North Atlantic basin-scale multi-criteria assessment database to inform management recommendations to protect Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems

We applied the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) multi criteria assessment (MCA) method for identifying VMEs in the North-East Atlantic (ICES, 2016a,b; Morato et al., 2018) from ATLAS VME database to provide the first North Atlantic Ocean basin-scale VME assessment. This MCA is a taxa-dependent spatial method that incorporates the fact that not all VME indicators have the same vulnerability to human impacts, and thus should not be weighted equally. By including a measure of the confidence associated with each VME record, this methodology also considers some of the uncertainties associated with the sampling methodologies, the reported taxonomy, and data quality issues. Equally important, this dataset highlights areas in the North Atlantic that have been poorly sampled and that require further attention. Finally, this methodology also allows for the evaluation and comparison of the VME likelihood with spatial fisheries data that may directly generate significant adverse impacts on VMEs. In the data report, we made the “North Atlantic basin-scale VME index dataset” publicly, thus allowing its consultation and use by scientists, managers, or other relevant stakeholders.