Eutrophication Status

General Information

North Sea

Baltic Sea

Clyde Marine Region

Adriatic Sea

Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Eutrophication Status

Layer Info
Category	Management
Sub-category	Environmental conditions

Description

Eutrophication (from Greek eutrophos, "well-nourished"), or hypertrophication, is when a body of water becomes overly enriched with minerals and nutrients that induce excessive growth of plants and algae. This process may result in oxygen depletion of the water body. Eutrophication is almost always induced by the discharge of nitrate or phosphate-containing detergents, fertilizers, or sewage into an aquatic system.

MSP Challenge

Eutrophication Status is a static data layer for reference only.

Return to environmental conditions.

In this tab you can see the information that applies concretely to the North Sea edition of the MSP Challenge.

Since January 2026 this layer is no longer available for the North Sea.

Types

• Bad Status
• Poor Status
• Moderate Status
• Good Status
• Not assessed

Metadata

Data Source

Unknown. This dataset was provided by the NorthSEE partners for an older version of the MSP Challenge.

Original Title

NA

Description

• NA

Creation Date

Unknown, previous to 2016.

Methodology

Directly implemented after reprojecting to Lambert's Azimuthal Equal Area (EPSG:3035) projection.

In this tab you can see the information that applies concretely to the Baltic Sea edition of the MSP Challenge.

Types

• Bad Status
• Poor Status
• Moderate Status
• Good Status
• Not assessed

Metadata

Data Source

HELCOM

Original Title

Integrated eutrophication status assessment 2017.

Description

"The dataset contains integrated eutrophication status assessment 2011-2015. The assessment is done using the HEAT tool by combining assessment unit-specific results from various indicators by three MSFD criteria groups (C1: Nutrient levels, C2: Direct effect, C3: Indirect effect). The assessment is done on HELCOM Assessment Unit level 4: HELCOM Subbasins with coastal WFD water type or water bodies.

The HEAT 3.0 tool has been applied for open sea subasins and in coastal areas using national WFD indicators. In case of Denmark, the WFD results were used directly, displaying different classification as obtained from HEAT.

For more information about the methodology, see State of the Baltic Sea report and HELCOM Eutrophication assessment manual.

NOTE: The dataset was corrected in 5 December 2017 regarding C3 values for Åland Sea, Bothnian Sea and Bothnian Bay (Oxygen debt was excluded from C3 calculation for those areas)."

Description retrieved from HELCOM's metadata page for this resource (2021-07-06)

Creation Date

2017-06-30

Methodology

The geometries were simplified to optimize the platform's performance.

Western Baltic Sea

The Eutrophication Status layer in the Western Baltic Sea Edition remains consistent with that featured in the Baltic Sea edition.

Not applicable.

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

Not applicable.

This layer is not available in the Adriatic Sea Edition.

Not applicable.

This layer is not present in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.