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| This dataset represents Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the world. Up to now, there was no global public domain cover available. Therefore, the Flanders Marine Institute decided to develop its own database. The database includes two global GIS-layers: one contains polylines that represent the maritime boundaries of the world countries, the other one is a polygon layer representing the Exclusive Economic Zone of countries. The database also contains digital information about treaties.
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| Go to EEZ-website for full description of this dataset |
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| This is the fifth release of this dataset, but there still might be some errors. Remarks and corrections can be sent to Nathalie De Hauwere.
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Some species occur in the German Exclusive Economic Zone. The question one can ask, is whether this species occur in the North Sea or in the Baltic Sea. However these two sea basins are relatively close to each other, they have completely other characteristics.
That is the reason why we decided at VLIZ to make the EEZ's sea basins dependent. So the German EEZ will be split in a 'German part of the North Sea' and a 'German part of the Baltic Sea'.
The same will happen with France f.i. where the French part of the Atlantic Ocean and the French part of the Mediterranean Sea will be created.
This operation has be computed in ArcGIS, using the Intersect and Union Tool from the ArcToolbox.
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| Download Intersect IHO/EEZ (Version 1, 2010 - 4.96MB) | View Metadata |
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| This is the first release of this dataset so there may be some errors. Remarks and corrections can be sent to Nathalie De Hauwere.
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Preferred citation:
VLIZ (2010). Intersect of IHO Sea Areas and Exclusive Economic Zones (v5, 2009). Available online at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/vlimar/downloads.php. Consulted on 2012-02-08. |
| The dataset represents the boundaries of the FAO Fishing Areas. The source for the boundaries is the description that can be found on the FAO website. The dataset was composed by the Flanders Marine Data and Information Centre. |
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| Download FAO Fishing Areas Shapefile (2,213kb) | View Metadata |
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This is the first release of this dataset so there may be some errors. Remarks and corrections can be sent to Nathalie De Hauwere.
The dataset will be extended in the future with the polygons of the divisions and subdivisions of the fishing areas. |
Preferred citation:
VLIZ (2005). FAO Fishing Areas Geodatabase. Available online at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/vlimar/downloads.php. Consulted on 2012-02-08. |
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| Links: |
| FAO Fishing Areas |
This dataset represents a partition of the world oceans into provinces as defined by Longhurst (1995; 1998; 2006), and are based on the prevailing role of physical forcing as a regulator of phytoplankton distribution. The dataset represents the initial static boundaries developed at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada. Note that the boundaries of these provinces are not fixed in time and space, but are dynamic and move under seasonal and interannual changes in physical forcing. At the first level of reduction, Longhurst recognised four principal biomes (also referred to as domains in earlier publications): the Polar Biome, the Westerlies Biome, the Trade-Winds Biome, and the Coastal Boundary Zone Biome. These four Biomes are recognisable in every major ocean basin. At the next level of reduction, the ocean basins are partitioned into provinces, roughly ten for each basin. These partitions provide a template for data analysis or for making parameter assignments on a global scale. Please refer to Longhurst's publications when using these shapefiles.
A summery table has been prepared by Mathias Taeger and David Lazarus, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin (2010-03-26).
This table makes it easier to relate the classification of Longhurst to the the original quantitative parameters used to create it.
Productivity values are from the table in Longhurst, 1995, Chlorophyll values; photic depth and mixed layer depth originate from graphs in Lonhurst, 1998. The sea temperature at 0 and 50 m are from the World Ocean Atlas (2005), average values were calculated in ArcGIS.
Each parameter value was set into 5 equal intervals. Download summary table.
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| Download Longhurst Areas Shapefile (Version 4, March 2010 - 2,34MB) | View Metadata |
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| Remarks can be sent to Nathalie De Hauwere. |
Preferred citation:
VLIZ (2009). Longhurst Biogeographical Provinces. Available online at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/vlimar/downloads.php. Consulted on 2012-02-08. |
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| References: |
- Longhurst, A.R et al. (1995). An estimate of global primary production in the ocean from satellite radiometer data. J. Plankton Res. 17, 1245-1271
- Longhurst, A.R. (1995). Seasonal cycles of pelagic production and consumption. Prog. Oceanogr. 36, 77-167
- Longhurst, A.R. (1998). Ecological Geography of the Sea. Academic Press, San Diego. 397p. (IMIS)
- Longhurst, A.R. (2006). Ecological Geography of the Sea. 2nd Edition. Academic Press, San Diego, 560p.
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MEOW is a biogeographic classification of the world's coasts and shelves. It is the first ever comprehensive marine classification system with clearly defined boundaries and definitions and was developed to closely link to existing regional systems. The ecoregions nest within the broader biogeographic tiers of Realms and Provinces.
MEOW represents broad-scale patterns of species and communities in the ocean, and was designed as a tool for planning conservation across a range of scales and assessing conservation efforts and gaps worldwide. The current system focuses on coast and shelf areas (as this is where the majority of human activity and conservation action is focused) and does not consider realms in pelagic or deep benthic environment. It is hoped that parallel but distinct systems for pelagic and deep benthic biotas will be devised in the near future.
The project was led by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), with broad input from a working group representing key NGO, academic and intergovernmental conservation partners.
(source: http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/ecoregions/marine/item1266.html)
Read the article |
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| Download MEOW (2007 - 385kb) | View Metadata |
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| | References: |
- Spalding, M. D. Fox, H. E. Allen, G. R. Davidson, N. Ferdana, Z. A. Finlayson, M. Halpern, B. S. Jorge, M. A. Lombana, A. Lourie, S. A., (2007). Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas. Bioscience 2007, VOL 57; numb 7, pages 573-584.
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This shapefile has been prepared in the framework of COMARGE, one of the field project of the Census of Marine Life. It is intended to represent continental margins worldwide, with the exclusion of the continental shelf. The continental margins have been defined based on bathymetry and expert opinion. The upper margin of the boundary has been set at 140 m depth, which is the average depth of the shelf break, except in Antarctica where the shelf break goes deeper and the upper boundary has been set up at 500 m. The lower boundary has been set at 3500 m depth. Both isobaths were extracted from S2004 Bathymetry (a global bathymetry at 1 arc-minute resolution). The upper and lower boundaries were manually edited to follow the contour of continental margins in particular cases.
Please note that some but not all margins around island are included in this shapefile. (source: Metadata)
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| Download Continental Margins (2009 - 10.6 Mb) | View Metadata |
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| | References: |
- IFREMER (Vion, A.; Menot, L.), (2009). Continental margins between 140m and 3500m depth. Available online at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/vlimar/downloads.php. Consulted on 2012-02-08.
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| Depth and topography directly and indirectly influence most ocean environmental conditions, including light penetration and photosynthesis, sedimentation, current movements and stratification, and thus temperature and oxygen gradients. These parameters are thus likely to influence species distribution patterns and productivity in the oceans. They may be considered the foundation for any standardised classification of ocean ecosystems, and important correlates of metrics of biodiversity (e.g. species richness and composition, fisheries). While statistics on ocean depth and topography are often quoted, how they were derived is rarely cited, and unless calculated using the same spatial resolution the resulting statistics will not be strictly comparable. We provide such statistics using the best available resolution (1-minute) global bathymetry, and open source digital maps of the world's seas and oceans and countries' Exclusive Economic Zones, using a standardised methodology. We created a terrain map and calculated sea surface and seabed area, volume, and mean, standard deviation, maximum and minimum, of both depth and slope. The results:
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| Download the EEZ results (2010 - 76.9 Mb) |
| Download the IHO results (2010 - 1.65 Mb) |
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| References: |
- Costello, M.J.; Cheung, A.; De Hauwere, N (2011). The surface area, and the seabed area, volume, depth, slope, and topographic variation for the world's seas, oceans and countries. Environmental Science & Technology
- The surface area, and the seabed area, volume, depth, slope, and topographic variation for the world's seas, oceans and countries. Available online at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/vlimar/downloads.php. Consulted on 2012-02-08.
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| This scheme meets the need for a standard yet adaptable system of geographical units for use in recording plant distributions and arranging specimens. Because a purely political arrangement cannot meet all the needs of botanists, the scheme's arrangement compromises between a politically and a phytogeographically oriented system. It identifies geographic units worldwide in a four-level hierarchy, incorporating continents, regions, provinces and countries. Each geographical unit at each level has its own numeric or alphanumeric code.
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| More information and the shapefiles can be found on: http://www.kew.org/gis
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| References: |
- R. K. Brummitt with assistance from F. Pando, S. Hollis, N. A. Brummitt
and others. Plant Taxonomic Database Standards No. 2.ed. 2. World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, ed. 2. 2001. xv, 137 pp.; 17 maps. Available online at http://www.kew.org/gis/tdwg/index.html
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The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) consists of an international group of experts who work on the development of a range of bathymetric data sets and data products, including gridded bathymetric data sets, the GEBCO Digital Atlas, the GEBCO world map and the GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names. They make the following gridded bathymetry data sets available:
- The GEBCO_08 Grid: a global 30 arc-second grid
- The GEBCO One Minute Grid: a global one arc-minute grid
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| More information and the grid files can be found on: http://www.gebco.net/ |
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| References: |
- For the GEBCO_08 Grid: The GEBCO_08 Grid, version 20091120, http://www.gebco.net
- For the GEBCO One Minute Grid: 'The GEBCO One Minute Grid, version 2.0, http://www.gebco.net
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ETOPO1 is a 1 arc-minute global relief model of Earth's surface that integrates land topography and ocean bathymetry. It was built from numerous global and regional data sets, and is available in Ice Surface and Bedrock versions. Historic ETOPO2v2 and ETOPO5 global relief grids are deprecated but still available. Available Versions of the Grid (relief for the rest of the world is the same in both versions.):
- ETOPO1 Ice Surface: Grid of Earth's surface depicting the top of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
- ETOPO1 Bedrock: Grid of Earth's surface depicting the bedrock underneath the ice sheets.
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| More information and the grid files can be found on: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ |
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| References: |
- Amante, C. and B. W. Eakins, ETOPO1 1 Arc-Minute Global Relief Model: Procedures, Data Sources and Analysis. NOAA Technical Memorandum NESDIS NGDC-24, 19 pp, March 2009.
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