EMODnet Human Activities, Environment, Natura 2000

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 selected EEA tabular data added as feature attributes, as well as the Cogea's calculation of marine and coastal location of features. It is available for viewing and download on the EMODnet web portal (Human Activities, 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 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. Where available, each polygon has the following attributes: site code, site name, country code, country name, site type (A, B, C), site description (Special Conservation Interest - SCI, Special Protection Areas - SPA, Both SPA and SCI), link to directive, area (ha), marine area percentage, release date, date classified as SPA, date confirmed as SCI, date designated as SAC, marine/coastal location of feature (1). Compared with the previous version, this one includes the updated datasets 'eea_v_3035_100_k_natura2000_p_2024_v01_r00' and 'eea_t_natura2000_p_2024_v01_r00', published by the EEA in December 2025. 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.