Location
Lawica Slupska is located within Polish territorial sea waters, in Polish economic zone. It lies on the open waters of so called Proper Baltic, north off Ustka, about 25 nautical miles from the shore.

Ecosystem
Name "Lawica Slupska" refers to a shallow fragment of the Baltic sea bottom, not far from the Polish shore. Bottom of the Baltic in this area has a very complicated structure. It is a system of basins separated by many shoals and connected by narrow gullies and elevated sand-stony banks.

Topography of the present Baltic is a result of a few factors connected with the last glaciation. During retreat of Baltic glaciation Prabaltic underwent different stages of its development. About 6 thousand years ago, during period of so called Litorina transgression, in result of sea level rise of almost 30 meters lower insular (moraine) parts of land were flooded.

Borders of Lawica Slupska have been established at the 20 meter isobath. The shallowest parts of Lawica are submerged only 8 meters below the sea level. Formation of the surface is very diverse, with many elevations and depressions stretched from south-west to north-east. The surface is covered by coarse-grained sands, gravels and organic bottom sediments. Its north-western, the shallowest part is covered by dense cobblestones. In this part occurence of rich stands of macroalgae have been recorded. About 15 species of macroalgae have been observed here, with the largest population of  red algae with Delesseria sanguinea species, which was regarded as extinct in the waters of Proper Baltic. Less numerous are red seaweed and green algae, which form varied structures of communities on different depths.

Fauna of bentos invertebrates connected with these vegetable habitats is also very diverse. In terms of number they are dominated by sommon mussel, quite many are also crustaceans.

Lawica Slupska lies far from land pollutions. Because it is shallow there are no shipping lanes coming across it. North-western, stony part of Lawica is an obstacle for trawling so it is not too often explored by fishermen. Since waters have high transparency most of Lawica has been preserve in its natural state. Occurrence of such species of fish as: common goby, turbot, cod and eel.

Shallowness of waters and abundance of food create favorable conditions for wintering of many water birds, hatching in the northern Europe. 

Lawica Slupska has been included into the international network of bird refuges due to presence of migrating flocks of long-tailed ducks and black guillemots. In winter many black-throated divers, red-throated divers and little gull stop here. Local fishermen fishing here in winter are often accompanied by sea gulls.

Threats
Potential threat for the whole ecosystem of Lawica Slupska can be presented by planned exploitation of bottom sediments and building wind power stations. Another potential threat comes from sea transport, especially in cases of sea catastrophes. The biggest existing threat for birds from Lawica is setting nets during period of the biggest concentration of birds and mammals (many dead birds get caught in the nets).

Protection of Nature
So far no form of protection of nature has been established here. For almost 20 years it has been postulated to include Lawica Slupska into the Baltic Sea Protected Areas (BSPA) system.