The dataset has been developped under the SPLASHCOS EU project, involving 20 EU Member States plus Norway, Russia, Ukraine and Switzerland. SPLASHCOS - Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf - is a four-year research network (2009 to 2013) funded by the European Commission under its COST program (Cooperation in Science and Technology) as COST Action TD0902. Its aim is to bring together archaeologists, marine geoscientists, heritage agencies, and commercial and industrial organizations interested in researching, managing and preserving the archives of archaeological and palaeoclimatic information locked up on the drowned prehistoric landscapes of the European continental shelf, and to disseminate that knowledge to a wider audience.

The dataset has been developped under the MACHU EU project, involving seven EU MS (BE, DE, NL, PL, PT, UK, SE). The MACHU GIS database provides information about wrecks, sites and objects underwater. MACHU is an applications on Underwater Cultural Heritage providing historic and archaeological information. MACHU is not intended to give exact positions of wrecks an site, in the aim of ensuring their protection.

The dataset combines data collected from several sources: data collected and processed by the “Service hydrographique et océanographique de la marine” (SHOM) under the product “Wrecks and obstructions” for France (Hexagone and outermost regions and territories), The National Monument Service Wreck Viewer for Ireland, Historic England and the University of Oxford - The Oxford Roman Economy Project (Strauss, J. (2013). Shipwrecks Database. Version 1.0. Accessed (date): oxrep.classics.ox.ac.uk/databases/shipwrecks_database/) for archeological remains of ship wrecks in the Mediterranean. The different products were developed with different purposes and therefore provide information of different nature. The product developed by SHOM aims to identify objects emerging from the seabed and likely to hinder navigation, while the three other products focus on the historical value of the wrecks. The choice was made to keep as much information as possible. When possible fields from different sources have been merged (e.g. least depth available in SHOM data and the Oxford Roman Economy Project), but other fields correspond to a specific source. When available, information is provided on the nature of the objects (object description, ship characteristics, object type, artefacts, estimated tonnage), on the aging of the wrecks (sink year, dating, period), on the circumstances of the sinking (sink context, place of origine, place of destination), on the location (least depth, max depth, other depth information, object length, location precision, site area, coast distance), on the protection status (only for England) and on sources and additional information available (source information, references, website, website 2). The additional processing carried out by EMODnet consisted in translating the available information to English (through partly-automated translation), extracting the year of the sinking when available and calculating the distance to coast. Last update of the product by SHOM was made in November 2021, last update of the Historic England data was made in August 2021, update of the National Monument Service Wreck Viewer in Ireland was made I April 2018 and the Oxford Roman Economy Project was carried out in 2013.

This dataset has been created in 2022 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). It contains coastal and marine protected areas in the European seas for those countries that are not covered by the the EEA's Common Database on Designated Areas (CDDA). This dataset is entirely based on GIS Data from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), the most comprehensive global database of marine and terrestrial protected areas, plus external links and selected tabular data joined by Cogea to the feature attributes, as well as the calculation of marine and coastal location of features. The WDPA is a joint project between UN Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and is managed by UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), in collaboration with governments, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. The whole datatset is made available online through Protected Planet at https://www.protectedplanet.net/en, where the data are both viewable and downloadable, while the EMODnet subset of data is available at the EMODnet Human Activities portal. In the webmap the WDPA dataset has been filtered by Cogea to show only (i) predominantly or entirely marine areas (MARINE field value=2), and (ii) areas, which even if not identified as predominantly or entirely marine in the WDPA, intersect the coastline or are within a distance of 1 km from the coastline. In both cases the COAST_MAR field value=1. The coastline dataset is available at https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/eea-coastline-for-analysis-2 for continental areas, at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/countries#countries20 for areas in overseas entities. Countries coverage of GIS vector boundary data is: Algeria, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Lebanon, Monaco, Morocco, Palestine, Russian Federation, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom (including Guernsey, Isle of Man, and Jersey). For further information please visit the Protected Planet website.

The Common Database on Designated Areas (CDDA) was created in 2014 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network. The CDDA is commonly known as 'Nationally designated areas' and it is the official source of protected area information from the 37 European countries to the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA). This dataset is entirely based on GIS Data from the European Environmental Agency's (EEA), plus external links and selected EEA tabular data joined by Cogea to the feature attributes, as well as a calculation by Cogea of marine and coastal location of features. The data are delivered by the Eionet partnership countries as spatial and tabular information. The inventory began in 1995 under the CORINE programme of the European Commission. It is now one of the agreed Eionet priority data flows maintained by EEA with support from the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity. The dataset is used by the EEA and e.g. the UNEP-WCMC for their main European and global assessments, products and services. The CDDA data can be queried online in the European Nature Information System (EUNIS).The whole dataset is available for download on the EMODnet Human Activities portal. In the webmap the EEA dataset has been filtered by Cogea to show only (i) marine areas, i.e. areas with a marine percentage higher than 0 and/or a marine "ecotype" (as calculated or reported by the EEA) and (ii) areas that, even if not identified as marine by the EEA, intersect the coastline or that are within a distance of 1 km from the coastline. In both cases the coast_mar field value=1. The coastline datasets are available at https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/eea-coastline-for-analysis-2 for continental areas, at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/countries#countries20 for areas in overseas entities. Geographical coverage of GIS vector boundary data: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo under UNSC Resolution 1244/99, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020, it ceased to be part of the EEA’s institutional networks and governance. EEA does not have permission to distribute some or all sites reported by Estonia, Ireland and Turkey. Compared with the previous release, this one includes the updated dataset 'CDDA_2022_v01_public', published by the EEA in June 2022. For further information please visit the EEA's website.

The dataset on Natura 2000 sites was created in 2014 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network. It is entirely based on spatial data from the European Environmental Agency (EEA), plus additional info, links and selected EEA data joined to the feature attributes, as well as a calculation by Cogea of marine and coastal location of features. It is available for viewing and download on EMODnet - Human Activities web portal (https://emodnet.ec.europa.eu/en/human-activities). Natura 2000 is an ecological network composed of sites designated under the Birds Directive (Special Protection Areas, SPAs) and the Habitats Directive (Sites of Community Importance, SCIs, and Special Areas of Conservation, SACs). The dataset covers the whole EU. Following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020, it ceased to be part of the EEA’s institutional networks and governance. In the webmap the EEA dataset has been filtered by Cogea to show only (i) marine sites, i.e. sites with a marine area percentage higher than 0 (as calculated by the EEA) and (ii) sites that, even if not identified as marine by the EEA, intersect the EEA coastline or that are within a distance of 1 km from the coastline (using a 1 km inner buffer from the EEA coastline). In both cases the COAST_MAR field value=1. The EEA coastline dataset is available at https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/eea-coastline-for-analysis-2. Compared with the previous version, this one includes the updated dataset 'Natura 2000 End 2021', published by the EEA in April 2021. For further information (e.g. biogeographic region, directive, habitats, sites, impact, management, species and metadata) please visit the EEA's website hosting the Natura 2000 tabular data.