Poland one of the first European states to complete a habitat map of its Baltic Sea coast, now available as a book and database

Report by Elzbieta Krajewska

Not many people realize that 11% of Polish territory is sea. Some 30 thousand square kilometres of seabed belong to Poland. Just what lies and swims there - is now general knowledge thanks to a giant habitat mapping effort sponsored by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism and carried out by Polish and Norwegian researchers.

Marcin Węsławski from the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot was coordinator of the project, which brought together six Polish maritime institutes and one Norwegian one, working on an inventory of archival data, confirmed and updated in two seasons of field work.

It resulted in some surprising conclusions, among others that the polluted Bay of Puck teems with life – in opposition to the clean but wave-torn stretches of coastline. Poland’s stretch of the Baltic has seals and dolphins alongside the more ordinary herrings, and there’s also an area of shelf that resembles a coral reef.

Also, all the knowledge collected in the habitat map has an applicable, economic dimension.  The research can be accessed via the page pom-habitaty.eu

Click on the icon above to listen to the report.