The map was provided by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) delineating reef areas primarily located within the Natura 2000 sites "Sylter Outer Reef" and "Borkum-Reefground". The delineation was done by use of backscatter data, in-and epifauna sampling including underwater videos and scientific diving within different research projects coordinated by the Federal Agency since 1998.

The map was provided by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) delineating reef areas primarily located within the Natura 2000 sites "Sylter Outer Reef" and "Borkum-Reefground"(BfN 2004). The delineation was done by use of backscatter data, in-and epifauna sampling including underwater videos and scientific diving within different research projects coordinated by the Federal Agency since 1998.

The map was produced by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) and depicts the sediment conditions within the German Exclusive Economic zone and coastal areas in a scale of 1:250.000 (Laurer et al. 2014). Grain size fractions were classified according to the sediment calssification system of Figge (1981) and grouped to polygons data layers covering the entire area of interest (for detailed information please refer to Laurer et al. 2014). The sediment classes according to Figge (1981) formed the basis to differentiate the three EUNIS level 3 habitat types sublittoral sand, mud and coarse sediments.

The map was produced by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) and depicts the sediment conditions within the German Exclusive Economic zone and coastal areas in a scale of 1:250.000 (Laurer et al. 2014). Grain size fractions were classified according to the sediment calssification system of Figge (1981) and grouped to polygons data layers covering the entire area of interest (for detailed information please refer to Laurer et al. 2014). Corresponding sediment formed the basis to differentiate Level 3 substratetypes according tothe new German Red List Biotope classification system (Finck et al. 2017): sandy habitats, muddy habitats, coarse sediment habitats, mixed and hard bottom habitats

The map presentsapreliminary result of a currently running project on benthic habitat mapping in the German North Sea funded and coordinated by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation(Bildstein et al. 2014, Pesch et al. 2016). Full coverage biotope mapping was accomplishedby applying Random Forests on site specific data on six infaunacommunitiesand predictor data on e.g. topographical and sedimentological features of the sea floor for a 600 m x 600 m raster. The benthic communities had been derived from infauna abundance data by use of fuzzy clustering (for corresponding methodological details please refer to Fiorentino et al. 2017).