To map South Africa’s marine ecosystem types for spatial biodiversity assessment and planning.

There is a long history of efforts to classify marine regions and ecosystem types. In South Africa, considerable effort has been expended to advance marine ecosystem classification and mapping over the last 20 years.

This version is a minor update to the 2022 map. Key edits in the March 2022 version of the national marine ecosystem map included a shore polygon edit in the Delagoa Ecoregion, addition of 13 pelagic ecosystem types off the shelf, updates to ecosystem descriptions, introduction of Ecosystem Functional Group type (replaces broad ecosystem type) and minor edits to improve nesting and alignment with the IUCN global ecosystem typology as far as is practical for South Africa. Details are documented in Sink et al. 2023.

The 2023 final version differs from the 2022 versions and the 2023 beta1 version, in that we have reverted to using the outer EEZ border (polygon) that was used in the 2018 NBA. The reason is that many other marine spatial planning products have continued using that EEZ and until a directive is received of an official EEZ boundary to use, a decision was made that it is better to remain consistent with the 2018 NBA and other marine planning products, than to use an alternative that causes misalignment with other marine spatial work.

SANS 1878

FGDC-STD-001-1998