Metadata Standard for Maritime

Spatial Plans

A common structure to describe data associated with

maritime spatial plans.

Produced by Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Data for MSP.

October 2023
EUROPEAN COMMISSION

European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency

Unit D.3 – Sustainable Blue Economy

Contact: CINEA EMFAF CONTRACTS

E-mail:[email protected]
European Commission
B-1049 Brussels

This document is part of the Updated Joint Roadmap to accelerate Marine/Maritime Spatial
Planning processes worldwide – MSP roadmap (2022–2027) of the Directorate-General for
Maritime Affairs and Fisheries of the European Commission (DG MARE) and the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO). The study
implements the Roadmap’s action I “Data for MSP”, which is part of its priority area 1 on
Knowledge support.
Metadata Standard for Maritime Spatial Plans

Metadata Standard for

Maritime Spatial Plans

A common structure to describe data associated

with maritime spatial plans.
Produced by Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Data for MSP

Written by:

Adam Leadbetter1, Andrew Conway1, Alexia Attard2, Mónica Campillos-Llanos3, Joni Kaitaranta4,
Denise O’Sullivan1, Olvido Tello3, Elizabeth Tray1, Alessandro Sarretta5, Adeline Souf6, Jean-
Baptiste Suzanne6, Michail Vaitis7, Clara Zimmer6.

1 Marine Institute, Rinville, Galway, Ireland.

2 Planning Authority, Floriana, Malta
3 Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO,CSIC), Madrid, Spain
4 Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM), Helsinki, Finland
5 National Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (CNR-IRPI), Italy
6 French Naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service (SHOM), Brest, France
7 University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece

Edited by:

This document was produced by the Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Data for MSP, chaired by
Joni Kaitaranta from the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) and Andrej
Abramic from the ECOAQUA Institute of the University Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The TEG is directly supported by CINEA represented by Anja Detant, DG MARE represented by
Juan Ronco and the MSP Assistance Mechanism represented by Chris McDougall.

How to cite this document:

Leadbetter, A., Conway, A., Attard, A., Campillos-Llanos, M., Kaitaranta, J., O’Sullivan, D., Tello,
O., Tray, E., Sarretta, A., Souf, A., Suzanne, J.B., Vaitis, M., Zimmer, C. Metadata Standard for
Maritime Spatial Plans. A common structure to describe data associated with maritime spatial
plans. Produced by Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Data for MSP. Supported by CINEA and DG
MARE (EC). 22p. Doi: 10.2926/751919

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PDF ISBN 978-92-9405-026-7 doi: 10.2926/751919 HZ-03-23-430-EN-N

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Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged
 Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................... 9

2. DESIGN APPROACH ............................................................................................... 9

3. METADATA OVERVIEW ..........................................................................................10

4. METADATA PROFILE SPECIFICATION ......................................................................11

4.1 Class: MarinePlan ........................................................................................11

4.1.1 Mandatory properties ......................................................................11
4.1.2 Optional properties .........................................................................12
4.2 Class: Dataset ..............................................................................................13
4.2.1 Mandatory properties ......................................................................14
4.2.2 Optional properties .........................................................................14
4.3 Class: Date ..................................................................................................14
4.3.1 Mandatory properties ......................................................................15
4.4 Class: DigitalResource .................................................................................15
4.4.1 Mandatory properties ......................................................................15
4.4.2 Optional properties .........................................................................16
4.5 Class: GeographicCoverage .........................................................................16
4.5.1 Mandatory properties ......................................................................16
4.5.2 Optional properties .........................................................................16
4.6 Class: Organisation ......................................................................................17
4.6.1 Mandatory properties ......................................................................17
4.6.2 Optional properties .........................................................................17
4.7 Class: Policy ................................................................................................18
4.7.1 Optional properties .........................................................................18
4.8 Class: Role ...................................................................................................18
4.8.1 Mandatory properties ......................................................................18

5. EXAMPLE .............................................................................................................19

6. ALIGNMENT WITH OTHER METADATA STANDARDS ...................................................20

6.1 Alignment with DCAT ...................................................................................20

6.2 Alignment with INSPIRE ..............................................................................20
6.3 Alignment with Schema.org .........................................................................21
6.4 Alignment with W3C Provenance Ontology ..................................................21

7. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................21

8. REFERENCES .......................................................................................................21

ANNEX 1: USE CASES...................................................................................................22

List of Figures

Figure 1: Metadata template overview ................................................................................. 10

List of Abbreviations
Term Description
DCAT Data Catalogue Vocabulary

EMODNET European Marine Observation and Data Network

FAIR Finable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reproducible

HILUC Hierarchical INSPIRE Land Use Classification System

INSPIRE Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community

MSFD Marine Strategy Framework Directive

MSP Maritime Spatial Planning

MSPD Maritime/Marine Spatial Planning Directive

TEG Technical Expert Group

RDF Resource Description Framework

UN United Nations

URI Uniform Resource Identifier

W3C World Wide Web Consortium

WFS Web Feature Service

WKT Well Known Text

WMS Web Map Service

8
1. INTRODUCTION

Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is vital to providing healthy, productive and sustainable
oceans. Under the EU Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (MSPD), each member state with
maritime waters is obliged to formulate and enact into law a maritime spatial plan. This is
a legal framework that sets out to allocate, both spatially and temporally, the human
activity in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that have
been specified through a political process. It is important to have a maritime spatial plan
to sustainably grow economic activity, preserve ecological biodiversity and support energy
security. It can also help to resolve disputes between industries, promote cross-border
collaboration and establish synergies between sectors. To achieve these aims, maritime
spatial plans must comply with good data management and the FAIR (Findability,
Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) Data Principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016). The
EU Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Data for Maritime Spatial Planning recommended it
was necessary to create a metadata profile for maritime spatial plans to meet FAIR Data
Principles.

Metadata is a description of the data. In the case of this metadata profile, the data being
described are maritime spatial plans including the spatial and temporal coverage of these
plans; the organisations responsible for the creation, monitoring or implementation of
these plans; and digital resources such as datasets used in the creation of a plan or
developed through a maritime spatial plan and legislation or policies published online which
inform the development of or support a maritime spatial plan. Complementary
vocabularies are used alongside this metadata profile in order to make connections to
other initiatives, for example, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Directive.
The metadata profile enables the reusability and sharing of data across multiple countries,
organisations and government departments.

This document describes a metadata profile developed by the Technical Expert Group
(TEG) on Data for Maritime Spatial Planning and which supports the discovery of maritime
plans in a number of systems such as the UN Ocean Data Information System and the
European Commission’s INSPIRE Spatial Data Infrastructure.

2. DESIGN APPROACH

The TEG subgroup on Metadata was formed with a priority to adopt a metadata profile for
maritime spatial planning. The aim was to develop a standard that would be descriptive
enough to capture sufficient information to meet these user needs, whilst not being too
onerous for creators.

As a first step, a literature review was conducted to examine existing European and
international metadata standards. Although there are many existing metadata standards,
it was concluded that a suitable methodology for maritime spatial plans did not exist and
that the TEG would devise an appropriate strategy. The group looked at existing standards,
including INSPIRE and Data Catalogue Vocabulary (DCAT), to find commonalities that
could be adapted for maritime spatial plans. This resulted in a simple metadata profile
consisting of essential fields which were distributed to the wider TEG for feedback.
Following this, the group constructed use cases of different scenarios where one would be
searching for a maritime spatial plan. The metadata profile evolved to abide by these
different scenarios and this was once again distributed to the TEG for feedback before
arriving at the final metadata profile which is presented in section 3 and described in detail
in section 4 below. The full list of use cases can be found in Annex 1.

9
3. METADATA OVERVIEW

The metadata profile can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Metadata template overview

10
4. METADATA PROFILE SPECIFICATION

The profile consists of eight classes which are described in detail below, along with their
associated properties. A detailed description of the metadata standard and its ontology
can also be found at https://irishmarineinstitute.github.io/metadata-profile-for-marine-
plans/index.html

4.1 Class: MarinePlan

Definition A maritime spatial plan is a document, normally published by a government or

a government agency, which sets out to analyse and allocate both spatially and
temporally of human activity in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic
and social objectives that have been specified through a political process.

Usage note This is the base class of the metadata profile and represents the maritime
spatial plan being described.

The following properties are specific to this class:

● emodnetHumanActivity ● enforcementArea ● geographicCoverage

● inputDataset ● legislation ● outputDataset
● policy ● role

The following property is shared with the Date class:

● date

The following property is shared with the DigitalResource and Organisation classes:

● name

The following property is shared with the Organisation class:

● country

4.1.1 Mandatory properties

Property: Name
Definition A label indicating the title given to a maritime spatial plan.

Range String

Usage note More than one name may be provided in order to provide the name of the
Maritime Spatial Plan in multiple languages.

Usage note For example, in Ireland the maritime spatial plan is known as “The National
Marine Planning Framework”.

Property: Country
Definition A country to which the maritime spatial plan applies.

Range String or URI

Usage note It is recommended to use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code as the value
of this property.

11
Property: Date
Definition A date that applies to the maritime spatial plan, for instance, the date on
which the plan came into force or on which it expires.

Range Date

Usage note At least two date properties must be linked from an instance of MarinePlan,
the date on which the plan came into force and the date on which the plan
expires.

Property: geographicCoverage
Definition The geographic coverage of the area affected by the maritime spatial plan.

Range GeographicCoverage

Usage note At least one representation of the spatial coverage of the maritime spatial
plan is required.

Property: role
Definition An organisational role in the context of the maritime spatial plan.

Range Role

Usage note A maritime spatial plan can be associated with multiple roles.

Usage note Role is a linking class that connects a maritime plan to the organisations
responsible for its creation, monitoring, implementation and other activities
via a description of these roles.

4.1.2 Optional properties

Property: emodnetHumanActivity

Definition The domains of human activity as defined by the European Marine

Observation and Data Network that a maritime spatial plan relates to.

Range EMODnetHumanActivity

Usage note A maritime spatial plan can relate to multiple EMODnet human activities.

Property: enforcementArea

Definition The geographic coverage of the enforcement area for the maritime spatial
plan.

Range GeographicCoverage

12
Property: inputDataset

Definition A Dataset that was used in informing the development of the maritime spatial
plan.

Range Dataset

Property: legislation

Definition The legislation either driving, informing or developed from a maritime spatial
plan.

Range DigitalResource

Property: outputDataset

Definition A dataset created as part of the maritime spatial planning process.

Range Dataset

Property: policy

Definition An administrative policy set by local, regional or national government which

informed the development of the maritime spatial plan or was informed by
the maritime spatial plan.

Range Policy

4.2 Class: Dataset

Definition A body of structured information describing some topic(s) of interest, or a

collection of data, published or curated by a single agent, and available for
access or download in one or more representations.

Sub-class of DigitalResource

Usage note This is a minimal class and can be extended with terms from the W3C’s Data
Catalogue Vocabulary, DCAT, or from the Schema.org Dataset class.

The following properties are specific to this class:

● msfdDescriptor ● status

The following properties are inherited from the DigitalResource class:

● description ● digitalResourceType ● name

● url

The following property is shared with the Role class:

● organisation

13
4.2.1 Mandatory properties

Property: organisation

Definition The organisation responsible for the creation and maintenance of the dataset.

Range Organisation

4.2.2 Optional properties

Property: mspdfCluster

Definition A qualitative descriptor for one of the seven data clusters defined by the MSP
Data Framework.

Range mspdfCluster

Usage note A dataset can relate to more than one data cluster. A maritime spatial plan
should aim to incorporate data related to all seven clusters.

Property: msfdDescriptor

Definition A qualitative descriptor for one of the eleven Marine Strategy Framework
Directive descriptors to achieve the good environmental status, the reporting
of which may be informed by the contents of the dataset.

Range MSFDDescriptor

Property: status

Definition The status of the dataset with respect to the maritime spatial plan.

Range DatasetStatus

Usage note The status of a dataset may be one of the following:

• Current – dataset is currently valid in relation to a maritime spatial plan.

• Expired – dataset is not currently valid in relation to a maritime spatial
plan.
• IllustrativeOnly – the dataset should be used for illustrative purposes
only.

4.3 Class: Date

Definition A date value.

Usage note At least two dates must be linked to a MarinePlan for IntoForce and Expires.

The following properties are specific to this class:

● dateType

The following property is shared with the MarinePlan class:

● date

14
4.3.1 Mandatory properties

Property: date

Definition The status of the dataset with respect to the maritime spatial plan.

Range ISO 8601 formatted date string

Property: dateType

Definition A classifier to explain the relationship of the specified date to the maritime
spatial plan.

Range DateType

4.4 Class: DigitalResource

Definition An electronic file or document.

Usage note This is a minimal class and can be extended with terms from the Schema.org
CreativeWork class.

The following properties are specific to this class:

● description ● digitalResourceType

The following property is shared with the Organisation class:

● url

The following property is shared with the MarinePlan and Organisation classes:

● name

4.4.1 Mandatory properties

Property: name

Definition A textual label that is the name of the digital resource.

Range String

Usage Note More than one name may be provided in order to provide textual labels for
the digital resource in multiple languages.

Property: url

Definition The Web address which can be used to access the digital resource.

Range String or URI

Property: digitalresourceType
Definition A classifier that describes the type of the digital resource.

Range DigitalResourceType

15
4.4.2 Optional properties

Property: description

Definition A lexical description of the digital resource.

Range String

4.5 Class: GeographicCoverage

Definition A description or representation of the spatial extent covered by a maritime

spatial plan or the enforcement area of a maritime spatial plan.

Usage note This is a minimal class and may be extended with properties from the Open
Geospatial Consortium’s GeoSPARQL ontology or the Schema.org Place class.

Usage note In the case of multiple Maritime Spatial Plans the GeographicCoverage of
each plan can be represented independently and then be nested via the
containedIn property in order to represent hierarchies of spatial extents.

The following properties are specific to this class:

● containedIn ● coverage

4.5.1 Mandatory properties

Property: coverage

Definition A representation of the spatial extent of the geographic coverage of a

maritime spatial plan.

Range String, GeoJSON String, WKT literal, URI

Usage note At a minimum, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code shall be provided

Usage note Where possible a more detailed spatial coverage should be provided as a
reduced polygon in GeoJSON or WKT or linked to from a Web Feature Service
(WFS) or a Web Map Service (WMS) via a URI

Usage note More than one serialisation of the coverage can be provided for an instance of
geographic coverage.

4.5.2 Optional properties

Property: containedIn

Definition A connection from one geographic extent to another geographic extent which
is larger than the former.

Range String or URI

Usage note The object of the relationship (i.e. the larger geographic extent) should
wholly contain the subject of the relationship (i.e. the smaller geographic
extent).

Usage note More than one contained in relationship may be specified in order to link the
geographic extent into multiple hierarchies or gazetteers.

16
4.6 Class: Organisation

Definition A collection of people organized together into a structure such as a University

or Government department or a Non-Governmental Organisation.

Usage note This is a minimal class and can be extended with elements from the Friend of
a Friend vocabulary, the W3C’s Organization ontology or the Schema.org
Organization class.

The following property is shared with the MarinePlan class:

● country

The following property is shared with the DigitalResource and MarinePlan classes:

● name

4.6.1 Mandatory properties

Property: name

Definition A textual label that is the name of the organisation

Range String

Usage note More than one name may be provided in order to provide textual labels for
the organisation in multiple languages. For example, Ireland’s Marine
Institute may have “Marine Institute” as its name in English and “Foras na
Mara” as its name in Irish.

4.6.2 Optional properties

Property: country

Definition The country in which the organisation’s address is located

Range String or URI

Usage note It is recommended to use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code as the object
of this property.

Property: email

Definition An e-mail address which can be used as a contact point for the organisation.

Range String or URI

Usage note A generic, corporate e-mail address should be used, for example
[email protected], in order to avoid any potential issues with regard to
the European Commission’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Property: url

Definition The Web address of a page describing the organisation or the home page of
the organisation’s website.

Range String or URI

17
4.7 Class: Policy

Definition A statement of intent related to the maritime spatial plan that is implemented
as by procedure or protocol.

Sub-class of DigitalResource

The following properties are specific to this class:

● policyClassification

The following properties are inherited from the DigitalResource class:

● description ● digitalResourceType ● name

● url

4.7.1 Optional properties

Property: policyClassification

Definition A term that provides some level of classification describing the policy. It may
refer to EU legislation or the Hierarchical INSPIRE Land Use Classification
System.

Range String or URI

Usage Note An example would be Euro-Lex URI which directly links to EU legislation eg.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014L0089&qid=1682978339440

4.8 Class: Role

Definition Denotes a role that an Organisation can take in the maritime spatial planning
process.

Usage note Specific maritime spatial planning roles are defined in the RoleType
vocabulary to endure consistency, although these may be extended with roles
from other vocabularies as necessary.

The following properties are specific to this class:

● roleType

The following property is shared with the Dataset class:

● organisation

4.8.1 Mandatory properties

Property: roleType
Definition A classifier describing the specific role being fulfilled.

Range RoleType or URI

Usage note Where the role type is not from the RoleType vocabulary, the URI to a
concept from another controlled vocabulary must be used.

18
 Property: organisation
Definition An organisation fulfilling the described role.

Range Organisation

Usage note More than one organisation may be associated with a given role.

5. EXAMPLE

Below is an example of the metadata associated with a use case for Validity of a spatial
plan:
As an aquaculture developer, I wish to discover the validity of a spatial plan: when did it
come into force, when does it expire, how frequently is the plan updated so that I can
understand when the plan applies to my activities.

@base <https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/60e57-national-marine-planning-
framework/>.
@prefix msp: <https://purl.org/voc/marineplans#>.
@prefix dcat: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#> .
@prefix dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>.
@prefix sdo:<http://schema.org/>.
@prefix skos:<http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#>.
@prefix xsd:<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>.

<https://purl.org/voc/marineplans> a msp:MarinePlan ;
msp:name "National Marine Planning Framework" ;
msp:country "ie" ;
msp:date :into_force, :expires ;
msp:geographicCoverage
<http://atlas.marine.ie/arcgis/services/01_Maritime_Boundaries/MapServer/WM
SServer?request=GetCapabilities&service=WMS> ;
msp:legislation :marine_area_planning_act ;
msp:legislation :planning_and_development_ammendment_act_2018 ;
msp:role :metadata_creator, :plan_creator, :plan_enforcer ;
msp:emodnetHumanActivity :MaritimeBoundaries ;
msp:dataset :input_dataset ;
msp:policy :aquaculture .

:into_force a msp:Date ;
msp:dateLiteral "2021-06-30"^^xsd:Date ;
msp:dateType :IntoForce .

:expires a msp:Date ;
msp:dateLiteral "2027"^^xsd:gYear ;
msp:dateType :Expires .

:input_dataset a msp:Dataset ;
msp:name "Seabed Sediment Classification";
msp:url
<https://data.marine.ie/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/ie.mari
ne.data:dataset.4005>;
msp:organisation :marine_institute ;
msp:msfdDescriptor :SeaFloorIntegritySupportsEcosystem ;
msp:datasetStatus msp:Current .

19
 :marine_institute a ms:Organisation ;
msp:name "Marine Institute"@en, "Foras na Mara"@gle ;
msp:country "ie" ;
msp:url <https://www.marine.ie/Home/home> ;
msp:email "[email protected]" .

:department_of_housing_local_government_heritage a msp:Organisation ;
msp:name "Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage"@en, "An
Roinn Tithiochta, Rialtais Aituil agus Oidhreachta"@gle ;
msp:country "ie" ;
msp:url <https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation/department-of-housing-
local-government-and-heritage/> ;
msp:email "[email protected]" .

:maritime_area_regulatory_authority a msp:Organisation ;
msp:name "Maritime Area Regulatory Authority"@en ;
msp:country "ie".

:aquaculture a msp:Policy ;
msp:name "Aquaculture" ;
msp:classification msp:Aquaculture;
msp:url <https://marineplan.ie/?page=page_28&views=view_112> .

:metadata_creator a msp:Role ;
msp:roleType msp:MetadataCreator ;
msp:organisation :marine_institute .

:plan_creator a :Role ;
msp:roleType msp:PlanCreator ;
:organisation :department_of_housing_local_government_heritage .

:plan_enforcer a msp:Role ;
msp:roleType :PlanEnforcer ;
msp:organisation :maritime_area_regulatory_authority .

6. ALIGNMENT WITH OTHER METADATA STANDARDS

6.1 Alignment with DCAT

W3C’s Data Catalogue Vocabulary (DCAT) is a Resource Description Framework (RDF)

vocabulary for publishing data catalogues on the web. DCAT enables the interoperability
of multiple data catalogues, increasing the discoverability of data. The template uses a
minimal class which can then be extended by DCAT vocabularies.
DCAT is of particular interest for alignment with this metadata standard as it is used to
drive many Open Data portals across Europe and the Geospatial application profile of DCAT
is referenced by the European Infrastructure for Spatial Information.

The Dataset class of this metadata standard has been explicitly aligned with DCAT in the
online RDF version of the standard.

6.2 Alignment with INSPIRE

INSPIRE is the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community Directive,
that supports the sharing of spatial information across organisations and improves data
discovery and public access online. This metadata profile uses the Hierarchical INSPIRE
Land Use Classification System and will continue to evolving with any INSPIRE Framework
advancements.

20
6.3 Alignment with Schema.org

Schema.org is a shared collection of schemas founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and

Yandex. It uses many different encodings, including RDF, Microdata and JSON-LD. It aims
to maintain and promote structured data on the Internet. The template uses a minimal
class which can then be extended by Schema.org.
Alignment with Schema.org is of particular interest in the development of this metadata
standard as the OceanInfoHub of the United Nations’ Decade of Ocean Science for
Sustainable Development is using Schema.org to drive its data and metadata
interoperability.

The Dataset, GeographicCoverage, MarinePlan, Organisation and Role classes and name,
roleType and URL properties of this metadata standard have been explicitly aligned with
Schema.org in the online RDF version of the standard.

6.4 Alignment with W3C Provenance Ontology

The World Wide Web Consortium’s Provenance Data Model and its associated Ontology
encodes information about entities, activities, and people involved in producing a piece of
data or thing, which can be used to form assessments about its quality, reliability or
trustworthiness.

The MarinePlan, Organisation and Role classes and organisation and role properties of this
metadata standard have been explicitly aligned with W3C’s Provenance Ontology in the
online RDF version of the standard.

7. CONCLUSION

This document describes a metadata standard to follow for Maritime Spatial Plans. It is a
simple metadata profile which follows and aligns with other metadata standards, including
INSPIRE and DCAT. This is advantageous as the metadata can be extended using other
vocabularies. The European Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Data for MSP have decided
to adopt the recommendations of this approach. This standard will make EU Maritime
Spatial Plans more discoverable online allowing for their reusability and interoperability
across industries and countries promoting cross-boundary collaboration and enabling the
sustainable future of our oceans.

8. REFERENCES

European Union, Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community

(INSPIRE) Directive: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32007L0002&from=EN

European Union, Maritime Spatial Planning Directive: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-

content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014L0089&from=EN

European Union, Marine Strategy Framework Directive: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-

content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32008L0056&from=EN

Wilkinson, M. D. et al. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and
stewardship. Sci. Data 3: 160018 doi: 10.1038/sdata.2016.18 (2016).

21
ANNEX 1: USE CASES

Country, official title, English title

As a member of the MSP Platform for Europe, I wish to discover the country or region a
maritime spatial plan relates to, and its official title plus English title so that I can collate
the available Marine Spatial Plans across the continent.

Responsible organisations
As a tourism and leisure operator, I wish to discover the organisations responsible for a
maritime spatial plan and their roles (plan creator, plan enforcer, metadata creator…) so
that I can contact appropriate authorities to understand what permits I need for events I
am running.

Organisational roles
As an offshore energy developer, I wish to discover the roles of organisations connected
with a maritime spatial plan (plan creator, plan enforcer, metadata creator, etc.) so that
I can submit my plans to the relevant organisation.

Contact points
As an expert on a neighbouring Marine Spatial Plan area, I wish to discover the contact
points for the organisations responsible for a maritime spatial plan so that I can make
contact regarding cross-border Marine Spatial Planning.

Territorial hierarchy
As a local or regional authority, I wish to discover the territorial hierarchy a maritime
spatial plan is operating in (INSPIRE Level of Spatial Plan codelist) so that I can
understand how local marine Spatial Plans interact with regional or national plans or how
the plans connect at a basin scale.

EMODnet Human Activities

As a member of the national oceanographic data centre, I wish to make metadata
concerning a maritime spatial plan available in the EMODnet Human Activities portal so
that I can make my data better comply with the FAIR principles.

Validity of a spatial plan

As an aquaculture developer, I wish to discover the validity of a maritime spatial plan:
when did it come into force, when does it expire, how frequently is the plan updated so
that I can understand when the plan applies to my activities.

Scale / geographic coverage

As a Non-Governmental Organisation, I wish to discover the geographic coverage of a
maritime spatial plan so that I can develop policy briefs based on an appropriate
geographic area.

Scale of enforcement area

As an expert developing a Marine Spatial Planning monitoring programme, I wish to
discover the scale of the enforcement area for the maritime spatial plan (is there a buffer
zone etc., around the enforcement area) so that I can assign appropriate resources to
the monitoring programme.

Connections with MSFD

As a national coordinator for MSFD reporting, I wish to discover connections between the
maritime spatial plan and Marine Strategy Framework Directive reporting so that I can
include relevant data from the Marine Spatial Planning process (for example, underwater
noise monitoring) in MSFD reporting.

22
 Policy links
As an environmental consultant, I wish to discover links from the maritime spatial plan
to supporting or informing policies, and to read descriptions of those policies so that I
can provide the best advice on Marine Spatial Planning applications to my clients.

Policy classification
As an author of a Marine Spatial Plan, I wish to discover the classification of policies
linked to the maritime spatial plan according to the HILUCS scheme so that I can
compare Marine Spatial Planning policies across Europe.

Related data - analysis

As a conservation NGO, I wish to discover “input” data related to the maritime spatial
plan, perhaps used in deriving or defining the plan so that I can analyse the input data,
e.g. for assessing implementing Ecosystem Based Approach in the maritime spatial plan.

Related data - responsible parties

As a port developer, I wish to discover the organisations responsible for maintaining the
data related to the maritime spatial plan so that I can obtain the best available data
from them.

Legal Context
As a legal expert I would like to know the status of the “output” data (outdated/in
force/for illustration) related to the maritime spatial plan in order to evaluate the
accuracy of the claim against a specific activity contrary to this plan (e.g. lawyer/NGO
pleading for the protection of seagrass beds against massive moorings of boats in a
nature protection area).

Legislation
I want to discover the laws underpinning or relating to the Marine Spatial Planning
process in the area or country the maritime spatial plan relates to.

Spatial areas
As a researcher I want to discover the planning areas or planning units related to a
maritime spatial plan.

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24
 HZ-03-23-430-EN-N

doi 10.2926/751919
ISBN 978-92-9405-026-7