1: Protected Areas and Subsea Infrastructure

Identifying Protected Areas Affected by Subsea Infrastructure in the North Sea

Learn the fundamentals of accessing EMODnet WFS data by identifying marine protected areas that overlap with subsea infrastructure like pipelines and cables. This tutorial introduces spatial intersection operations and provides a foundation for marine spatial planning analyses.

Tutorial Content

This tutorial is currently under development.

What You’ll Learn

  • How to access and retrieve multiple WFS layers using the emodnet.wfs R package
  • Loading and combining spatial datasets representing MPAs and subsea infrastructure
  • Harmonising coordinate reference systems and preparing geometries for analysis
  • Applying sf::st_intersects() to detect spatial overlaps
  • Summarising and visualising the extent of intersection between protected areas and human activities

Data Sources

Protected Areas (Seabed Habitats): - cddaareas - natura2000areas - marineprotectedareas

Subsea Infrastructure (Human Activities): - platforms - pipelines - pcablesbshcontis - pcablesshom - pcablesrijks - pcablesnve

Check back soon for the complete tutorial!