Description of the vessel traffic within the north Pelagos Sanctuary: Inputs for Marine Spatial Planning and management implications within an existing international Marine Protected Area

International shipping, although considered a safe and environment-friendly form of transportation, has many direct and indirect impacts on cetaceans in many ways, particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the world's busiest waterways. An MS receiver located at 44.30 degrees N and 8.45 degrees E, operating between 3 May 2013 and 31 October 2014, provided a detailed description of the distribution, number, type and operation of vessels within the Pelagos Sanctuary, an international protected area dedicated to the conservation of marine mammals. A total of 3,757,587 km of vessel traffic was recorded from 82,831 transits by 4205 distinct vessels. The spatial and temporal distribution of traffic was not uniform and dependent on vessel type (0.00 < r < 0.7); the level of shipping differed spatially between day and night. Passenger vessel traffic was predominant, with 20,853 transits totalling 1,385,361 km, followed by cargo (12,384 transits totalling 1,427,681 km). Transit speed significantly differed amongst vessel types (F=12621, d.f.=5, p-value < 0.0001) with passenger vessels the fastest (mean 15.47 +/- 4.40 kn). Hazardous cargo transits accounted for 435,116 km. Vessels within the sanctuary navigated under the flags of 90 different states, in variable proportion depending on vessel type (X-2=1231, d.f.=10, p-value < 0.0001). The data presented in this study on high density shipping corridors and hazardous cargo supplies information for the identification of areas at higher risk from shipping. This data once integrated with available ecological data, can be used to inform ecosystem based management within a Marine Spatial Planning framework. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.