2026 Belgian MSP - Nature conservation areas

The Royal Decree of 20 March 2026 establishing the marine spatial plan for the period 2026 to 2034 in the Belgian marine areas defines 13 nature conservation areas: Seabed integrity zone: Zone 1, upper (Art. 10§1.1°), Seabed integrity zone: Zone 2, middle (Art. 10§1.2°), Seabed integrity zone: Zone 3, lower (Art. 10§1.3°), Ramsar area (Art. 11), Special Area of Conservation "Vlaamse Banken" (Art. 8§1), Special Area of Conservation "Vlakte van de Raan" (Art. 8§3), Special Protection Area for Birds: SPA 1 (Art. 8§5.1°), Special Protection Area for Birds: SPA 2 (Art. 8§5.2°), Special Protection Area for Birds: SPA 3 (Art. 8§5.3°), Marine reserve: Zone 1, upper (Art. 9§1.1°), Marine reserve: Zone 2a, middle (Art. 9§1.2°), Marine reserve: Zone 2b, middle (Art. 9§2), Marine reserve: Zone 3, lower (Art. 9§3). It replaces the 2020 Marine Spatial Plan. Please refer to the Belgian official gazette ("Moniteur belgeBelgisch Staatsblad") for official reference information.

Date (Creation): 2026-06-08

Date (Revision): 2026-06-18

Date (Publication): 2026-10-21

Title: Digital Object Identifier

Date (Creation): 2016-05-19

Code: https://doi.org/10.24417/bmdc.be:dataset:3118

Citation identifier: http://metadata.naturalsciences.be / bmdc.be:dataset:3118
Belgian Marine Data Centre

Other citation details: This dataset is composed of the following sources: MSP 2026-2032 Nature conservation areas.

Point of contact

Organisation name	Electronic mail address	Role
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)	bmdc@naturalsciences.be	Custodian
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS)	info@naturalsciences.be	Owner
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS)	info@naturalsciences.be	Publisher

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Protected sites

Theme

Reporting INSPIRE
Marine Spatial Plan
Federal government
Protected sites

European Legislation Identifier

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 of 21 December 2022 laying down a list of specific high-value datasets and the arrangements for their publication and re-use (Text with EEA relevance)

Marine Regions

GEMET - Concepts, version 4.2.1

Belgian Federal Thesaurus

Land and natural area cover and use

INSPIRE Registry: Spatial scope

National

Themes for open data catalogi in Belgium

Environment

High-value dataset categories

Earth observation and environment

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: No conditions apply to access and use

Other constraints: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: No limitations on public access.

Use limitation: No conditions apply to use.

Classification: Unclassified

Spatial representation type: Vector

Language: English

Topic category

Environment
Oceans
Planning cadastre

gml32:beginPosition: 2026-03-20

Reference system identifier: http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/4258

Distribution format

Name	Version
application/xml	Unknown

Distributor

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)		bmdc@naturalsciences.be	Custodian

Distributor format

Name	Version
application/xml	Unknown

Transfer size: 0.247716

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
OGC:WMS	https://spatial.naturalsciences.be/geoserver/imsp26/ows?version=1.3.0&service=WMS&request=GetCapabilities	imsp26:bmsp_conservation_zone

Distributor

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)		bmdc@naturalsciences.be	Custodian

Distributor format

Name	Version
application/xml	Unknown

Transfer size: 0.113308

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
OGC:WFS	https://spatial.naturalsciences.be/geoserver/imsp26/ows?version=2.0.0&service=WFS&request=GetCapabilities	imsp26:bmsp_conservation_zone

Digital transfer options

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
DOI	https://doi.org/10.24417/bmdc.be:dataset:3118	Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Explanation: See the referenced specification

Pass: Yes

Statement: Dataset is quality assured. Dataset corresponds to a digitized version of the information published in the Belgian official gazette ("Belgisch staatsblad/Moniteur belge"). Only the information published in the official gazette has legal validity.

Metadata

File identifier: bmdc.be:dataset:3118 XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2026-10-21T16:13:38.492Z

Metadata standard name: Geographic information -- Metadata

Metadata standard version: ISO 19115:2003/19139

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)		bmdc@naturalsciences.be	Point of contact

Other language

Language	Character encoding
Dutch; Flemish
French
English
German

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Read here the full details and access to the data.

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Distributor

Distributor

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Conformance result

Metadata

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