A literature study of human activities and pressures as well as ecosystem component layers available for Marine Spatial Planning and mapping of cumulative impacts in Swedish marine waters

We report a literature study on the needs for and the availability of data layers required for evidence-based Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) as well as mapping of the potential cumulative effects of multiple human activities. Specific focus is on data layers representing a variety of human activities and pressures as well as data layers representing ecologically-relevant species, habitats and communities. The aim of the study is to provide guidance for the Swedish SYMPHONY initiative and process, which ultimately is planned to result in a Swedish national data-driven ‘system’ for MSP and mapping of cumulative effects (Cumulative Effect Assessments; CEA). With this report and its conclusions and recommendations, the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM) now holds the sufficient information required to – step by step – develop a nation-wide framework supporting evidence-based MSP and CEA. The crucial first step in this process is the build-up of an ecologically-relevant catalogue of pressure layers and ecosystem component layers.