Climate change is rapidly affecting marine ecosystems. Fisheries are suffering the impact of rapid warming, marine heat waves and extreme events. Changes in water temperature are having an impact on fish distribution. Explore the map of the month to see how sea surface temperature has evolved since the early 1990s.
The EU Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Week marked a decade of EU support to cross-border cooperation on maritime spatial planning. The European Maritime Spatial Planning Week brought the MSP community together in Marseille (France) to reflect on the achievements made across European seas, discuss current policies, and plan for the next steps to tackle new challenges for maritime spatial planning in the EU.
On average, Europeans consume 24 kg (live weight) of fish or seafood per year. The supply of these products to the European Union (EU) market is ensured by the EU’s own production and by imports. The map shows the total volume (intra-EU and extra-EU) of imports and exports of fisheries and aquaculture products by country.
This map shows the average depth of the water in the European region. The data are provided by the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). EMODnet supplies data for the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO), including information on the marine environment and human activities.
Marine heatwaves, which are prolonged periods of extreme ocean temperature increases, have been occurring more frequently and with greater intensity in recent years. These heatwaves have harmful effects on ecosystems, marine industries, and human activities. Scientists use drifting buoys as one method to monitor ocean temperatures. These buoys move freely in the ocean and collect temperature data automatically, which is then relayed by satellite for immediate use in forecasts. The map displays temperature measurements from drifting buoys worldwide for the previous month.
Jellyfish numbers are increasing worldwide for several reasons. These include overfishing of their predators, declining populations of other fish that compete with jellyfish for food, warmer ocean temperatures that help jellyfish thrive, and pollution from fertilizers that boost plankton growth, a key part of jellyfish diets. Check out the map to see how sea surface temperatures have changed globally over 25 years (data provided by the Copernicus Marine Service).
Explore the Map of the Month to learn about maritime traffic in the European seas for fishing ships in 2021. The map shows vessel density in each square kilometre, calculated from a dataset of Automatic Identification System (AIS) messages. Understanding vessel traffic is important for marine planning and assessing human impact on ecosystems. Use the Zoom tool (+ and – signs) to see details at different scales.
Poverty and inequality are at the root of many of the human rights and the environmental issues in the global cocoa value chain. At the producer level poverty leaves those at the beginning of this chain with few choices. It forces them to rely on their children instead of fully-paid adult workers for labour. And to stay above water, it leads many to expand their farms into forest land in an effort to increase their income.
The objective of the ‘Deep-Dive’ workshop is to allow members of the European Blue Forum to discuss the challenges and obstacles they are facing, their unique aspirations and requirements in developing their sector up to 2030. The output from this workshop will be the production of a stakeholder position paper, providing the perspectives of the entire European sustainable blue economy stakeholder group - our Blue Community.