out to 200 nautical miles (nm) from the shore).