Combined effects of human pressures on Europe’s marine ecosystems

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Abstract

Marine ecosystems are under high demand for human use, giving concerns about how pressures from human activities may affect their structure, function, and status. In Europe, recent developments in mapping of marine habitats and human activities now enable a coherent spatial evaluation of potential combined effects of human activities. Results indicate that combined effects from multiple human pressures are spread to 96% of the European marine area, and more specifically that combined effects from physical disturbance are spread to 86% of the coastal area and 46% of the shelf area. We compare our approach with corresponding assessments at other spatial scales and validate our results with European-scale status assessments for coastal waters. Uncertainties and development points are identified. Still, the results suggest that Europe’s seas are widely disturbed, indicating potential discrepancy between ambitions for Blue Growth and the objective of achieving good environmental status within the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

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A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems.

Benjamin Halpern, Shaun Walbridge, Kimberly Selkoe … (2008)

The management and conservation of the world's oceans require synthesis of spatial data on the distribution and intensity of human activities and the overlap of their impacts on marine ecosystems. We developed an ecosystem-specific, multiscale spatial model to synthesize 17 global data sets of anthropogenic drivers of ecological change for 20 marine ecosystems. Our analysis indicates that no area is unaffected by human influence and that a large fraction (41%) is strongly affected by multiple drivers. However, large areas of relatively little human impact remain, particularly near the poles. The analytical process and resulting maps provide flexible tools for regional and global efforts to allocate conservation resources; to implement ecosystem-based management; and to inform marine spatial planning, education, and basic research.

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Interactive and cumulative effects of multiple human stressors in marine systems.

Caitlin Mullan Crain, Kristy Kroeker, Benjamin Halpern (2008)

Humans impact natural systems in a multitude of ways, yet the cumulative effect of multiple stressors on ecological communities remains largely unknown. Here we synthesized 171 studies that manipulated two or more stressors in marine and coastal systems and found that cumulative effects in individual studies were additive (26%), synergistic (36%), and antagonistic (38%). The overall interaction effect across all studies was synergistic, but interaction type varied by response level (community: antagonistic, population: synergistic), trophic level (autotrophs: antagonistic, heterotrophs: synergistic), and specific stressor pair (seven pairs additive, three pairs each synergistic and antagonistic). Addition of a third stressor changed interaction effects significantly in two-thirds of all cases and doubled the number of synergistic interactions. Given that most studies were performed in laboratories where stressor effects can be carefully isolated, these three-stressor results suggest that synergies may be quite common in nature where more than two stressors almost always coexist. While significant gaps exist in multiple stressor research, our results suggest an immediate need to account for stressor interactions in ecological studies and conservation planning.

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Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world's ocean

Benjamin Halpern, Melanie Frazier, John Potapenko … (2015)

Human pressures on the ocean are thought to be increasing globally, yet we know little about their patterns of cumulative change, which pressures are most responsible for change, and which places are experiencing the greatest increases. Managers and policymakers require such information to make strategic decisions and monitor progress towards management objectives. Here we calculate and map recent change over 5 years in cumulative impacts to marine ecosystems globally from fishing, climate change, and ocean- and land-based stressors. Nearly 66% of the ocean and 77% of national jurisdictions show increased human impact, driven mostly by climate change pressures. Five percent of the ocean is heavily impacted with increasing pressures, requiring management attention. Ten percent has very low impact with decreasing pressures. Our results provide large-scale guidance about where to prioritize management efforts and affirm the importance of addressing climate change to maintain and improve the condition of marine ecosystems.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Samuli Korpinen:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6024-1250

samuli.korpinen@syke.fi

Bio :

Samuli Korpinen

(PhD in marine ecology) is a research manager in Marine Research Centre of Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). His main research interests are in quantifying human impacts on marine ecosystem and developing tools to support marine assessments.

Leena Laamanen:

Bio :

Leena Laamanen

is a researcher in Marine Research Centre of Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). Her research interests are in spatial data analyses and assessments of seafloor integrity.

Lena Bergström:

Bio :

Lena Bergström

is an associate professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Her main research interest is Baltic Sea environmental management with a focus on coastal ecology.

Marco Nurmi:

Bio :

Marco Nurmi

is an assisting researcher in Marine Research Centre of Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). He is expert in spatial data management and GIS tools.

Jesper H. Andersen:

Bio :

Jesper H. Andersen

(PhD) is a chief scientist working at NIVA Denmark Water Research. His key research interest are eutrophication, integrated assessments, and cumulative effect assessments.

Juuso Haapaniemi:

Bio :

Juuso Haapaniemi

is a data analyst at the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM). His main interests include the human induced pressures on the Baltic Sea environment and the use spatial analysis and GIS to study and to communicate these topics.

E. Therese Harvey:

Bio :

E. Therese Harvey

(PhD) is a research scientist working at NIVA Denmark Water Research. Her main research topics are water quality and remote sensing as well as drivers for environmental changes caused by human activities.

Ciaran J. Murray:

Bio :

Ciaran J. Murray

(PhD) is a research scientist working at NIVA Denmark Water Research. His research interests include development of indicator-based assessment tools and integrated status assessments.

Monika Peterlin:

Bio :

Monika Peterlin

(Ph.D. in environmental sciences) is an expert on marine sustainability assessments at the European Environment Agency. Her main research interests are in human impacts on ecosystem and developing integrated marine assessments.

Emilie Kallenbach:

Bio :

Emilie Kallenbach

is a PhD Student at NIVA Denmark Water Research. She has worked with nature restoration and integrated spatial assessments.

Katja Klančnik:

Bio :

Katja Klančnik

is a research fellow at the Institute for Water of the Republic of Slovenia. Her main expertise is the EU MSFD, with a particular focus on the pressures and impacts, ecosystem services, and development of effectiveness assessment tools.

Ulf Stein:

Bio :

Ulf Stein

(Doctorate in Landscape Planning) is a senior fellow at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin. He is a member of the European Topic Centre on Inland Coastal and Marine waters. Ulf Stein is an experienced and passionate GIS analyst.

Leonardo Tunesi:

Bio :

Leonardo Tunesi

(marine biologist) is a head of the Area “Marine biodiversity, habitat and species Protection” at Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research. His major professional interests are in the development of marine protected areas as a conservation tool and to support management and conservation of marine habitats and species.

David Vaughan:

Bio :

David Vaughan

is a senior project manager on marine assessment at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. His main interests are in better use of marine data for improving our understanding of how marine life is faring and in how to get the message across to a wider audience.

Johnny Reker:

Bio :

Johnny Reker

is a project manager in Natural systems and vulnerability Programme of European Environment Agency (EEA). His professional interests are in marine policy interface, particularly utilizing marine assessments.

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Ambio

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Ambio

Title: Ambio

Publisher: Springer Netherlands (Dordrecht )

ISSN (Print): 0044-7447

ISSN (Electronic): 1654-7209

Publication date (Electronic): 28 January 2021

Publication date PMC-release: 28 January 2021

Publication date (Print): July 2021

Volume: 50

Issue: 7

Pages: 1325-1336

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.410381.f, ISNI 0000 0001 1019 1419, Marine Research Centre, , Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), ; Helsinki, Finland

[2 ]GRID grid.6341.0, ISNI 0000 0000 8578 2742, Department of Aquatic Resources, , Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, ; Uppsala, Sweden

[3 ]NIVA Denmark Water Research, Copenhagen, Denmark

[4 ]GRID grid.493878.9, ISNI 0000 0001 0940 3568, HELCOM Secretariat, ; Helsinki, Finland

[5 ]GRID grid.453985.6, ISNI 0000 0004 0619 3405, European Environment Agency (EEA), ; Copenhagen, Denmark

[6 ]GRID grid.457123.6, Institute for Water of the Republic of Slovenia (IZVRS), ; Ljubljana, Slovenia

[7 ]GRID grid.22859.34, ISNI 0000 0004 0467 2445, EcoLogic, ; Berlin, Germany

[8 ]GRID grid.423782.8, ISNI 0000 0001 2205 5473, Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), ; Rome, Italy

[9 ]GRID grid.435540.3, ISNI 0000 0001 1954 7645, Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), ; Peterborough, UK

Author information

Samuli Korpinen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6024-1250

Article

Publisher ID: 1482

DOI: 10.1007/s13280-020-01482-x

PMC ID: 8116428

PubMed ID: 33507497

SO-VID: a6a3a581-8ec6-4984-9247-a7afdec380c2

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

Date received : 21 September 2020

Date revision received : 26 November 2020

Date accepted : 14 December 2020

Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000806, European Environment Agency;

Funded by: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)

Open Access :

Open Access funding provided by Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology

Keywords: anthropogenic pressures,cumulative effect assessments,europe's seas,human activities,marine assessment,marine management

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology

Keywords: anthropogenic pressures, cumulative effect assessments, europe's seas, human activities, marine assessment, marine management

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Combined effects of human pressures on Europe’s marine ecosystems

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A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems.

Interactive and cumulative effects of multiple human stressors in marine systems.

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