This technical report presents an overview of the spatial distribution of marine protected areas (MPAs) in Europe%s seas established as of 2016 (excluding overseas territories). It represents a rerun and advancement of the spatial statistics and of the coherence analysis run by the European Topic Centre on inland, coastal and marine waters (ETC/ICM) on MPA reported data in 2012 and as such provides insight on the observed changes in European MPAs established in the four year period 2013-2016. The networks of MPAs taken into account in the analysis are those established under the framework of the EU Nature Directives, National designations, and the Regional Sea Conventions as reported in the respective official spatial and tabular databases. The MPA assessment areas are defined by regions and sub-regions referred to in Marine Strategy Framework Directive reporting mechanisms. The statistics are reported in terms of surface area (km2) and relative percentage cover as well as percentage overlap between different networks. This volume contains the general MPA statistics and figures relating to the representativity principle, which is one of the four principles against which MPA networks are evaluated. MPA network analysis with respect to the remaining three principles will be produced in a second volume during the course of 2018.

This European Environment Agency (EEA) technical report presents an overview of the 2012 spatial distribution of the networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) established in the waters of EU), excluding overseas territories. The report contains a detailed explanation of the methodology and data sets used and the reasoning behind the spatial statistical analysis outlining the distribution of marine MPAs established by EU Member States in the regional seas surrounding Europe. In so doing, the report also covers aspects concerning data-handling issues experienced during the analysis process, explanations of problem resolutions, and suggestions for improvement of future iterations of the same analysis.

"Ecological coherence" is a term increasingly used to describe the ultimate goal in the design, establishment and assessment of marine protected area (MPA) networks. There are several EU-level policy drivers that call for the establishment of an ecologically coherent network of MPAs across Europe%s seas % most notably Article 13.4 of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. By drawing on existing approaches put forward by the Regional Sea Conventions of relevance to European seas, this report presents a proposed methodological framework for the assessment of MPA networks in a European context to help inform the role that MPAs (and MPA networks) play in the delivery of EU-level reporting requirements. The proposed framework is based on the evaluation of different network evaluation principles (representativity, replication, connectivity, adequacy and management) which are developed in a %three-tiered% approach leading to: a single evaluation output, a scenario assessment based on more than one target measurement, and case studies highlighting aspects that need to be addressed in order to improve the proposed methodology.