SH7 Red-listed shore habitat types

>> Background information

Status of shore habitat types

According to the Red-list Assessment of Finnish habitat types published in 2008, 40% of shore habitat types are threatened. The share of threatened shore area of total evaluated area is notably less than 40% since many threatened shore habitat types are small. The exact shore area cannot be estimated, because the areas of several shore habitat types are unknown or only partially known.

Shore habitat types are in this assessment shared between the inland water and Baltic Sea shores. Threatened shores of the Baltic Sea include groups of coastal sand beaches and dunes which are all evaluated as vulnerable or endangered, as well as seashore meadows which are either endangered, critically endangered or too poorly known to be evaluated. Also the rare Myrica gale swamps are endangered. The most threatened shores of inland waters are meadows on shores wich include several vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered habitat types. In addition, inland flooded forests have been evaluated as endangered in the whole country.

Threats

The shares of different red-list categories is quite similar for both the shores of Baltic Sea and inlad waters. However, the reasons for the development differ. Coastal sand beaches and dunes of the Baltic Sea are mostly threatened by erosion and construction, which also are interconnected. In general, open shores have sufferd from the increase in vegetation density, which is caused by several factors. These include eutrophication of the Baltic Sea, ending of grazing on shores and nutrient load from atmospheric deposition. Coastal forests have become threatened because of for example forest management, field clearing, construction and also drainage on some habitat types.

In the case of inland waters, the main causes for the negative development of threatened shore habitat types are water construction and regulation of water courses. Meadows on shores have also been affected by increased vegetation density as a result of the end of traditonal management (e.g. mowing and grazing).