Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance 1992 - 2012 (vector) - version 1, Sep. 2013

The Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMI) - version 1 (09/2013) is a dataset produced within the Spatial analysis of Marine Protected Area Networks in Europe´s seas, elaborated by ISPRA (Rome, Italy) and coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in 2013-2014. SPAMI are marine protected areas (MPAs) declared in the frame of the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the marine environment and the coastal Region of the Mediterranean Sea (Barcelona Convention). Since no official layer of all the SPAMI areas was available in 2013, the shapefiles of each SPAMI were downloaded from the MAPAMED website (www.mapamed.org) and, for the purpose of running spatial MPA analysis and evaluations, they were merged in a unique dataset. Then, they were joined to a tabular list of SPAMI provided by the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RACSPA), containing information on the names, dates of establishment and general characteristics of the sites (i.e. surface area). This list was received directly through the Secretariat, who is the depository of this information. NB: Reprojection issues have been identified for some polygons (e.g. in islands West of Italy)