This dataset describes fishing effort (hours/c-square) for all gear types in fourth 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.

This dataset contains seawater monitoring data reported by Contracting Parties of HELCOM to ICES DOME database and extracted for use in Hazardous substances indicators under the HELCOM Third Holistic Assessment of the Ecosystem Health of the Baltic Sea (HOLAS 3). Attribute specifications and units: series region l3area: HELCOM ID for HELCOM assessment units in scale 3 l4area: HELCOM ID for HELCOM assessment units in scale 4 country station_co: station code station_na: station name station_lo: station long name latitude: latitude longitude: longitude MSTAT WLYTP determinan: determinand determin_1: determinand group filtered basis unit series_typ: series type sym_shape colour n_year_all n_year_fit n_year_pos: n year positive first_year: first year all first_ye_1: first year fit last_year p_nonlinea p_linear p_overall p_linear_t: p linear trend linear_tre: linear trend p_recent_t: p recent trend recent_tre: recent trend detectable: detectable trend mean_last_: mean last year climit_las: climit last year EAC_type EAC_value EAC_diff EAC_achiev EAC_below

Observations of Vanellus vanellus 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. Vanellus vanellus has been placed to the Red List category of Near Threatened (NT) species. The map shows the species range only during breeding season.

Observations of Larus fuscus fuscus 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. Larus fuscus fuscus has been placed to the Red List category of Vulnerable (VU) species. The map shows the species range only during breeding season.

Observations of Hippasteria phrygiana 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. Hippasteria phrygiana has been placed to the Red List category of Vulnerable (VU) species. Dataset for download contains spatial grid of the Baltic Sea. Distribution of the species can be found in corresponding name column. Values are coded: 1 - Present before year 2000 or in 2000, 2 - Present after year 2000, 3 - Present both before and after year 2000.

The dataset contains the location of fossil fuel energy production facilities downloaded from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR). E-PRTR covers all HELCOM Contracting Parties except Russia. See attribute specification and units at: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/industrial-reporting-under-the-industrial-5/database-structure-and-use-information/eea_industrial_reporting_metadata_v6/at_download/file

Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSA) are special areas in world's oceans that serve important purposes, in one way or another, to support the healthy functioning of oceans and the many services that they provide. Following the voluntary commitment from HELCOM Contracting Parties at the United Nations Oceans Conference in June 2017, HELCOM started the process of identifying EBSAs in the Baltic Sea. The February 2018 EBSA workshop resulted in a proposal for areas for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to consider during the later half of 2018. Nine Baltic marine areas were described by the workshop participants as ecologically or biologically significant, including five transboundary areas covering waters of two or more countries. The described EBSAs extend into 14 of the 17 Baltic Sea sub-basins. Altogether, they cover 23% of the Baltic Sea, slightly higher than the 19% the average in other areas of the world. The described EBSAs are: - Northern Bothnian Bay - Kvarken Archipelago - Åland Sea, Åland Islands and the Archipelago Sea of Finland - Eastern Gulf of Finland - Inner Sea of West Estonian Archipelago - Southeastern Baltic Sea Shallows - Southern Gotland Harbour Porpoise Area - Fehmarn Belt - Fladen and Stora and Lilla Middelgrund. This dataset contains borders of these 9 areas and related attribute information.

This core indicator evaluates the status of the marine environment based on concentrations of heavy metal Mercury (Hg) in fish muscle. Quantitative threshold value is used to evaluate if core indicators status is "Achieve", "Fail" or "Not assessed". Threshold values are based on Environmental quality standards (EQS), defined at EU level for substances included in the priority list under the Water Framework Directive. This dataset displays the result of the indicator in HELCOM Assessment Scale 4 (Division of the Baltic Sea into 17 sub-basins and further division into coastal and off-shore areas and division of the coastal areas by WFD water types or water bodies). Attribute specifications and units: "HELCOM_ID" = Code of the HELCOM scale 4 assessment unit "country": country in which the HELCOM assessment unit is located or a mention to an open sea area "level_2" = Name of the HELCOM assessment unit in scale 2 "Name" = Name of the HELCOM assessment unit in scale 4 "Open_sea" = Name of the HELCOM assessment unit in the open sea "F2_Name" = Name of the HELCOM assessment unit "determinan" = Determinat "est" = The estimated mean loge concentration in the assessment unit "se" = The standard error on the estimated mean log concentration in the assessment unit "fit" = The estimated mean concentration in the assessment unit "upper_cl" = Upper one-sided 95% confidence limit on the mean concentration: exp(est + qnorm(0.95) * see) "Status" = Overall Status of the indicator according to one-out-all-out

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.

Created from EEA data, this dataset contains point data with the location of bathing sites downloaded from EEA (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/bathing-water-directive-status-of-bathing-water-13). No data from Russia. Attributes specification and units countryCod: International Country Code (ISO 3166-1-Alpha-2 code elements) bathingWat: Bathing water name reported by a Member State specialise: Specialised zone type lon: Longitude lat: Latitude bwProfileU: Hyperlink to documents or web pages with bathing water profile, if available