Habitat point records from 1985 AWA River Stour littoral survey

The survey was done as a pilot study for the future monitoring of the area in a three year rolling programme. A comparison was made with an earlier survey by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (Kay and Knights 1975), for any changes in the benthic ecology. Sampling was undertaken from a boat in August 1985, with the exception of sites 1-5, 40 and 41 which were accessed by foot from the shore. Samples were taken with a corer of 6.5cm internal diameter, 15cm deep and a surface area of 33.2cm. Three replicates were taken at each site resulting in an area of 99.5cmsq. Each sample was put through a 0.5mm seive. The survey concluded that the condition of the macroinvertebrate benthos compares favourably with that of other estuaries in the area, and classes the river as `clean`. The study recomended monitoring of the apparent shift from a mollusc dominated community to a polychaete dominated community. No data was recorded from sites 20 and 23 in the survey report.