15-Year Review of Marine Aggregate Dredging – new report – The Crown Estate

15-year Review of Marine Aggregate Dredging

new report available from BMAPA and The Crown Estate

 This report may be downloaded from The Crown Estate website at:

http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/media/5360/ei-marine-aggregate-dredging-fifteen-year-review-1998-2012.pdf

Summary

The British Marine Aggregate Producers Association (BMAPA) and The Crown Estate have published a ‘Fifteen-Year Review’ which provides a unique overview of the changes in the area of seabed licensed and dredged between 1998 and 2012, enabling greater understanding of the nation’s marine mineral dredging activity and more sustainable management over the long term. It follows the fifteen-year anniversary, in 2013, of the ‘Area Involved Initiative’ and builds on the previous five and ten-year reviews, published in 2005 and 2009 respectively.

The review reports on trends across three key areas:

Area licensed:

• Between 1998 and 2012 the area of seabed licensed decreased by 748km².
• 1,237km² of licensed area was surrendered.
• 489km² of new area was licensed.
• The area licensed within 12 nautical miles of the coast decreased, while the area of seabed licensed beyond 12 nautical miles increased slightly.

Area dredged:

• Between 1998 and 2012 the area of seabed dredged annually decreased by 126km².
• The area of seabed dredged per year ranged from 222km² in 1998 to 97km² in 2012.

Cumulative footprint:

• The cumulative area of seabed dredged between 1998 and 2012 totalled 512km².
• The area of new seabed dredged each year significantly decreased to only 6.1km² in 2012. In 2004 this figure was 16.3km² and in 2008 it was 14.5km².
• A total of 314 million tonnes of marine sand and gravel was dredged from Crown Estate licence areas between 1998 and 2012. Averaged across the cumulative footprint, this represents 37cm of sediment being removed across the entire area dredged – equivalent to a single pass of a drag head.
• In reality, the extraction activity will not be spread evenly across the dredged area, and some areas will be dredged more intensively while others may not be dredged at all. Consequently, the actual thickness of sediment removed per unit area will vary according to the intensity of dredging operations and the depth limits of the sand and gravel deposits being targeted. Nevertheless the relationship between dredged area and extraction tonnage provides an indicator of the relative scale of dredging intensity.

The new report citation is:

‘Marine aggregate dredging 1998-2012’, The Crown Estate, 24 pages, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-906410-55-1 The report may be downloaded from The Crown Estate website at:

http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/media/5360/ei-marine-aggregate-dredging-fifteen-year-review-1998-2012.pdf

For further information contact: Mark Wrigley, Marine Minerals Operations Manager, The Crown Estate, 16 New Burlington Place, London, W1S 2HX, marineminerals@thecrownestate.co.uk Tel. 020 7851 5062.