This dataset describes fishing intensity for Seine mobile bottom contacting gear in 2014 based on VMS/Log book data processed by ICES Working Group on Spatial Fisheries Data (WGSFD). ICES secretariat collected during 2017 relevant VMS and logbook data for 2009-2016 to produce, as a technical service to HELCOM, updated spatial data layers on fishing intensity/pressure. Improved data quality control checks were implemented. Submitted data across the HELCOM area have improved in quality compared to previous data 2009-2013 published in 2015. Standardized methods were used to produce the requested data layers. The code used to create the data products is available here: https://github.com/ices-eg/wg_WGSFD For further technical information on the advice request, see http://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication%20Reports/Advice/2017/Special_requests/helcom.2017.18.pdf HELCOM secretariat did the following processing to the shapefile provided by ICES: - Conversion to ETRS89LAEA coordinate system - Added feature and attribute "Reported" to display unreported areas. Dataset attribute information: c-square: Unique reference of the c-square polygon Year: Year of fishing activity mid_lat: latitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees mid_lon: longitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees SurfaceSAR: Surface area ratio (Swept area, < 2 cm penetration depth of the gear components) Subsurface: Subsurface area ratio (Swept area, subsurface =>2 cm penetration depth of the gear components) totweight: Total Weight (kg) totvalue: Total value (Euros) Kw Fishing Hours: (Kw*h) Fishing hours: (h) Reported: Yes=Reported data. No= No reported data (area that does not contain effort/intensity value due to lack of reported data). Please note that this dataset was updated (v2) in January 2019, see further details below in the lineage section.

This dataset is built from the following Human activities dataset: • Hunting of seals The number of hunted seals (see separate metadata on hunting of seals) were averaged over 2011-2014 separately for grey seals, ringed seals and harbour seals (e.g. number of hunted grey seals / year). In Sweden the numbers of hunted grey seals in 2011 (74) were reported for the whole Swedish territorial waters), but here the numbers were set only to Swedish Gulf of Bothnia, as corresponding numbers were reported there in 2013 (75) and 2014 (65). The area of the reporting unit was used to calculate the number of hunted seals / km2 and the data was converted to 1km x 1km grid. For the Baltic Sea Impact Index, the values were normalized. Normalized value 0.5 was set to the level of quota for hunting of seal species in the Baltic Sea. The following quotas for hunting were used: Grey seal: 2000, Ringed seal: 350, Harbour seal 230.

This dataset describes fishing intensity for OT CRU mobile bottom contacting gear in 2012 based on VMS/Log book data processed by ICES Working Group on Spatial Fisheries Data (WGSFD). ICES secretariat collected during 2017 relevant VMS and logbook data for 2009-2016 to produce, as a technical service to HELCOM, updated spatial data layers on fishing intensity/pressure. Improved data quality control checks were implemented. Submitted data across the HELCOM area have improved in quality compared to previous data 2009-2013 published in 2015. Standardized methods were used to produce the requested data layers. The code used to create the data products is available here: https://github.com/ices-eg/wg_WGSFD For further technical information on the advice request, see http://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication%20Reports/Advice/2017/Special_requests/helcom.2017.18.pdf HELCOM secretariat did the following processing to the shapefile provided by ICES: - Conversion to ETRS89LAEA coordinate system - Added feature and attribute "Reported" to display unreported areas. Dataset attribute information: c-square: Unique reference of the c-square polygon Year: Year of fishing activity mid_lat: latitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees mid_lon: longitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees SurfaceSAR: Surface area ratio (Swept area, < 2 cm penetration depth of the gear components) Subsurface: Subsurface area ratio (Swept area, subsurface =>2 cm penetration depth of the gear components) totweight: Total Weight (kg) totvalue: Total value (Euros) Kw Fishing Hours: (Kw*h) Fishing hours: (h) Reported: Yes=Reported data. No= No reported data (area that does not contain effort/intensity value due to lack of reported data). Please note that this dataset was updated (v2) in January 2019, see further details below in the lineage section.

Observations of Lamna nasus were collected from the Baltic Sea area for HELCOM Red List species list. The HELCOM Red List of Baltic Sea species in danger of becoming extinct (2013) is the first threat assessment for Baltic Sea species that covers all marine mammals, fish, birds, macrophytes (aquatic plants), and benthic invertebrates, and follows the Red List criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Almost 2800 species were considered in the Red List assessment and about 1750 were evaluated according to the IUCN Red List criteria. Lamna nasus has been placed to the Red List category of Critically Endangered (CR) species. The map shows the sub-basins in the HELCOM area where the species is known to occur regularly and to reproduce (HELCOM 2012).

This dataset describes fishing intensity for OT DMF mobile bottom contacting gear in 2012 based on VMS/Log book data processed by ICES Working Group on Spatial Fisheries Data (WGSFD). ICES secretariat collected during 2017 relevant VMS and logbook data for 2009-2016 to produce, as a technical service to HELCOM, updated spatial data layers on fishing intensity/pressure. Improved data quality control checks were implemented. Submitted data across the HELCOM area have improved in quality compared to previous data 2009-2013 published in 2015. Standardized methods were used to produce the requested data layers. The code used to create the data products is available here: https://github.com/ices-eg/wg_WGSFD For further technical information on the advice request, see http://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication%20Reports/Advice/2017/Special_requests/helcom.2017.18.pdf HELCOM secretariat did the following processing to the shapefile provided by ICES: - Conversion to ETRS89LAEA coordinate system - Added feature and attribute "Reported" to display unreported areas. Dataset attribute information: c-square: Unique reference of the c-square polygon Year: Year of fishing activity mid_lat: latitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees mid_lon: longitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees SurfaceSAR: Surface area ratio (Swept area, < 2 cm penetration depth of the gear components) Subsurface: Subsurface area ratio (Swept area, subsurface =>2 cm penetration depth of the gear components) totweight: Total Weight (kg) totvalue: Total value (Euros) Kw Fishing Hours: (Kw*h) Fishing hours: (h) Reported: Yes=Reported data. No= No reported data (area that does not contain effort/intensity value due to lack of reported data). Please note that this dataset was updated (v2) in January 2019, see further details below in the lineage section.

This dataset describes fishing effort (hours/c-square) for midwater trawl in third quarter of 2013 based on VMS/Log book data processed by ICES Working Group on Spatial Fisheries Data (WGSFD). HELCOM requires spatially explicit information on fishing activity affecting the Baltic Sea marine ecosystem for policy purposes. In order to obtain this information a joint ICES/HELCOM/OSPAR data call was issued to relevant authorities of contracting parties to deliver information on fishing activity based on VMS/Log book data. The raw data was submitted to ICES and processed to advice data products by ICES Working Group for Spatial Fisheries (WGSFD) as requested by HELCOM. Processing of the raw data requires specific resources, knowledge and guarantee of anonymity for specific vessels, thus the process was done by ICES WGSFD following Conditions for VMS data use. In 2015 ICES collated Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) and logbook data received; data from Russia were not received. ICES provided to HELCOM advice as fishing abrasion pressure maps as well as fishing effort maps. HELCOM secretariat did the following processing to the data: - Conversion to ETRS89LAEA coordinate system - Added feature and attribute "Reported" to display unreported areas. Dataset attribute information: c-square: Unique reference of the c-square polygon mid_lat: latitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees mid_lon: longitude coordinate of the centroid of c-square inWGS84 decimal degrees Year: Year of fishing activity quarter: Quarter of the year, if applicable geargroup: Fishing gear group (Effort maps) SubsurfSAR: Subsurface swept area ratio (Intensity maps) SurfSAR: Surface swept area ratio (Intensity maps) Fishing_ho: Total fishing effort in hours within c-square (Effort maps) Reported: Yes=Reported data. No= No reported data (area that does not contain effort/intensity value due to lack of reported data.

A vector grid in 2 x 2 km resolution showing model results of environmental impact caused by spill of soluble chemicals from ships with size less than 5000 t as g oil / km^2 weighted.This dataset has been produced by COWI (http://www.cowi.dk) for the BRISK project (Sub-regional risk of spill of oil and hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea, http://www.brisk.helcom.fi/). Fields: COL_NO (Dbl): Column ROW_NO (Dbl): Row WLoad (Dbl): Environmental impact (g oil / km^2 weighted).

Observations of Tringa totanus were collected from the Baltic Sea area for HELCOM Red List species list. The HELCOM Red List of Baltic Sea species in danger of becoming extinct (2013) is the first threat assessment for Baltic Sea species that covers all marine mammals, fish, birds, macrophytes (aquatic plants), and benthic invertebrates, and follows the Red List criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Almost 2800 species were considered in the Red List assessment and about 1750 were evaluated according to the IUCN Red List criteria. Tringa totanus has been placed to the Red List category of Near Threatened (NT) species. The map shows the species range only during breeding season.

This dataset contains core indicator results for the bird species breeding in the Baltic Sea area by assessing fluctuations in abundance, visualized for wading feeders. Quantitative regional thresholds are used to evaluate if the core indicator achieves good status. The indicator performs status evaluations by aggregating annual single species index values for all waterbird species and on the basis of aggregated indices for five species groups (wading feeders, surface feeders, pelagic feeders, benthic feeders, grazing feeders). Good status is achieved when the abundance of 75% of the considered species of a species group does not decline by more than 30% (20% in species laying only one egg per year) compared to a baseline during the reference period 1991-2000. This dataset displays the result of the indicator in HELCOM Assessment Scale 3 (Division of the Baltic Sea into 17 sub-basins and further division into coastal and offshore areas). Attribute information: "HELCOM_ID" = ID of the HELCOM scale 3 assessment unit "level_2" = Name of scale 2 HELCOM assessment unit "level_3" = Name of scale 3 HELCOM assessment unit "Area (km2)" = Area of HELCOM assessment unit "Coastal" = HELCOM ID of the coastal areas "Open_sea" = Open sea assessment unit name "Abundance" = Assessed parameter "Wading feeders" = Results for the category "Wading feeders status" = Status of the indicator (“Achieve”, “Fail” or “Not assessed”) "Surface feeders" = Results for the category "Surface feeders status" = Status of the indicator (“Achieve”, “Fail” or “Not assessed”) "Pelagic feeders" = Results for the category "Pelagic feeders status" = Status of the indicator (“Achieve”, “Fail” or “Not assessed”) "Benthic feeders" = Results for the category "Benthic feeders status" = Status of the indicator (“Achieve”, “Fail” or “Not assessed”) "Grazing feeders" = Results for the category "Grazing feeders status" = Status of the indicator (“Achieve”, “Fail” or “Not assessed”) "AULEVEL" = Assessment unit level used for the indicator "Group area" = Name of the group area

The dataset contains the compilation of the abundance of coastal waterbirds in the breeding season from the data submitted by HELCOM contracting parties to the data call for HOLAS 3. Data was received from DE, DK, EE, FI, PL and SE.