‘Incredibly encouraging’: healing the scars of traditional anchors in Dorset’s seagrass meadows — SkimNews
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- Studland Bay Marine Partnership installed 10 trial eco-moorings in 2021, and bare patches in the seagrass shrank by an average of 94% between 2021 and 2025, according to the University of Southampton study.
- Kira Dunn, who conducted the research as part of her master's degree, found that a second study area where traditional chain moorings remained until 2023 saw scars reduce by 65%.
- David Brown, lead ecologist for the National Trust and chair of the partnership's steering group, said the impact was "beyond our expectations" and that robust monitoring and research proved the benefits.
- Studland Bay was designated a marine conservation zone in 2019 and supports one of the UK's largest seagrass meadows, home to the protected spiny seahorse and the occasionally recorded short-snouted seahorse.
- Eco-moorings consist of a 2-metre helical screw drilled into the seabed, connected to a surface buoy via a 2-metre elasticated riser that stretches with the tide to prevent scouring of the seabed.
- Volunteer divers monitoring seahorses have reported increases in numbers since eco-moorings were introduced, with conger eels, spider crabs, and corkwing wrasse also spotted in the meadows.
- Ken Collins, emeritus research fellow and diving officer at the University of Southampton and study supervisor, said the findings support the continued use and expansion of eco-mooring schemes at other sensitive marine sites under pressure.
Why it matters: The 94% scar reduction over five years gives the Studland Bay partnership the robust scientific evidence — in supervisor Ken Collins's words — to push for expansion of eco-mooring schemes to other UK seagrass sites where leisure boating, pollution, and coastal development are degrading carbon-storing habitats.
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