As part of the environmental impact assessment within marine spatial planning, the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management has developed a tool that allows for assessment of cumulative impacts in a spatial context. AquaBiota has participated in this work by producing maps of biogenic reefs.
Symphony is an integrated decision support tool for national spatial planning based on an ecosystem approach. Symphony is based on spatial data in terms of maps, and is used to calculate the combined pressure from all kinds of different human activities on the marine ecosystems in a quantitative and spatially resolved manner. The method is developed to assess the cumulative environmental impact from different plan options in the marine spatial planning process.
AquaBiota has contributed to Symphony by providing modelled maps of biogenic reefs and their distribution. Biogenic reefs here include blue mussel banks, deep sea corals, marine sponge communities and known occurences of e. g. Haploops, northern horsemussels and maerl. The map layers are based on current environmental conditions and existing data, and cover the entire marine spatial planning area including the coastal zone.
Please read more on the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management’s web page for the project.