EUSeaMap 2023, A European broad-scale seabed habitat map, Technical Report

• Main Authors: Vasquez, Mickaël, Ségeat, Benjamin, Cordingley, Ashley, Tilby, Emily, Wikström, Sofia, Ehrnsten, Eva, Al Hamdani, Zyad, Agnesi, Sabrina, Andersen, Mikkel Skovgaard, Annunziatellis, Aldo, Askew, Natalie, Bekkby, Trine, Bentes, Luis, Daniels, Elyana, Doncheva, Valentina, Drakopoulou, Vivi, Ernstsen, Verner Brandbyge, Gonçalves, Jorge, Karvinen, Ville, Laamanen-nicolas, Leena, Lillis, Helen, Loukaidi, Valia, Manca, Eleonora, Mcgrath, Fergal, Mo, Giulia, Monteiro, Pedro, Muresan, Mihaela, Nygard, Henrik, O'Keeffe, Eimear, Pelembe, Tara, Radicioli, Martina, Sakellariou, Dimitris, Teaca, Adrian, Todorova, Valentina, Tunesi, Leonardo, Woods, Helen
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Arctic; Barents Sea; Iceland
• Online Access: https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00859/97116/105963.pdf; https://doi.org/10.13155/97116; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00859/97116/

EUSeaMap 2023 is the sixth iteration of EUSeaMap. All versions have been produced as part of the EMODnet Seabed Habitats project, which is one of several thematic lots in EMODnet. The project has brought together a European consortium of specialists in benthic ecology and seabed habitat mapping. The partners first worked together in EMODnet Phase 1 (2009-2012) to develop a prototype predictive seabed habitat map in four test basins (Greater North Sea, Celtic Seas, Baltic Sea, Western Mediterranean). This predictive model was named EUSeaMap (Cameron and Askew, 2011). In EMODnet Phase 2 (2012-2016), the consortium extended the spatial coverage of EUSeaMap to all European regions (Populus el al., 2017). In Phase 3 (2017-2021), a first version (2019) extended the spatial coverage further north to include the Barents Sea, incorporated improved environmental data, and dramatically improved the spatial detail. In 2021 EUSeaMap was improved with new seabed substrate data and was published in new classifications, including the new version of the marine section of EUNIS, called EUNIS 2019. In this new version, called EUSeaMap 2023, EUSeaMap has been extended to the Caribbean Sea and the Caspian Sea. In Continental Europe, Macaronesia, Iceland and the Arctic, progress has been made in integrating new data on seabed substrate, bathymetry, wave energy and the probability of the occurrence of the halocline at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.