This dataset represents the location of the Princess Elizabeth zone in the Belgian Part of the North Sea as described in the Royal Decree of May 22th, 2019, establishing a marine spatial plan for the period 2020-2026. Art. 8. § 3.

The Royal Decree of 22 May 2019 establishing a marine spatial plan defines 11 military use and storage sites for war munition zones: Exercise area for sweeping mines (Buiten Ratel) (Art. 17§1), Exercise area for sweeping mines - NB-01 (Westhinder) (Art. 17§1), Exercise area for sweeping mines - NBH-10 (Wenduine) (Art. 17§1), Exercise area for sweeping mines - QZR 040 (Art. 17§1), Munition destruction area (Art. 17§2), Area for shooting exercises on floating objects (Art. 17§3), Area for exercises in shallow waters (Art. 17§4), Area for shooting exercises from land - big sector (Art. 17§5), Area for shooting exercises from land - medium sector (Art. 17§5), Area for shooting exercises from land - small sector (Art. 17§5), Storage site for war munition Paardenmarkt (Art. 18§1). It replaces the 2014 Marine Spatial Plan, which is included for completeness. The Royal Decree of 20 March 2014 establishing a marine spatial plan defines in its Art. 13. and Art. 14., resp. nine zones for military use and one storage site for war munition: three zones for shooting exercises from land direction sea (Art 13. § 1 small sector, Art 13. § 1 medium sector, Art 13. § 1 large sector), four exercise areas for sweeping mines (Art 13. § 3, Exercise area 1 for sweeping mines, Art 13. § 5, Exercise area 2 for sweeping mines, Art 13. § 9, Exercise area 3 for sweeping mines, Art 13. § 13, Exercise area 4 for sweeping mines), one area for shooting exercises on floating objects (Art 13. § 7), one area for defusing mines (Art 13. § 11) and one zone to safeguard the closed storage site for war munition \"Paardenmarkt\" (Art. 14. § 1). These zones are made available digitally in the resource described by this metadata document. Please refer to the Belgian official gazette (\"Moniteur belge/Belgisch Staatsblad\") for official reference information.

This dataset is part of the 2018 Belgian submission for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) linked to descriptor 1, criterion 3. Occurrence of breeding seabirds describes the observation of eight seabird species (Common tern, Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Common Gull, Small Black-backed Gull, Yellow-legged gull, Big Stern and Little Stern) on the Belgian coast between 1992 and 2015.

This dataset describes the extents and location of Sandbanks (code 1110) in the Belgian Part of the North Sea (BPNS) as required for article 17 of the Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora. The Council Directive seeks to contribute to ensuring biodiversity in the European Union by the conservation of natural habitats and wild fauna and flora species.

This dataset is part of the Belgian submission for the 2018 Marine Strategic Framework Directive (MSFD) and reports on descriptor 1, criterion 6. This dataset describes the soft benthos analysis performed in the Belgian part of the North Sea between 2010 and 2016. Information on the location, date and procedure used for the sediment sampling is povided as well as the description of the species found in the samples. Based on this dataset, the Belgian MSFD reporting concluded that the benthic habitat quality is clearly lower in areas where a certain activity interferes with the environment in an intensive way.

The Royal Decree of 22 May 2019 establishing a marine spatial plan defines in its Art. 11. five dredged material disposal sites (Dredged material disposal site S1, Art. 11 § 1.1°; Dredged material disposal site S2, Art. 11 § 1.2°; Dredged material disposal site Bruggen en Wegen Oostende, Art. 11 § 1.3°; Dredged material disposal site Bruggen en Wegen Zeebrugge Oost, Art. 11 § 1.4°; Dredged material disposal site Bruggen en Wegen Nieuwpoort, Art. 11 § 1.5°). Futhermore, additional zones are defined for the future replacement of dredging areas as defined in Art. 11 §3, §5, §7 and §9. It replaces the 2014 Marine Spatial Plan, which is included for completeness. The Royal Decree of 20 March 2014 establishing a marine spatial plan defines in its Art. 9. five dredged material disposal sites (Dredged material disposal site S1, Art. 9 § 6.1°; Dredged material disposal site S2, Art. 9 § 6.2°; Dredged material disposal site Bruggen en Wegen Oostende, Art. 9 § 6.3°; Dredged material disposal site Bruggen en Wegen Zeebrugge Oost, Art. 9 § 6.4°; Dredged material disposal site Bruggen en Wegen Nieuwpoort, Art. 9 § 6.5°). These zones are made available digitally in the resource described by this metadata document. Please refer to the Belgian official gazette (\"Moniteur belge/Belgisch Staatsblad\") for official reference information.

This dataset is part of the 2018 Belgian submission for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) linked to descriptor 6, criterion 2. This dataset describes and maps the physical disturbance to the seabed in the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS) between 2011 and 2016. The dataset combines different layers of human activities leading to a disturbance of the seabed, including power cables with its rock dump, dredging and dumping, extraction, war ammunition stocking and wind farms. The area disturbed is mapped and quantified per year, per activity and per benthic broad habitat.

This dataset is part of the 2018 Belgian submission for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) linked to descriptor 7, criterion 1. This dataset describes the impact of an offshore windmills farm on the hydrodynamics in the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS). Originally, it is a NetCDF file with the results of the reference simulation made with the COHERENS (COupled Hydrodynamical Ecological model for REgioNal Shelf seas) hydrodynamic model only forced by tides (no wind effect). Model resolution : ~ 12.5m. It contains both the reference situation which is a simulation without any windmill and the modeling result of the influence by the windmills on the hydrodynamic in the BPNS. The dataset contains the results on the most inner nested grid level for one reference spring-neap cycle: - hourly sea surface elevation - hourly bottom shear stress - hourly 3D horizontal velocity components (u,v) - hourly 3D eddy viscosity - time-averaged bottom shear stress over the reference spring-neap cycle - percentile 90 of the bottom shear stress for the reference spring-neap cycle - percentile 90 of the specific kinetic energy at the sea bed - accumulated time during which sedimentation processes are dominant - accumulated time during which re-suspension processes are dominant.

This datasets is a summary of the CTD profiles measured with the RV Belgica. It provides general meta-information such as the campaign code, the date of measurement and the geographical information. An important information is the profile quality flag that describes the validity of the data. A quality flag = 2 means the data is generally good although some outliers can still be present. A quality flag = 4 means the data should not be trusted. 1 meter binned data can be download on the SeaDataNet CDI portal (enter the cruise_id in the search bar) ONLY for the good quality profiles. Full acquisition frequency datasets are available on request to BMDC.

The Royal Decree of 22 May 2019 establishing a marine spatial plan defines 1 radar tower: Radar Oostdyck (Art. 21§3). Please refer to the Belgian official gazette (\"Moniteur belge/Belgisch Staatsblad\") for official reference information.