This can be most probably found where the sea floor presents a high spatial heterogeneity. Therefore we can assume that sites with high sea bed spatial heterogeneity are often characterised by a significant benthic and necto-benthic communities diversity. The data derived from bathymetry and spot soundings give spatially and physically consistent information on the sea floor structure and morphology, its composition and its variety. They are suitable for detecting biotope diversity, its distribution patterns within and outside protected sites.
Bathymetric data are uniform and updated for the whole basin.
Those are characterised by a high variability of each cell with the 15 surrounding it, analysed by a matrix of minimum value. ISLAs have been ranked by presence of a high slope value and by their area extension. The concept of self-similarity implies that independently of scale, each part of the whole is similar in structure to the whole. Conceptually, coastlines are often taught as natural examples that exhibit this feature. Fractal dimensions have been used in the past to attempt to quantify the degree of space filling of an object.