Use Cases

Undertaking a regional cumulative impact assessment requires a vast amount of spatial data. EUSeaMap v2016 was a key data source for defining ecosystem components in reporting on the 2011-2016 HELCOM ‘State of the Baltic Sea’.

EMODnet is assisting the building of the infrastructure supporting a set of studies, carried out in accordance with the Spanish Environmental Impact Assessment procedure, needed to make the territorial and environmental diagnosis of the effects caused by the project. One example of these studies is represented by the paper published by the consultancy company Biosfera XX Estudios Ambientales where the data made available by EMODnet Bathymetry, Human activities and Seabed Habitats have been used.

JNCC produced a ‘Combined Map’ integrating data from field survey maps (mostly from the EUNIS habitat datasets collection) and the most recent version of the EMODnet Seabed Habitats broad-scale predictive habitat map available at that time. The Combined Map is a single flat layer without overlaps between habitats or component datasets, making it suitable and efficient for area calculations.

The pan-European map presenting the distribution of modelled broad scale seabed habitats (EUSeaMap v2016) made available through the EMODnet Seabed Habitats project, was crucial in the assessment recently performed by ISPRA in collaboration with the European Environment Agency to compile information on the distribution of all  marine broad-scale habitats for the whole Western Mediterranean basin.

EMODnet Seabed Habitats data enabled the mapping of potential disturbance to benthic habitats due to fishing in the north-east Atlantic. The assessment was part of the wider OSPAR Intermediate Assessment 2017, which evaluates the status of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic.