The spatial extent of the MPA assessment areas was defined as the marine waters surrounding the EU countries whose outer limit is defined by the 200 NM boundary from the coast (possibly coinciding with formally recognised EEZ boundaries) or the equidistance (in cases of opposite neighbouring EU countries), or by the presence of a boundary defined by an agreed treaty.

Given no formal boundary of this map exists and since this limit coincides with the boundary of the maritime area (water column) submitted by EU Member States under MSFD, this new version (version 2.0) of this dataset is based on a MSFD Region/Subregion boundary shapefile assembled in 2020 by ETC/ICM harmonised with the Coastline and European Seas layers.

This dataset has been used to create the MPA buffer zones (version 2) and to show the percentage of marine protected area (MPA) coverage in Europe's regional seas.

The spatial extent of the MPA assessment areas was defined as the marine waters surrounding the EU countries whose outer limit is defined by the 200 NM boundary from the coast (possibly coinciding with formally recognised EEZ boundaries) or the equidistance (in cases of opposite neighbouring EU countries), or by the presence of a boundary defined by an agreed treaty.

Given no formal boundary of this map exists and since this limit coincides with the boundary of the maritime area (water column) submitted by EU Member States under MSFD, this new version (version 2.0) of this dataset is based on a MSFD Region/Subregion boundary shapefile assembled in 2020 by ETC/ICM harmonised with the Coastline and European Seas layers.

This dataset has been used to create the MPA buffer zones (version 2) and to show the percentage of marine protected area (MPA) coverage in Europe's regional seas.