Which sea regions?
Bathymetric survey data sets are being catalogued as acquired and managed by European data providers for all regions in the world. A harmonised Digital Terrain Model at a gridsize of 1/8 * 1/8 arc minutes has been produced and published in October 2016. Newer versions with higher resolution of 1/16 * 1/16 arc minutes have been released mid September 2018 and end December 2020 for the following European sea regions:
- the Greater North Sea, including the Kattegat and stretches of water such as Fair Isle, Cromarty, Forth, Forties,Dover, Wight, and Portland
- the English Channel and Celtic Seas
- Western Mediterranean, the Ionian Sea and the Central Mediterranean Sea
- Iberian Coast and Bay of Biscay (Atlantic Ocean)
- Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean)
- Aegean - Levantine Sea (Mediterranean).
- Madeira and Azores (Macaronesia)
- Baltic Sea
- Black Sea
- Norwegian and Icelandic Seas
- Canary Islands (Macaronesia)
- European arctic region and Barentz Sea
The viewing services in the portal give access to the latest DTM version of end December 2020, while the download service and the OGC web services cover the October 2016 version, the mid September 2018 version, and the end December 2020 version.
The geographic coverage of the EMODnet DTM for European sea regions is a Lat Lon box with 36W,15N; 43E,90N.
The present version also features a layer with high resolution bathymetry which allows to view, zoom in, interrogate for metadata, and download a collection of higher resolution composite DTMs (HR-DTMs) for selected areas over Europe. The resolution of HR-DTMs varies between 1/32 and 1/512 arc minutes, depending on local data policy of data providers.
In addition, an EMODnet Bathymetry World Base Layer (EBWBL) has been generated in 2020, providing a gridded representation of worldwide bathymetric and topographic coverage adapted for a better representation of seabed morphological features. It is composed of the 2018 EMODnet Bathymetric grid around Europe (approx. 115m resolution) and uses the GEBCO 2019 grid (approx. 500m resolution) elsewhere in the marine environment. Land coverage is based on a combination of 30 arc second ASTER GDEM, SRTM3, EU-DEM, and Global 1 second world-wide water body map for the topographic part. This global coverage layer will also be maintained in sync with the EMODnet DTM for Europe.
Further upgrading of the EMODnet DTM is planned and will include incorporating even more surveys and further improvement of the digital bathymetry. For this purpose additional high resolution data sets are welcome and can be contributed using the EMODnet Ingestion service.