HELCOM’s ship data used for planning the Baltic Sea

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​HELCOM's vast data on ships' movements in the Baltic Sea are analysed to support the 2-year maritime spatial planning project Baltic SCOPE having its kick-off event today in Riga, Latvia. HELCOM Automatic Identification System (AIS) network has monitored and compiled data on ships without interruption since 2005. Via HELCOM's work, the project, led by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, can tap into this spatial information on shipping, a key activity in the Baltic.
 
The cleaning and restructuring of the huge raw AIS data covering the period 2005-2014 has already been undertaken by HELCOM Secretariat. Also the first versions of traffic density maps have been prepared for the case study areas - one in the Baltic Sea southwest and the other between Estonia, Latvia and Sweden. The HELCOM Secretariat will also prepare a publication drawing together lesson learnt on the use of AIS and other data in maritime spatial planning of the Baltic Sea, in order to ease the future work in other initiatives.
 
Being a regional information hub, HELCOM also possesses other and up to date spatial information for planning at sea such as on marine protected areas, in a new database to be open for public in the end of November, or maps on the distribution of endangered species and habitats listed in the HELCOM Red List publications. One example of upcoming HELCOM products of likely interest for MSP purposes is the Baltic-wide dataset of fishing vessel movements, compiled in cooperation with ICES.
 
The 2-year Baltic SCOPE project focuses on planning various marine-based activities such as shipping, fishing, offshore wind farming, and protected areas. The project plans to deliver a set of generic good practices, methods and results which will be filtered into the Baltic MSP process fostered by the HELCOM-VASAB MSP Working Group.
 
Maritime spatial planning, an essential instrument for efficient, ecosystem-based management of maritime activities, is also a horizontal action of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea region jointly led by HELCOM and VASAB.