EUNIS coastal habitat types probability maps - version 1, Dec. 2021

This metadata describes the EUNIS coastal habitat types distribution datasets created from habitat probability mapping. Probability maps are refined versions of habitat suitability maps. Suitability maps model areas where the environment is suitable for a certain habitat type. Probability maps include information on existing land cover and narrow the modelled suitable distribution to areas where the habitat type is probable to occur.

Coastal habitats are those above spring high tide limit (or above mean water level in non-tidal waters) occupying coastal features and characterised by their proximity to the sea, including coastal dunes and wooded coastal dunes, beaches and cliffs. Includes free-draining supralittoral habitats adjacent to marine habitats which are normally only very rarely subject to any type of salt water, in as much as they may be inhabited predominantly by terrestrial species, strandlines characterised by terrestrial invertebrates and moist and wet coastal dune slacks and dune-slack pools. Supralittoral sands and wracks may be found also in marine habitats (M). Excludes supralittoral rock pools and habitats, the splash zone immediately above the the mean water line, as well the spray zone and zone subject to sporadic inundation with salt water in as much as it may be inhabited predominantly by marine species, which are included in marine (M).

The verified coastal habitat samples used are derived from the Braun-Blanquet database (http://www.sci.muni.cz/botany/vegsci/braun_blanquet.php?lang=en) which is a centralised database of vegetation plots and comprises copies of national and regional databases using a unified taxonomic reference database. The geographic extent of the distribution data are all European countries except Armenia and Azerbaijan.