Unveiling Seabed Substrate Characteristics: Insights from EMODnet Geology

Increasing activities and pressure on marine and coastal environments have made easily accessible, reliable, and suitable marine information essential and seabed substrate is one of the key elements in describing the marine environments. The EMODnet (European Marine Observation and Data network) Geology has been collecting and harmonizing geological data at different scales from all the European sea areas since 2009, at present with a collaboration of about 40 partners and subcontractors.

One part of the project is concentrating on seabed substrates and substrate characteristics, such as sedimentation rates, seabed erosion and other complementary information. During these years, a lot of work has been done to find a way to compile this scattered, heterogenous data harmonized, cross boundary datasets that could be used for different purposes. At the same time, the geographical scope has expanded beyond Europe, currently including the Caspian Sea and Caribbean Sea.

Multiscale Seabed substrate, harmonized from the national data by the sediment grain size, is one of the key data products of EMODnet Geology and has been collected since the beginning of the project, along with sedimentation rates information. The latest addition to the data product catalogue is the seabed erosion index database, a literature catalogue of erosion studies that includes known erosional studies and various erosional areas. These data products have evolved during the years based on the feedback from partners, collaborators, and stakeholders. For instance, the seabed substrate database includes information on the seabed surface characteristics that have significant to the marine environment but cannot be solely defined by grain size (e.g., seagrass meadows, moving sediments, ferromanganese concretion bottoms and bioclastic features). Overall, the usefulness and usability have been enhanced for example by adding new data attributes and by developing confidence assessment.

The latest development has focused on seabed dynamics and the potential to acquire the most practical and valuable data on the subject. In addition to the already published data products on sedimentation rates and erosion index layers, several case studies have been conducted since the project’s inception to develop and test tools for substrate modeling and sedimentation rates. The recent phase of this work aims to identify various sedimentary environments within national datasets and explore the potential for creating a broader, harmonized, and useful database.

Over fifteen years since the beginning of the project, EMODnet Geology has become a key producer of publicly available, harmonized seabed substrate datasets covering broad areas and the methodology is widely recognized. Besides collecting the seabed substrate data and update the existing databases, the development of the data products, improving old and creating new, will sustain the relevancy of the data in the future as well. At best, this kind of data is a valuable addition to understand and define marine environment in dealing with various challenges the future will hold us.

The EMODnet Geology project is funded by The European Climate, Environment, and Infrastructure Executive Agency (CINEA) through contract EASME/EMFF/2020/3.1.11 - Lot 2/SI2.853812_EMODnet – Geology.