5 datasets misjub

Article 17 of the Habitats Directive requires Member States to report every six years about the progress made with the implementation of the Habitats Directive. As the main focus of the directive is on maintaining and/or restoring a favourable conservation status for habitat types & species of community interest, monitoring & reporting under the directive is focusing on that. Monitoring of conservation status is not restricted to Natura 2000 sites and data need to be collected both in and outside the Natura 2000 network to achieve a full appreciation of conservation status. Some data on sensitive species is restricted from public access, as the disclosure of such might adversely affect the conservation of the species in question; this is in line with the provisions of Article 4 2(h) of Directive 2003/4/EC.

HB.D1_6_Posidonia_extent

This dataset describes location and area cover for Lithophyllum bissoides platforms along the Maltese coast. Such data was collected under the EMFF 8.3.1 Project. The monitoring was undertaken in line with Malta's monitoring factsheets for the MSFD Directive.

The submission of sites to the EC entails the preparation of a datasheet and a map for each site, that is for each proposed SCI and for each SPA, unless a proposed SCI has the exact boundary as an SPA; in the latter case only one datasheet is prepared comprising all relevant information. Reference can be made to the Natura 2000 viewer - including datasheets (link: http://natura2000.eea.europa.eu/) and to the Natura 2000 database (link: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/natura-2000/) to obtain information on each Natura 2000 site for almost all of the EU Member States. Information for the sites nominated by Malta are also available through these same links.

Positions of Coralligenous point data were extracted from the below three different scientific papers and merged into one dataset: 1) Taviani, M., Dimech, M., Mifsud, C., Freiwald, A., Harasewyech, M.G. and Oliveriom, M. (2009). Coralliophilinae (Gastropoda: Muricidae) associated with deep water coral banks in the Mediterranean. THE NAUTILUS 123(3):106-112.2)Schembri, P.J., Dimech, M., Camilleri, M., and Page, R.(2007). Living water Lophelia and Madrepora corals in Maltese waters (Strait of Sicily, Mediterranean Sea). Cah. Biol. Mar. 48: 77- 83. 3) Freiwald, A., Beuck, L., Ruggeberg, A., Taviani, M., and Hebbeln, D. (2009). The White coral community in the Central Mediterranean Sea revealed by ROV surveys. Oceanography Vol 22, No1. This data was utilised by one of the co-financed EU LIFE+ Funding Programmes - LIFE BaĦAR for N2K project.