AIS Total Shipping Intensity

General Information

North Sea

Baltic Sea

Clyde Marine Region

Adriatic Sea

Eastern Mediterranean Sea

AIS Total Shipping Intensity

File:Layer AIS Total Shipping Intensity.png
Layer Info
Category	Activities
Sub-category	Shipping

Description

AIS stands for Automatic Identification System; it's an automatic tracking system that uses transceivers on ships. AIS Total Shipping Intensity shows the total amount of ships that cross each cell of the region in a certain amount of time.

MSP Challenge

In the MSP Challenge, this layer is static and does not contribute to any pressures in the ecossystem.

Return to shipping.

Not available.

This layer is not included in the North Sea Edition.

North Sea Digitwin Edition

In the North Sea Digitwin Edition the shipping intensity in 2023 in the Dutch EEZ is available. The data was provided by the Dutch Ministery of Infrastructure and Water Management on 2025-11. Data creator is Marine Research Institute Netherlands . This dataset is only used with sessions within the Dutch Ministery of Infrastructure and Water Management.

OR ELSE Edition

In the OR ELSE Edition the shipping intensity for the whole North Sea is available.

Types

• No value
• Very Low
• Low
• Medium
• High
• Very high

Metadata

Data Source

EMODnet

This data originates from EMODnet WMS (https://emodnet.ec.europa.eu/en/). The data originator is Cogea Srl.

License: CC-BY 4.0

Original Title

vesseldensity_all

Description

The Vessel Density maps in the EU are created since the 2019 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). The dataset is updated every year and is available for viewing and download on EMODnet web portal (Human Activities, https://emodnet.ec.europa.eu/en/human-activities). The maps are based on AIS data yearly purchased from Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS) and ORBCOMM. The maps, GeoTIFF format, show shipping density in 1x1km cells of a grid covering all EU waters and some neighbouring areas. Density is expressed as hours per square kilometre per month. The following ship types are available:0 Other, 1 Fishing, 2 Service, 3 Dredging or underwater ops, 4 Sailing, 5 Pleasure Craft, 6 High speed craft, 7 Tug and towing, 8 Passenger, 9 Cargo, 10 Tanker, 11 Military and Law Enforcement, 12 Unknown and All ship types. Data are available by month of year. Yearly averages are also available.

Creation Date

2019-03-11

Not available.

This layer is not included in the Baltic Sea Edition.

Not available.

This layer is not included in the Clyde Marine Region Edition.

Types

• 0 to 500 ships
• 500 to 1.000 ships
• 1.000 to 5.000 ships
• 5000 to 10.000 ships
• 10.000 to 20.000 ships
• more than 20.000 ships

Metadata

Data Source

Data layer provided by the project partner CNR-ISMAR based on data from EMSA - European Maritime Safety Agency.

Original Title

Not available.

Description

Not available.

Creation Date

Provided on 2020-07-09.

Methodology

The layer was implemented in the MSP Challenge as provided by the project partner (CNR-ISMAR).

Types

• 0 - 0.5 hours/km2/month
• 0.5 - 2 hours/km2/month
• 2 - 5 hours/km2/month
• 5 - 10 hours/km2/month
• 10 - 20 hours/km2/month
• 20 - 100 hours/km2/month
• >100 hours/km2/month

Metadata

Data Source

EMODnet

This data was downloaded from the EMODnet Portal (https://emodnet.ec.europa.eu/en/). The data originator is AZTI.

License: CC-BY 4.0

Original Title

vesseldensity_all_2022

Description

The Vessel Density maps in the EU are created since the 2019 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). The dataset is updated every year and is available for viewing and download on EMODnet web portal (Human Activities, https://emodnet.ec.europa.eu/en/human-activities). The maps are based on AIS data yearly purchased from Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS) and ORBCOMM. The maps, GeoTIFF format, show shipping density in 1x1km cells of a grid covering all EU waters and some neighboring areas. Density is expressed as hours per square kilometer per month.

Creation Date

n.d.