Hampshire's Coast

Nature conservation in Hampshire

Hampshire possesses a range of important coastal habitats:

  •  About 4,000 hectares (nearly 10,000 acres) of mudflats and sandflats that support huge numbers of birds and contain eelgrass beds of national importance.

  •  Some 33 lagoons totalling 95 hectares (235 acres), probably the greatest concentration of saline lagoons in the country, about 15% of the national total, including 12 lagoons of international importance.

  •  About 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) of saltmarsh, roughly 4% of the UK total, and of national importance as the largest aggregation on the south coast of England, including Spartina marshes of international importance.

  •  About 860 hectares (2,125 acres) of grazing marsh, including some of the largest surviving areas of this habitat on the south coast.

  •  Seven kilometres (4.3 miles) of coastal cliff, although representing a small proportion of cliffs in Britain, is unusual in that its soft eroding nature exposes a variety of fossils.

  •  Several significant shingle sites and sand dunes.

Coastal habitat - Eaststoke

 The Solent has a number of estuaries which together comprise one of the most important estuarine systems in the UK. The Solent hosts up to 150,000 waterfowl each winter (100,000 waders and 50,000 wildfowl), including 13 species of national and 12 of international importance. This means that the Solent is the fourth most important coastal area in England for birds.

About 80% of the inter-tidal areas in the Solent are designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (comprising 30 sites totalling 12,966 hectares [32,040 acres]). The international importance of the area is reflected in the fact that there are three Special Protection Areas (SPAs) on the coast of Hampshire, also overlapping the Isle of Wight and West Sussex, totalling more than 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres), and the Solent Maritime Special Area of Conservation (SAC) (which overlaps substantially the SPAs) is 11,325 hectares (27,984 acres). In addition, many of the lagoons on the Hampshire coast are included in the Solent and Isle of Wight Lagoons cSAC. The Solent European Marine Sites (SEMS) also covers large stretches of our coastline.

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