Use constraints: The data products derived from the advice are downloadable from HELCOM Map and Data serviceand can be used freely given that the source is cited. The correct data product citation is following: ICES. 2015. Fishing abrasion pressure maps for mobile bottom-contacting gears in HELCOM area. http://ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication%20Reports/Data%20outputs/HELCOM_mapping_fishing_intensity_and_effort_data_outputs_2015.zipWhen using the data for analysis/assessments the following caveats need to be taken into consideration:The methods for identifying fishing activity from the VMS data varied between countries; therefore there may be some country-specific biases that ICES cannot evaluate. Additionally, activities other than active towing of gear may have been incorrectly identified as fishing activity. This would have the effect of overestimating the apparent fishing intensity in ports and in areas used for passage.The data for 2012 and 2013 is not directly comparable to the data of previous years in the data call (2009–2011) due to the gradual increase in VMS-enabled vessels in the range of 12–15 m. This is likely to be most relevant when examining trends in effort for inshore areas.Many countries have substantial fleets of smaller vessels that are not equipped with VMS (The fishing abrasion pressure methodology is based on very broad assumptions in terms of the area affected by abrasion. A single speed and gear width was applied across each gear category in most cases, which can lead to both underestimates and overestimates in actual surface and subsurface abrasion.

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.