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A literature study of human activities and pressures as well as ecosystem component layers available for Marine Spatial Planning and mapping of cumulative impacts in Swedish marine waters
Summary
A Swedish literature review assessed what data layers are available for marine spatial planning and mapping cumulative human impacts in Swedish waters, covering activities like shipping, fishing, and pollution. The study is a policy and governance review, not primarily focused on microplastics.
We report a literature study on the needs for and the availability of data layers required for evidence-based Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) as well as mapping of the potential cumulative effects of multiple human activities. Specific focus is on data layers representing a variety of human activities and pressures as well as data layers representing ecologically-relevant species, habitats and communities. The aim of the study is to provide guidance for the Swedish SYMPHONY initiative and process, which ultimately is planned to result in a Swedish national data-driven ‘system’ for MSP and mapping of cumulative effects (Cumulative Effect Assessments; CEA). With this report and its conclusions and recommendations, the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM) now holds the sufficient information required to – step by step – develop a nation-wide framework supporting evidence-based MSP and CEA. The crucial first step in this process is the build-up of an ecologically-relevant catalogue of pressure layers and ecosystem component layers.
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