Recreational Pressures on Seagrass in Essex

LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES is a £2.5 million, five-year marine conservation partnership project to 'Save Our Seabed' at five Special Areas of Conservation in Southern England, including Essex Estuaries.

ReMEDIES stands for: Reducing and Mitigating Erosion and Disturbance Impacts affEcting the Seabed. For full details visit the ReMEDIES project website here:    https://saveourseabed.co.uk 

Essex Wildlife Trust in partnership with Natural England have co-ordinated citizen science surveys for 14 sites along the Essex Coast, to record the occurrence of water-based and land-based recreational activities on the seabed.

For more information about the Essex Seagrass Project, click here:  https://www.essexwt.org.uk/what-we-do/protecting-wildlife/projects/seagrass 

This webpage has been created to showcase the results of the Recreational Impact Surveys between 2021-2024, and highlight the pressures facing seagrass in Essex. Whether you are a water user, member of a community group, project manager or another interested party, by learning about the project and interacting with the data it is hoped that you will help conservation efforts by reducing your impact on our precious marine and coastal habitats like seagrass and spread the word about their importance. Please share this page with others that could help and if you would like to use the data, please contact us on the email address below.

14 locations were selected to be surveyed across the Stour, Colne, Blackwater and Thames estuaries. Nine of these were existing seagrass locations, and four were historic and future potential seagrass locations. A 500m arc was surveyed from a fixed viewpoint at each site, and any recreational activity observed within an hour was recorded using ArcGIS Survey123. Land-based activities were totalled for each survey, and vessels were located using a compass and rangefinder and mapped using the distance and bearing data after the field surveys were complete. From 2022 onwards, moored vessels at Thames estuary sites were mapped from satellite imagery rather than during field surveys. Shoebury East Beach was first surveyed in 2024.

Citizen scientists completed a total of six surveys per season (July-August) for each location, to include one survey within an hour of high tide, one survey within an hour of low tide, and one survey on a rising or falling tide. At least one survey per month took place on a weekend or bank holiday. All surveys were conducted between 10am and 5pm.

Completed surveys are listed in the table below, and these survey numbers should be taken into account in interpretation of summary maps and charts. All data presented is for the survey seasons of 2021-23. 2024 data will be added after the 2024 survey season is complete.

2024 will be the last year of the Recreational Impact Surveys, due to the ReMEDIES project finishing. For 2024, an extra site has been added at Shoebury East beach, as this is a busy site at an area of seagrass so it is important to capture the activities there. Adding this site was at the expense of Mundon Stone Point, meaning it will no longer be surveyed for 2024. It was one of the quietest sites, and required a long walk to get to the survey point, so it was agreed to replace it with Shoebury East beach.

The interactive dashboards below highlight the main survey sites where each land-based activity was recorded. Each activity may be filtered by survey month and survey year using the drop-down menus on the left. Circular points indicate that an activity was recorded at a location, and the chart and heatmap indicate the number of times the activity was recorded and relative quantities between sites. 

As part of the LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES project, Essex Wildlife Trust and Natural England have been working with and engaging local groups and communities to raise awareness for seagrass, its importance, and how it can be protected. Thanks to the data collected in the surveys, engagement efforts have been targeted at specific areas and groups. For example, working with sailing clubs to spread the word about the damage caused by mooring and anchoring boats, and attending events such as the Colchester Eco Festival to engage a wider audience. Furthermore, there has been some great content for social media, such as live videos, quizzes and even a detailed webinar. To check out the webinar, use this link:   https://youtu.be/maU6t1EPLqs?si=p7vtKXxTgOadkM3y 

As the LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES project completes in 2024, it is important that seagrass conservation work continues, and so in 2023 Essex Wildlife Trust begun working with Project Seagrass to help restore Essex’s seagrass. The site choices for the initial restoration work were directly informed by the surveys undertaken for ReMEDIES, with low-pressure sites being the most likely for restoration success. So far, extensive surveys have been conducted on our seagrass beds to learn about their traits, conditions and status, and restoration trials have also been undertaken. For these trials, different methods of seagrass restoration have been tested for effectiveness, such as transplants which involves taking cores of healthy seagrass and transplanting them out to areas with no current seagrass but has the potential to support it. By testing different densities, sediment types and gradients, we will be able to learn what the most effective methodology is for seagrass restoration in Essex, and over time there is the aim to expand it widely along the Essex coast to help restore our seagrass back towards historical levels.

For any questions or further information, please email  seagrass@essexwt.org.uk 

If you would like to provide further feedback or request to use the data, please email   seagrass@essexwt.org.uk