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Making a splash: a model of the artificial reefs to be created in Scottish waters.

Marine scientists in Scotland are poised to dump one and a quarter million concrete blocks onto the seabed to study the effects that artificial reefs have on sea-life.

Weighing over 40,000 tonnes and taking more than two years to build, the reef will help researchers to study how marine animals select and colonize habitats, as well as offering clues to how such giant constructions affect local sea currents and seabed sediment quality.

The project, which will cost £1.5 million (US$2 million), has now been granted a licence by the Scottish parliament. The first blocks will be dropped next month.

The reef is being built off the island of Lismore in Loch Linnhe, near Oban on the west coast of Scotland. Martin Sayer, a marine scientist with the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) laboratory at Dunstaffnage in Argyll, who is directing the scheme, says that most scientific research on artificial reefs has taken place on industrial installations such as breakwaters. “This will be different because its primary objective is experimental,” he explains.

The reef will provide a platform for various SAMS experiments, he says, but will also be available to other research groups. A marine mammal team at the University of St Andrews has already arranged to use it to study porpoises.

The concrete blocks will be dumped in 24 separate reefs over an area the size of six football pitches. To test the effects of different reef and block shapes, half of the blocks will be solid, half will have holes, and both kinds will be used in square- and pentagon-shaped reef designs.

→ http://www.sams.ac.uk/sams/dml/projects/reef