Management Units for Cetaceans in UK Waters (January 2015)

This dataset is a collection of shapefiles that set out the boundaries of final agreed Management Units (MUs) for the seven most common cetacean species in UK waters. The boundaries are supported by a paper published on JNCC's website: http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-6943 The Inter-Agency Marine Mammal Working Group (IAMMWG), comprising representatives of Natural England (NE), Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) met at SNH Edinburgh on 28th June 2012. Expert scientific advice was also sought from SMRU. The paper derives from discussions at that meeting and subsequent correspondence. Details of each MU are provided, including boundaries and estimated abundance figures. The MUs provide an indication of the spatial scales at which impacts of plans and projects alone, cumulatively and in-combination, need to be assessed for the key cetacean species in UK waters, with consistency across the UK. The MUs have been fully incorporated into the Population Consequences of Disturbance (PCoD) interim model for assessing the impacts of marine renewable energy developments on marine mammals, developed by the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) on behalf of The Crown Estate, the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), Marine Scotland and the SNCBs. The interim PCoD model was published in February 2014: see http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/02/8509. The MU boundaries detailed in the paper are final and will not change until they are formally reviewed, anticipated to occur in 2019, and every five years thereafter.