The Crouch and Roach Estuaries are a 1729 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) at the mouth of the Crouch and Roach rivers in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

. The Crouch part of the SSSI stretches from near Battlesbridge to

Foulness Island Foulness Island () is a closed island on the east coast of Essex in England, which is separated from the mainland by narrow creeks. In the 2001 census, the usually resident population of the civil parish was 212, living in the settlements of C ...

, and the Roach from Rochford to the junction with the Crouch. Part of the site is in the Mid-Essex Coast

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certa ...

under the EC Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds, and a

Ramsar Ramsar may refer to: * Places so named: ** Ramsar, Mazandaran, city in Iran ** Ramsar, Rajasthan, village in India * Eponyms of the Iranian city: ** Ramsar Convention concerning wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran ** Ramsar site, wetland listed in ...

wetland site of international importance. It is also part of the Essex Estuaries

Special Area of Conservation A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and a ...

. An area of 65 hectares is managed by the

Essex Wildlife Trust The Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT) is one of 46 wildlife trusts which cover the United Kingdom. The EWT was founded in 1959, and it describes itself as Essex's leading conservation charity, which aims to protect wildlife for the future and the people ...

as the Lion Creek and Lower Raypits nature reserve and 8 hectares at Woodham Fen, both of which are managed by the

. A small area is also a geological SSSI, The Cliff, Burnham-on-Crouch. The site has

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is domin ...

, intertidal mud, grazing marsh and a fresh water reservoir. The salt marsh has scarce species including lax-flowered sea-lavender and one-flowered glasswort. Rough grass has dense populations of the nationally scarce Roesel's bush-cricket. The site is internationally important for wintering dark-bellied brent geese, and nationally important for black-tailed godwits,

shelduck The shelducks, most species of which are found in the genus ''Tadorna'' (except for the Radjah shelduck, which is now found in its own monotypic genus ''Radjah''), are a group of large birds in the Tadorninae subfamily of the Anatidae, the biolog ...

s and shoveller ducks. There are

Red Data Book The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biolog ...

species of invertebrates such as the ground lackey moth.

References

{{SSSIs Essex Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Essex Special Protection Areas in England