To understand the full benefits of EMODnet, users are kindly asked to describe how EMODnet supports them in their daily work and activities.
If you have developed an application using EMODnet products that you would like to share with us or if you use EMODnet data for other purposes, submit your use case by contacting secretariat@emodnet.ec.europa.eu.
Wageningen Marine Research Institute is a part of the wider Wageningen University and Research centre. The marine institute conducts independent scientific research and provides contributions and advice on marine monitoring, spatial planning, sustainable marine exploitation, fisheries and nature-based solutions to climate change. They aim to work towards the more sustainable and careful management, use and protection of marine, coastal and freshwater environments.
Outcomes: Authors present a framework to assess the impacts of mobile fishing gear on the seabed and benthic ecosystems, the principles of which are applicable to all benthic habitats and trawl fisheries, and can be used across a wide range of spatial scales.
How EMODnet Seabed Habitats helped the user:EMODnet provided EUNIS Level 3 habitat maps across European waters.
Outcomes:Authors used an Ecological Niche Model to identify previously overlooked areas of the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic, as areas containing soft coral habitats. The model could then be used for future surveys to target areas predicting presence of coral habitats and identify new priority conservation areas.
How EMODnet Seabed Habitats helped the user:EUSeaMap provided information on the distribution of rocky bottomed habitats across the study area.
Outcomes: Authors present a framework to assess the impacts of mobile fishing gear on the seabed and benthic ecosystems, the principles of which are applicable to all benthic habitats and trawl fisheries, and can be used across a wide range of spatial scales.
How EMODnet Seabed Habitats helped the user:EMODnet provided EUNIS Level 3 habitat maps across European waters.
Authors identified that boundaries of successful no-take MPAs may still be zones of high stress for habitat forming species such as maerl. Additionally, authors suggested that MPA designations should re-consider boundaries in areas with low-resilience, key-forming habitat species.
Outcomes: Authors were able to propose methods for assessing representativity across European MPA's, suggesting the use of biozones and benthic habitats within EUSeaMap as a primary data source. Moreover, assessment habitat classes (revised broad habitats) are proposed based on the crosswalk of MSFD broad habitat types with respect to EMODnet Folk 5 substrate and seabed biological zone classes
Outcomes: Researchers were able to produce GIS maps showing the spatial overlap between high discard rate areas and seabed habitats in case study areas of the Mediterranean. This fed into a wider project, with the overall goal of eliminating discards in European marine fisheries.
How EMODnet Seabed Habitats helped the user:Data on seabed habitats were available in all study areas of the project.
Outcomes:Assessors highlighted environmental covariates with the greatest influence on porpoise density distribution models. Resulting distribution maps were then used to propose areas suitable for protection of these marine mammals in Swedish waters.
How EMODnet Seabed Habitats helped the user:EUSeaMap provided some of the data used in the habitat distribution models
Outcomes: Authors were able to create predictive mapping relating to the supporting seabed habitats for inshore wintering waterfowl (IWW) in Scotland. The results identified the location and extent of some prey species and habitats that support the inshore wintering waterfowl, and these will, in turn, inform the management of proposed marine Special Protection Areas (pSPA).
Outcomes: Authors were able to predictively model the extent of protected Annex I features within Scottish Marine Protected Areas, Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protected Areas, where survey data did not exist.
How EMODnet Seabed Habitats helped the user:Data on physical variables were freely available for the areas of interest.