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In Norway, a landscape map exists which gives the opportunity to collect data in landscape units for further analysis. This study covers parts of Norway and Sweden, so the landscape map was extended into Sweden to form a unified landscape structure. A collection of geological and terrain data within landscape units can serve as a tool to describe the geodiversity profile of the units, study their geographical distribution and analyse similarities and dissimilarities between them. We collected geological and terrain data for an area covering large parts of southern Norway and Sweden. The data were collected as attributes in landscape polygons. The data were then analysed using multivariate techniques (Principle component analyses) where the first four axes of variation were definable. The first axis is a terrain axis, the second a bedrock unit axis, the third a bedrock diversity axis and the fourth a soil/sediment axis. In total, the four gradients answer for 54.9% of the total variation in the material. Links are found between the terrain data and geological units, but these links are relatively weak. The four gradients represent a step-less model of the geodiversity profile of the landscape areas but are dependent on the quality and scale of the input data. Norwegian and Swedish data had to be harmonised in order to be analysed together; however, because of this they ended up having a coarser resolution than desired, both spatially and scientifically. The stepless model was clustered to form 16 geodiversity profile groups for easy comparison and regional overview. The procedure can serve as a baseline for more detailed and field-based studies of geodiversity profiles, and give the opportunity to make analytical maps through simple overlay techniques and to compare areas with each other with respect to their geodiversity profile. This can be carried out both alone and in a wider landscape setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have documented relationships between wave exposure and distribution, density, and size of marine species. Hence, this factor is at a high level in the hierarchical habitat classification system EUNIS and is one of the Water Framework Directive water typology criteria of coastal waters. Isæus (2004) has developed a continuous simplified wave model (SWM) that has been applied to several Nordic countries. Here we refine this model by introducing depth-attenuation, giving us the advantage of a model for wave exposure as it will actually work at the seabed. The values of the depth-attenuated model SWM(d) are approximately similar to the SWM model in shallow areas but noticeably lower in deep areas. The two models were compared in an analysis of the distribution of seabed substrate in the Stockholm archipelago. Using the depth-attenuated wave exposure instead of the SWM model as predictor in substrate modeling improved these models considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]