Species distribution models (Maxent) predicting the distribution of two Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VME): the reef-forming Scleractinian coral Desmophyllum pertusum and the aggregations forming Hexactinellid sponge Pheronema carpenteri. Both of these species are VME indicator taxa and form habitat that enhance deep-sea diversity (Ross and Howell, 2013). Maps of the likely distribution of the habitat formed by these two species will enable efficient Marine Spatial planning to facilitate their conservation. This work was performed at the University of Plymouth in 2021. A GIS layer is provided for each species.

This dataset is the coastal zone land surface region from Europe, derived from the coastline towards inland, as a series of 10 consecutive buffers of 1km width each. The coastline is defined by the extent of the Corine Land Cover 2018 (raster 100m) version 20 accounting layer. In this version all Corine Land Cover pixels with a value of 523, corresponding to sea and oceans, were considered as non-land surface and thus were excluded from the buffer zone.

Species distribution models (GAM, Maxent and Random Forest ensemble) predicting the distribution of Syringammina fragilissima fields assemblage in the North East Atlantic. This community is considered ecologically coherent according to the cluster analysis conducted by Parry et al. (2015) on image sample. Modelling its distribution complements existing work on their definition and offers a representation of the extent of the areas of the North East Atlantic where they can occur based on the best available knowledge. This work was performed at the University of Plymouth in 2021.

The raster dataset represents the risk of collision of whales with vessels in Europe Seas. The most vulnerable species from ship strikes are cetaceans and turtles, since they go to the surface to breathe. On the other hand, their migration routes can overlap with shipping lanes. The collisions can produce the death or injury of the animals, and are an important threat for the conservation of these species. The dataset has been prepared in the context of the development of the first European Maritime Transport Environmental Report (EMSA-EEA report, 2021: https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/maritime-transport).

Classification of the Atlantic Ocean seabed into broad-scale benthic habitats employing a hierarchical top-down clustering approach aimed at informing Marine Spatial Planning. This work was performed at the University of Plymouth in 2021 with data provided by a wide group of partners representing the nations surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. It classifies continuous environmental data into discrete classes that can be compared to observed biogeographical patterns at various scales. It has 3 levels of classification. For ease of use, a layer is provided for each level. Level 1 has 4 classes. Level 2 has 15 classes nested within level 1. Layers indices are 2 digits (1[level1 class index]1[level 2 class index]). Level 3 has 157 classes nested within level 2 and class names have 4 digits (1digit[level1 class index]1[level 2 class index]2[level 3 class index]). Note that the classification was performed for the whole world and thus it has more classes than in the presented layer.

This raster dataset represents the physical loss of the seabed in the European seas. Physical habitat loss is an extreme pressure on the marine ecosystem which was defined to include all impacts on the seabed which take more than 12 years to recover, a time span influencing even long living marine mammals and seabirds. Habitat is lost if its substrate, morphology or topography is permanently altered. The dataset is an aggregation of several different human activities that cause physical loss in the seabed: dredging and dumping of dredged material, oil and gas rigs, offshore installations, ports, sand and gravel extraction and windfarms. The resulting dataset is a raster (10km grid cell) derived from EMODnet, MED-IAMER and 4C Offshore datasets and with temporal reference from 2012 to 2017. Higher values mean more loss causing activity in the area. Due to its resolution, loss causing activity in a cell does not usually mean that all the seabed habitat in the area is lost. This dataset has been prepared for the calculation of the combined effect index, produced for the ETC/ICM Report 4/2019 "Multiple pressures and their combined effects in Europe's seas" available on: https://www.eionet.europa.eu/etcs/etc-icm/etc-icm-report-4-2019-multiple-pressures-and-their-combined-effects-in-europes-seas-1.

Coastal zones are presented as a series of 10 consecutive buffers of 1km width each (towards inland). For this dataset, were treated as sea data all areas with a class value of 523 (sea and ocean) in Corine Land Cover (details in lineage).

This raster dataset provides the estimation of the extracted tonnes of fish by commercial fishing per 10 km grid cell in the European seas. The dataset has been derived from the combination of demersal and pelagic fishing data, together with fish landings data (2011-2016) from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre - Independent experts of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (JRC STECF). The temporal extent varies between the data sources. The cell values have been transformed to a logarithmic scale (ln1). This dataset has been prepared for the calculation of the combined effect index, produced for the ETC/ICM Report 4/2019 "Multiple pressures and their combined effects in Europe's seas" available on: https://www.eionet.europa.eu/etcs/etc-icm/etc-icm-report-4-2019-multiple-pressures-and-their-combined-effects-in-europes-seas-1.