As part of the international initiative Seabed 2030, a seafloor map of all seas and oceans has been compiled for some time now. To date, this map covers an area equal to a quarter of the world’s oceans, or exactly 23.4 percent, and the ultimate goal of the Seabed 2030 initiative, as the name suggests, is to compile a complete map. Map until 2030. The Seabed 2030 initiative is part of the UN’s The Ocean Decade program, and what is most interesting is that only available data, either publicly available or provided by various organizations and companies, is used to compile the map.

Just last year, Seabed 2030 added an area of ​​approximately 9.84 million square kilometers to the map, roughly equivalent to the area of ​​all of Europe. Further expansion of the map will provide a deeper understanding of climate change processes and guide a range of efforts to protect the world’s oceans in the right direction. At most, having a map of the seafloor will make it possible to more accurately predict the occurrence of tsunamis and other natural disasters.

“A complete map of the seafloor is an inadequate tool to have in the future for tackling some of the most pressing environmental problems of our time, including climate change and ocean pollution. and will enable us to secure the future of our planet.”

As mentioned above, Seabed 2030 uses publicly available data and data provided by various organizations and companies to compile the map. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that not all of these institutions and companies have agreed to gain access to their archives citing government or trade secrets.

The data collected, at least in part, and the maps compiled by Seabed 2030 are available free of charge as part of the GEBCO (General Bathymetric Table of the Oceans) global network. Source