Within Europe’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), progress towards Good Environmental Status (GES) needs monitoring in a most time- and cost-effective way. For the GES descriptors 6 and 7, on seafloor integrity and hydrographic conditions, respectively, new integrative indicators (i.e. bottom shear stress, turbidity and seabed/ habitat type) need developing. To advance the mapping of seabed/habitat types, a Community of Practice (CoP) on seabed mapping will be established, investigating the main issues preventing joint mapping of the seabed. Within SEACoP (CoP on ‘Surveying for Environmental Assessments’) the following objectives are targeted: a) estimation of the precision, sensitivities and repeatability of the acoustic devices to detect changes in seabed/habitat types; b) quantification of the external sources of variance in the acoustic signature, including the influence of near-bed and water column suspensions on backscatter data; c) definition of best practice in ground-truthing the acoustic signal, with emphasis on visual techniques; and d) innovation in collaborative seabed mapping .
