Federal Agency for Nature Conservation: Benthic habitats (WFS)

The WFS Downloaddienst provides the geometries on the benthic habitats for the North and Baltic Sea, which have been the basis for the assessment of the seabed in the context of the status assessment under Articles 8 and 10 of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in 2018 (https://www.meeresschutz.info/berichte-art-8-10.html?file=files/meeresschutz/berichte/art8910/zyklus18/Zustandsbericht_Nordsee_2018.pdf ; https://www.meeresschutz.info/berichte-art-8-10.html?file=files/meeresschutz/berichte/art8910/zyklus18/Zustandsbericht_Ostsee_2018.pdf). The two datasets available separately for the North Sea and Baltic Sea contain the intertwined Broad Habitat Types (BHT) and Other Habitat Types (OHT). BHTs, referred to as widespread benthic habitats in the 2018 state reports, correspond to benthic biotope classes of EUNIS level 3 in accordance with COM Decision 2017/848. OHTs, referred to as specially protected benthic habitats in the 2018 state reports, correspond to other benthic habitat types in accordance with COM Decision 2017/848. As such, in 2018, Germany included and assessed, inter alia, the two FFH habitat types sandbanks (EU code 1110) and reefs (EU code 1170) in the data sets.