Interim Report of the Working Group on Marine Habitat Mapping (WGMHM)

The annual meeting of the Working Group of Marine Habitat Mapping (WGMHM), chaired by Pål Buhl-Mortensen, Norway, was held at the Marine Research Institute in Reykjavik, Iceland, 18-22 May 2015.Two essential topics relating to environmental management that were dealt with during the meeting: The application of habitat maps (ToR d) and Support for the development of common and candidate OSPAR biodiversity indicators (ToR e). Two issues relating to Habitat mapping techniques and modelling (ToR c) were discussed. Experts also presented statuses on both on national and international mapping projects (ToR a) and b)). The overview of ongoing and recently finished mapping projects is useful for identifying sources of metadata to feed into the ICES webGIS for habitat maps, but also to identify standardization issues.