In Western Europe, this habitat type includes a wide variety of dune habitats: stagnant water bodies, pre-vegetated areas, patches of minerotrophic fens, wet meadows (often with short willows, see habitat type 2170), sedge shrubs, and club-rush beds. This diversity of habitats also results in extremely diverse vegetation. In Estonia, this habitat type should also include the black alder marshes...

This habitat type includes wet depressions between dunes in Western Europe that are inhabited by creeping willow communities. As the creeping willow is rare in Estonia as a pure species – its hybrid with the rosemary-leaved willow is more common –, it is not easy to distinguish this habitat type in nature. Such depressions between the dunes, where communities of creeping willow and its prostrate...

Coastal dunes fixed and leached (washed out) with permanent vegetation, which are mainly covered by crowberry. There are usually no trees or shrubs, while in some places, there are a few stunted pines and junipers. This habitat type has similar vegetation to that of dry sand heaths (2320). The two are mainly distinguished by their position on the landscape: the habitat type in question occurs on...

The later stage of development of the coastal dunes, following the two previous habitat types (2110 and 2120): plants and lichens have fixed the sand in place, and the dunes are covered with permanent vegetation. The more or less merged community resembling a heath meadow consists of grasses and mosses, with some lichens and a single pine here and there. Fixed coastal dunes can be found on the...

The most seaward, shifting chain of the dune system (sometimes several chains) – a natural extension to the embryonic shifting dunes (2110). Compared to the latter, there are more plants and they form patchy primary vegetation communities. Shifting dunes can be found in the hinterland of sandy shores, especially on the islands of Western Estonia, on the coasts of Lääne County, Pärnu County, and...

These are sand streaks and heaps outside the direct area affected by the waves – the first stage of the developing dunes. These are wind-blown sand areas where no established vegetation cover could ever grow: only a few plant clusters here and there. The embryonic shifting dunes are related to the white dunes (2120), they are found almost everywhere as a coastal extension of narrow inlets (1640)...

This habitat type includes the wind set-up and splash zone of shallow sandy shores up to the embryonic shifting dunes (2110), thus being a natural extension of the drift lines (1210). Unlike the latter, the sandy beaches have already developed perennial vegetation, at least in patches. However, here too the vegetation cover is often sparse: in some places, only bare sand covers large areas...

This habitat type is particularly important as a nesting and resting ground for birds and as a rookery for seals. The vegetation cover is usually very sparse on the small islands; occasionally, some superficial deposit rocks are exposed. Dry-loving plants and lichens form patches of primary vegetation, many islands have no trees at all. The vegetation of the small islands and islets is affected by...

This habitat includes muddy sandy and sand-clay beaches (marshes) flooded with wind set-up, where salt-loving (halophilic) annuals grow in larger or smaller patches on wet saline soil. Marshes are formed mainly on the flat coasts of bays, protected from strong winds and waves, and in some places on coastal meadows. Beyond the shoreline, the marshes often smoothly transition into coastal meadows...