Polygon

ScotMap is a Marine Scotland project which provides spatial information on the fishing activity of Scottish registered commercial fishing vessels under 15 m in overall length. The data were collected during face-to-face interview with individual vessel owners and operators and relate to fishing activity for the period 2007 to 2011. The data are aggregated and analysed to provide information on the monetary value, relative importance (relative value) and the usage (number of fishing vessels and crew) of seas around Scotland.

The dataset, as of July 2013, is based on interviews of 1,090 fishermen. Individuals defined their fishing areas or 'polygons' with variable levels of precision. Users of the data should be aware of this, particularly of the coverage provided by the ScotMap data set which varies regionally.

This layer shows the number of crew associated with each grid cell. The average number of crew working on a vessel is attributed to each polygon for that vessel. The same value is then allocated to each overlapping grid cell and numbers summed to derive the number of crew associated with each grid cell.

International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) standardise the division of sea areas for statistical analysis. Each ICES statistical rectangle is ’30 min latitude and 1 degree longitude’ in size. And are approximately 30 nautical miles square.

The 15 sea areas are based on areas previously adopted for certain environmental monitoring programmes. The data from these 15 areas can be presented regionally and also reasonably aggregated to form a national picture and to develop information for the two main areas required for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive initial assessment: the Greater North Sea (Area II) and the Celtic Seas (Area III) which are existing sea areas used by OSPAR (the Oslo Paris Convention for the Protection of the North East Atlantic).

The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (the ‘OSPAR Convention') undertakes its work based on a number of Regions of the North-East Atlantic, which this layer shows.

The Convention was open for signature at the Ministerial Meeting of the Oslo and Paris Commissions in Paris on 22 September 1992. It was adopted together with a Final declaration and an Action Plan.