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Second BeNCoRe Conference: Geographic Information Systems in Coastal and Marine Research and Management 30 May 2008 - Leuven. Mapping European Seabed Habitats, the MESH project as a case study Els Verfaillie & Vera Van Lancker Universiteit Gent, Renard Centre of Marine Geology. Content.

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  1. Second BeNCoRe Conference: Geographic Information Systems in Coastal and Marine Research and Management 30 May 2008 - Leuven Mapping European Seabed Habitats, the MESH project as a case studyEls Verfaillie & Vera Van LanckerUniversiteit Gent, Renard Centre of Marine Geology

  2. Content • Introduction on MESH: What? Aim? Actions? • Action 1: GIS habitat maps and metadata • Belgian GIS contribution to MESH • Case study 1: Belgian habitat suitability maps and extension towards Southern North Sea • Case study 2: Marine landscapes • MESH follow-on strategy

  3. What is MESH? Development of a framework for Mapping European Seabed Habitats www.searchMESH.net

  4. General aim ‘Establish a framework for mapping the marine habitats of north-west Europe, through the development of internationally agreed protocols and guidelines for seabed habitat mapping, and the generation of the first compiled marine habitat maps for the north-west Europe Interreg IIIb area.’

  5. 6 MESH Actions • Action 1: GIS habitat maps & metadata • Action 2: Develop Standards & Protocols for marine habitat mapping • Action 3: Testing protocols • Action 4: Predictive modelling • Action 5: Demonstrate applications of habitat maps for spatial planning and environmental management • Action 6: Communication and dissemination plan

  6. GIS habitat maps & metadata www.searchMESH.net/metadata www.searchMESH.net/webGIS • MESH has: • Mobilised existing seabed habitat mapping data through a searchable online Metadata Catalogue (ISO19115 compliant) • Collated seabed mapping data to create unified seabed habitat maps to be displayed on MESH webGIS with standard data exchange formats (DEFs) for an efficient sharing of data • Correlated habitat maps with EUNIS (European Nature Information System) • Assigned accuracy and confidence labels to habitat mapping data • Created a Habitat signature catalogue

  7. Habitat signature catalogue www.rebent.org/mesh/signatures/

  8. Belgian GIS contribution to MESH (1) • standardisation of existing and new Belgian habitat mapping data and metadata

  9. Belgian GIS contribution to MESH (2) Scoring system 0 - 3 Unique code of habitat map Total score of habitat map www.searchMESH.net

  10. Case study 1: Belgian habitat maps (1) Increasing (median) grain-size Macoma balthica Macoma balthica Abra alba Abra alba Nephtys cirrosa Nephtys cirrosa Ophelia limacina Ophelia limacina community community community community Increasing silt-clay% macrobenthic communities (Van Hoey et al., 2004): HABITAT model (Degraer et al., 2008) • Quantification relation macrobenthos versus • silt-clay% and median grain-size • Multiple Discriminant Function Analysis • Community dependent accuracy • 67 – 88 %, average 77 %

  11. Case study 2: Belgian habitat maps (2) Silt-clay% (Verfaillie et al., 2006) Median grain-size Application of HABITAT model

  12. Case study 1: Belgian habitat maps (3) Habitat suitability maps of 4 macrobenthic communities (Degraer et al., 2008)

  13. Case study 1: Belgian habitat maps (4) Translation of habitat suitability maps into EUNIS level 5 map

  14. Case study 1: Belgian habitat maps (5) MESH webGIS: EUNIS map = Translated habitat map

  15. Ds50 Same exercise for Southern North Sea (1) Silt-clay% Application of HABITAT model

  16. Same exercise for Southern North Sea (2) FIRST TRIAL VERSION!

  17. Case study 2: Marine landscapes Modelling of marine landscapes purely based on physical datasets Verfaillie et al. submitted www.searchMESH.net

  18. MESH follow-on strategy (1) • Publication of MESH Guide / Blue Book • Collate, process and aggregate seabed maps into standard formats and classifications • Development of DEFs for new habitat maps • Maintenance of MESH website and webGIS

  19. MESH follow-on strategy (2) • Marine Strategy Directive – 11 December 2007 (included into the EU Marine Thematic Strategy) • ‘good environmental status’ by 2021 • overall aim of this strategy is to promote sustainable use of the seas and to conserve marine ecosystems against certain threats (e.g. loss of habitats, degradation of biodiversity) and pressures (e.g. physical degradation of habitat from dredging and extraction of sand and gravel) • EC and EEA: ideas for a European atlas of the Seas as contribution to the Marine Strategy, harmonising habitat maps of NW Europe (MESH), the Baltic Sea (Balance project) and the Mediterranean Sea.

  20. www.searchMESH.net Questions? Blue books available! www.searchMESH.net

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