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This layer is displays a fine scale common/ harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) at sea usage map. These ‘usage’ maps are produced by looking at movement data from telemetry tagged seals between 2003 and 2015. The resulting patterns of usage are scaled to population levels using data collected in aerial survey counts at haul-out sites, to produce estimates of mean density at a spatial resolution of 0.6 km x 0.6 km grid cells.

Alongside these maps, a report is available at (https://data.marine.gov.scot/dataset/fine-scale-harbour-seal-sea-usage-mapping-around-orkney-and-north-coast-scotland), that describes how fine-scale harbour seal usage maps around Orkney and the north coast of Scotland can be used and interpreted, as well as the caveats and limitations, and methodology used to produce them.

Demonstration and Research Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are designated by Scottish Ministers under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. Sites can be established for the purpose of demonstrating, or carrying out research on sustainable methods of marine management or exploitation in Scottish territorial waters. Their application is not restricted to nature conservation. Proposals will be developed and assessed according to a set of specific guidelines which will examine the scientific case for a MPA, the level of support and the reasons why a MPA is the most appropriate mechanism to use. This layer displays the locations of these DR MPAs.

This layer is a Web Map Service (WMS) feed from Marineregions.org showing the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of those countries where an EEZ has been declared. Marine Regions is a standard list of marine georeferenced place names and areas. It integrates and serves geographic information from the VLIMAR Gazetteer and the VLIZ Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase and proposes a standard of marine georeferenced locations, boundaries and regions.

NatureScot and Joint Nature Conservation Committee have collated data from various sources forming the Geodatabase of Marine features adjacent to Scotland (GeMS). This collation of species and habitat records provides information on the known recorded distribution of Scottish Priority Marine Features (PMFs), and Annex I habitats in the marine environment and is used as the core evidence base to support the Scottish Marine Protected Area (MPA) network.

This web map service is a redacted version of the latest GEMS, providing non-sensitive data on the species and habitats included in the collation.