Analysis of protected areas in the North Sea and the Central Baltic (Beskyttede områder) (39425)

The project aims at delivering a report on the scientific basis and coherence of the current system of marine protected areas in the Danish North Sea, Skagerrak and central Baltic Sea EEZ’s. This will enable the Danish Nature Agency to decide whether the existing network of protected areas is coherent (representative, adequate and connected) with respect to the requirements of the MSFD art. 13 part 4.

The most important biodiversity elements, habitats and ecological processes of the North Sea/Skagerrak and the central Baltic Sea will be addressed including selected ecosystem components, oceanographic features and seabed habitats. The work will be based on available data, literature studies and results from recent investigations. Furthermore, ecologically valuable – “hot-spots” – and areas of economic value are to be identified.

The network of ecologically valuable areas will be analyzed based on data, distribution mapping, weighting of data and connectivity consideration using several types of software. Areas of economic value inside and outside the Natura2000 network will be identified based on existing data collected by the partners and located at the partner’s database. Finally, areas of economic importance will be combined to suggest marine protected areas.

Partners  
National Institute of Aquatic Resources, DTU Aqua
Danish Centre for Environment and Energy, Aarhus University, Denmark
DHI, Denmark
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Denmark

Funding
The project is funded by Danish Agrifish Agency.

Research area: Ecosystem Based Marine Management