Imagine a giant digital map of the ocean that tells you exactly where the most important wildlife and carbon-absorbing plants are. It's like a GPS for nature that predicts how fish and habitats will move as the water warms up. This helps people decide which parts of the sea to protect to keep the ocean healthy and fight climate change.
Companies operating in the ocean struggle to identify which areas are ecologically sensitive or store high levels of carbon. This leads to regulatory risks, accidental environmental damage, and inefficient site selection for offshore projects.
A digital atlas and spatial prioritisation software. These tools map biodiversity richspots and carbon sinks across European seas at 5 km resolution.
If you are a wind farm developer dealing with site selection and environmental permits — this project developed spatial prioritisation software that identifies biodiversity richspots. This allows you to avoid high-risk areas and align your infrastructure with the 10% or 30% priority zones.
If you are a carbon auditor dealing with the verification of ocean-based carbon sinks — this project developed a carbon indicator mapping methodology. This helps you judge the risks of carbon release caused by seabed disturbance in specific European sea zones.
If you are a shipping company dealing with evolving maritime regulations — this project developed maps of optimal protected networks at a 5 km resolution. This allows you to predict future restricted zones and optimize routes to avoid protected biodiversity hotspots.
Based on available project data, all data and maps will be freely available through EMODnet, the Ocean Biodiversity Information System, and the project's online atlas.
The project covers a massive scale, including the Atlantic Exclusive Economic Zones of the EU, the Mediterranean, Baltic, and Black Seas, with a spatial resolution of 0.05 degrees.
Based on available project data, the project focuses on open availability through public databases and an online atlas for transparency and reproducibility.
It supports marine spatial planning by providing data-driven classifications of ecosystems and mapping optimal locations for protected areas.
The project period runs from 2023-01-01 to 2026-07-31, indicating results will be finalized by mid-2026.
The consortium consists of 10 partners across 8 countries, showing strong international cooperation. With a 20% industry ratio (2 companies, including 3 SMEs), the project is heavily weighted toward academic and research institutions (8 partners), suggesting the primary output is high-quality data and software tools rather than a commercial product.
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