‘Permanent Ecological Moorings’ was designed as a guide for managers of coastal or marine areas and for all the administrative and associative structures who face the recurrent problems of moorings. This guide summarizes key issues and shows the various choices available as well as being a technical guide. It wants to answer the main questions that one faces while managing the diverse activities involved in mooring and anchorage.

Anchorage or mooring? The authors of this guide have voluntarily considered that the two terms are synonymous. Two categories of anchorage (or mooring) can be defined : temporary mooring and permanent mooring. A permanent mooring cannot be moved quickly or easily. A temporary mooring is (usually) an anchor stored onboard a boat (or a floating structure that needs to be clamped down) and is re-hauled onboard when the boat starts to move again.

The act of mooring with an anchor means, dropping an anchor overboard to enable the immobilization of a boat because the anchor falls and is wedged onto the bottom. When removed , this anchor will be pulled up forcibly in order to be freed from the seabed. Depending on the fragility of the seabed or of the sea life (animals or plants) that are developing there, the impact can be significant. The areas most adapted to moorings are dependent on hydrological factors (currents, wave exposure) and meteorological factors (wind exposure). Along a stretch of coast these areas are not especially numerous and the pressure of moorings on the seabed can be frequent and significant.

Every manager or organization in charge of managing a coastal marine area will be facing this choice: preserve as good as possible the seabed or allow unregulated moorings with all the potential negative results that can ensue. In addition to general boat use, the managers themselves may need to moor: their own boats, permanent floating structures ( pontoon, barge, buoy) or immersed structures (canalization , sign for diving trail). How does one choose in cases like these an ecological solution that has minimal negative impact for the environment?

This guide will help in the choice of the most adapted ecological solution depending on the environment in question. It is divided into two main parts: the description of the major environments and the technical description of various permanent ecological moorings recommended.

Five main categories of environments have been selected: sand and mud, Pebbles and cobbles, Boulders and bedrock, Coralligenous formations, and Posidonia meadows. Each environment is briefly described and its ecological importance is detailed. The sensitivity and vulnerability of each of these environments are then evaluated depending on their particular characteristics: speed of regeneration, structural complexity (its architecture), ecological role, etc. These elements should enable us to understand why one environment is more or less fragile and why it is necessary to look for alternative solutions to moor with an anchor.

The technical solutions include a description of the immersed parts (the ones laid on or pushed into the sea bed) and the parts at the surface without forgetting the connecting elements between the surface and the bottom. Advice on the installation is also given. When many solutions are possible for a given environment they are presented in a comparative table in a synthetical manner that will help the manager to choose the optimum solution taking into account the usage, the quality of the substrate, and the estimated effort involved.

Please note: if this guide shows the various choices between the different technical solutions, in no way does it pretend to be nor replace a technical manual necessary to calibrate the mooring. Further more it does not address the juridical issues attached to problems of authorization or management of moorings.

If the place for a mooring does not need to be at a precise location, a manager might then have the choice between different substrates. In order to help this choice a table summarizes the vulnerability of each environment, from the least to the most sensitive and vulnerable.

At the end of this guide three appendixes give additional information: a list of bibliographic references, a glossary and a list of contact addresses. The glossary defines the terminology used in both the descriptive environment and the technical part. This terminology is written in blue in the text. The contact appendix contains a non exhaustive list of addresses or Internet sites in the assessment, installation, sale or calibration of ecological solutions for permanent moorings.