MNCR Area Summaries - Inlets in the Bristol Channel and approaches

The habitats and communities of the marine inlets of south-west Britain have been the subject of various surveys, primarily the Harbours, Rias and Estuaries (HRE) programme commissioned by the then Nature Conservancy Council. The HRE surveys were carried out by the Field Studies Council Oil Pollution Research Unit (opru) between 1985 and 1989 and covered all of the major and most of the minor inlets between Portsmouth and Milford Haven. The report summarises information on fourteen marine inlets, from the River Hayle in Cornwall northwards to Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. The data from the HRE surveys, together with data from a variety of other sources, have been analysed to classify the marine biotopes present and to describe their distribution within each inlet.