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Datasets / OSINT
emodnet.ec.europa.eu/

EMODnet Human Activities

Freeauth: noneunknown#osint#maritime#geospatial#infrastructure

EMODnet Human Activities

EMODnet Human Activities publishes harmonized layers on maritime and marine human activities in EU waters, including vessel-density and shipping-route-density rasters, main-ports traffic points, telecom cables, offshore oil and gas installations, pipelines, military areas, fisheries, aquaculture and waste-disposal sites. Data come from a consortium of partners surveying public and private sources across EU, international, national and local levels, and are reachable through a web map viewer and a products catalogue with direct downloads; no account or key is needed.

Coverage

EU waters only, across about 20 activity themes. Shipping-specific layers are Vessel Density and Route Density rasters, both expressed as "Number of routes per square km per month," plus a Main Ports Traffic point layer. Update frequency, free history depth and publication delay vary by layer and are not stated on the overview page.

Verdict

This is a reference layer for route density, port traffic and maritime infrastructure (cables, platforms, pipelines) across EU waters, useful for overlaying shipping intensity onto energy and telecoms infrastructure risk within Europe only. The portal states "Data are free and free of any restrictions," and aggregation is used to protect personal privacy and commercially sensitive information, so expect smoothed rasters and point locations rather than individual vessel tracks. Coverage stops at EU waters, so pair it with a global AIS source for routes that extend beyond them.

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Use in your agent

Query an EMODnet Human Activities vessel-density raster into pandas and Parquet. Checked against the provider's documentation on Nov 4, 2026.

Raw skill file (/skills/emodnet-human-activities.md)Also in our MCP server: call get_ingestion_skill with {"slug": "emodnet-human-activities"}.

Access

  • No account or key. The WMS GetFeatureInfo endpoint returns JSON over HTTPS.

Request

bash
curl -g 'https://ows.emodnet-humanactivities.eu/wms?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetFeatureInfo&LAYERS=vesseldensity_allavg&QUERY_LAYERS=vesseldensity_allavg&CRS=EPSG:4326&BBOX=50.8,1.2,51.2,1.6&WIDTH=256&HEIGHT=256&I=128&J=128&INFO_FORMAT=application/json'

Format

GeoJSON FeatureCollection with one feature per queried pixel; properties.GRAY_INDEX carries the raster's vessel-density value for that point.

Load into pandas and Parquet

Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.

python
"""EMODnet Human Activities vessel-density raster, one point -> pandas -> Parquet. No key."""
import requests
import pandas as pd

URL = "https://ows.emodnet-humanactivities.eu/wms"
params = {
    "SERVICE": "WMS", "VERSION": "1.3.0", "REQUEST": "GetFeatureInfo",
    "LAYERS": "vesseldensity_allavg", "QUERY_LAYERS": "vesseldensity_allavg",
    "CRS": "EPSG:4326", "BBOX": "50.8,1.2,51.2,1.6", "WIDTH": 256, "HEIGHT": 256,
    "I": 128, "J": 128, "INFO_FORMAT": "application/json",
}
r = requests.get(URL, params=params, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
feat = r.json()["features"][0]
df = pd.DataFrame([{"layer": "vesseldensity_allavg", "lon": 1.4, "lat": 51.0, **feat["properties"]}])
df.to_parquet("emodnet_vessel_density_point.parquet", index=False)
print("vessel density (GRAY_INDEX) at Dover Strait point:", feat["properties"]["GRAY_INDEX"])

Run by us on 2026-11-04 (python 3.13.5 | pandas 3.0.6 | pyarrow 26.0.1 | requests 2.34.2). Result: vessel density (GRAY_INDEX) at Dover Strait point: 1.724800944328308

Limits

  • Rate limits: Not stated.
  • GetFeatureInfo returns one pixel per request; bulk extraction needs the WCS coverage endpoint or a downloaded GeoTIFF instead.

Quirks

  • Query parameters with [] or repeated keys need an unencoded request (curl -g).
  • GRAY_INDEX units follow the queried layer, for example "Number of routes per square km per month" for the density layers listed on the product page.
  • Separate layers exist per vessel type and per month/annual average (for example vesseldensity_01avg for January).

Terms and attribution

  • "Data are free and free of any restrictions, in such a way as to ensure their use from a multitude of stakeholders."
  • No specific reuse licence or terms page was stated for Human Activities on the pages checked.

Sources

Information and education only. Not financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Listings can be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date and are provided "as is". Free tiers, limits and licenses belong to each provider and can change, so check the provider's own terms before you rely on them. Terms & Disclaimer

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