Glossary

Candidate Special Area of Conservation. A conservation site that has been submitted to the EC, but has not yet been formally adopted as an SAC.

A land area where precipitation runs off into streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. It is a land feature that can be identified by tracing a line along the highest elevations between two areas on a map, often a ridge. Large drainage basins, like the area that drains into the River Severn contain thousands of smaller drainage basins.

The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) is an internationally renowned scientific research centre working in fisheries management, environmental protection and aquaculture. Cefas is an Executive Agency of the UK Government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

See Coastal Impact Study.

A Coastal Impact Study is an assessment of the potential impacts to the coastline resulting from marine aggregate extraction.

The study of the interaction of waves and currents with the coast.

Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (1972).

Instrument which measures ionic conductivity, which can be used to determine chloride levels within marine aggregates.

A submerged border of a continent that slopes gradually and extends to a point of steeper descent to the ocean bottom.

Man-made deposits used for building embankments, filling in soggy ground, extending a shoreline into a lake or filling unused mine workings.

A legally binding International Agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.

Geological period, covering 136 to 65 Million Years ago, representing the last part of the Mesozoic era.

The Crown Estate has ownership and rights to minerals from the seabed up to the limit of the UK continental shelf. It issues licences for commercial aggregate extraction and charges a royalty for every tonne of aggregate dredged.

See Candidate Special Area of Conservation

Effects on the environment, either from the summation of individually minor but collectively significant impacts, or as the result of the interaction of impacts from one or more sources.