EMIS - EUNIS Broadscale Seabed Habitats of the Northeast Atlantic and Adjacent Seas

The EUNIS-compliant geospatial datasets concerning broadscale seabed habitat distributions that are currently available (Spring 2015) from the EMODNET portal cover only around half of the European Union (EU) waters in the Northeast Atlantic and adjacent Seas. This work focused on expeditiously complementing this coverage by bringing in, and harmonizing where needed, complementary EUNIS-compliant data from the UNEP/GRIDA Global Seafloor Geomorphic Features Map and the EEA EIONET Ecosystem Map. The polygon shapefile produced extends for approximately 8.7 million square kilometres, spreading out to the limits of the Extended Continental Shelf areas claimed in the by EU Member States in the Northeast Atlantic. This new dataset significantly improves the existing EUNIS-compliant coverage by (i) populating the deep-sea and offshore areas with previously disregarded geomorphic-based habitat classes and by (ii) adding information for EUNIS classes A1, A2, X1 and X2/X3. The coverage of EUNIS seabed habitats available is in this manner doubled in comparison to EMODNET. More than 90% of the EU waters are detailed down to EUNIS level 2 and 3 and a small part down to level 5. The mapped extents of several habitats should still be considered geographically biased and underestimated in relation to their actual extent. This should be resolved upon completion of EMODNET's Seabed Habitats harmonized coverage, which is currently addressing the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, part of Macaronesia and part of the Celtic Seas.