MESH Product Library

Since 2004, the MESH Project Partners have delivered a vast array products that improves our knowledge of seabed habitat mapping. This MESH Product Library section of the website provides easy access to these products. In its original application for funding, the MESH Partners set out eleven key transnational products that would be delivered by the end of the project. In addition, each of the actions listed a series of additional outputs that were items in their own right, or building blocks of the key products. All these products and outputs are available in through the MESH Product Library. It is arranged by theme, so whether you are thinking about commissioning a new mapping project, planning a field survey, undertaking fieldwork, manipulating data collected through habitat mapping, or just interested in the final maps there should be a variety of guides, tools, reports and other information to help you in your work. 

Key Products

The key products produced by the MESH Partnership may be grouped as follows:

• Overview - MESH Executive Summary

• Maps - the first collated and harmonised map of seabed habitats for north-west Europe with accompanying maps showing the quality of the mapping information, as assessed using the MESH Confidence Assessment Tool. A suite of predictive models were developed both to fill the gaps where survey data are not available, or to help understand the distribution of specific habitats using survey data. 

• Mapping data online - MESH webGIS and MESH metadata catalogue through the MESH website.

• Technical advice - the MESH Guide to Habitat Mapping including Recommended Operating Guidelines, tested by new field studies and and evaluation of the EUNIS habitat scheme as a tool for mapping.

• Links to stakeholders - the project established a Stakeholder Network, some of whom attended the MESH conference held in Dublin Castle, Dublin in March 2007. A portfolio of case studies was compiled both from MESH Partners and stakeholders showing the practical application of habitat maps in marine environmental management.

• Future work - after consulting with our key stakeholders via meetings and national stakeholder workshops, the MESH Partners developed a follow-on strategy suggesting how seabed habitat mapping may be taken forward into the future. This strategy deals with both maintaining and enhancing the existing MESH Products, and exploring new avenues for using habitat maps in a a research and policy framework.

MESH Product Library

All the material producted by the MESH Project is available through our product library. It is grouped by theme as set out below.

Note that some of these items, such at the online MESH webGIS system, MESH seabed signatures micro-site and MESH Metadata catalogue, are regularly updated with new information.