Coastal Lagoons are identified in Annex I of the Habitats Directive as a “Priority Habitat” and therefore in need of special protection. Within Ireland there are twenty-five Special Areas of Conservation which have Coastal Lagoons (1150) as a qualifying interest. Under Article 11 of the Habitats Directive, surveillance of the conservation status of Annex I habitats is required and under Article 17 each member state is obliged to report on this status to the European Commission every six years.

Coastal Lagoons are identified in Annex I of the Habitats Directive as a “Priority Habitat” and therefore in need of special protection. Within Ireland there are twenty-five Special Areas of Conservation which have Coastal Lagoons (1150) as a qualifying interest. Under Article 11 of the Habitats Directive, surveillance of the conservation status of Annex I habitats is required and under Article 17 each member state is obliged to report on this status to the European Commission every six years. Commencing in 1996 Irish Coastal Lagoons have been systematically sampled. A comprehensive inventory of eighty-eight coastal lagoons in Ireland has been produced and a classification of Irish lagoons on the basis of their physical, chemical and biological parameters has been developed. A national programme was most recently completed as part of Coastal Lagoon Monitoring Programme 2016-2017. Using this information, site-specific conservation objectives have been developed for SACs in which coastal lagoon habitat is a qualifying interest. Each objective has a number of targets to be met in order for the habitat to be in favourable conservation condition. Forty coastal lagoons have been selected for monitoring between 2023 and 2025 (Table 1); these include thirty-two which are qualifying interests in eighteen SACs, four which are in SACs but are not qualifying interests and four which are not in a Natura 2000 site.