Project description
The objective of this contract is to further develop an operational service where marine data on seabed habitats is made interoperable and freely available and to further develop data products based on observations of the sea and ground truthing surveys, providing free and open access to these data products and to the observations on which these data products were built.
Objectives of the project were the development of data products describing seabed habitats in European seas. Moreover, new information was produced regarding hydrographical properties of European Seas and collation of individual species and habitat models was carried out from universities and research institutes. For instance, inventory data from the Finnish Inventory Programme for the Underwater Marine Environment (VELMU) was integrated to be part of the products viewable in the EMODnet Seabed Habitat web page.
The project produced following outputs:
- Data product of the European seabed habitats
- Products describing marine environment, such as salinity, wave exposure, and optical properties of the water
- 300 000 inventory points from European sea areas related to seabed habitats
- Over 800 separate maps depicting seabed habitats
- Over 50 seabed habitat models collated
- Composite products EOV (Essential Ocean Variables): seaweed, macroalgae, corals
- Open-source interactive maps of seabed habitats and end products of the project
The project results have been utilised for instance in:
- HELCOM Report of the state of the Baltic Sea 2011-2016
- Assessments of the efficiency of Marine Protected Areas and determining the state of the seabed
EMODnet Seabed Habitats programme will continue with new contract also in 2020.
Interactive map of EMODnet Seabed Habitats © EMODnet portal