Assessing the impacts of seabed mineral extraction in the deep sea and coastal marine environments: Current methods and recommendations for environmental risk assessment

The poor access to data on the marine environment is a handicap to government decision-making, a barrier to scientific understanding and an obstacle to economic growth. In this light, the European Commission initiated the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) in 2009 to assemble and disseminate hitherto dispersed marine data. In the ten years since then, EMODnet has become a key producer of publicly available, harmonised datasets covering broad areas. This paper describes the methodologies applied in EMODnet Geology project to produce fully populated GIS layers of seabed substrate distribution for the European marine areas. We describe steps involved in translating national seabed substrate data, conforming to various standards, into a uniform EMODnet substrate classification scheme (i.e., the Folk sediment classification). Rock and boulders form an additional substrate class. Seabed substrate data products at scales of 1:250,000 and 1:1 million, compiled using descriptions and analyses of seabed samples as well as interpreted acoustic images, cover about 20% and 65% of the European maritime areas, respectively. A simple confidence assessment, based on sample and acoustic coverage, is helpful in identifying data gaps. The harmonised seabed substrate maps are particularly useful in supraregional, transnational and pan-European marine spatial planning. © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/2/84/pdf

Picking up the pieces - harmonising and collating seabed substrate data for European maritime areas

Seabed geodiversity in a glaciated shelf area, the Baltic Sea

Legacy and emerging pollutants in the Gulf of Gdańsk (southern Baltic Sea) - loads and distribution revisited.

Abstract. Coastal environments, in particular heavily populated semi-enclosed marginal seas and coasts like the Baltic Sea region, are strongly affected by human activities. A multitude of human impacts, including climate change, affect the different compartments of the environment, and these effects interact with each other. As part of the Baltic Earth Assessment Reports (BEAR), we present an inventory and discussion of different human-induced factors and processes affecting the environment of the Baltic Sea region, and their interrelations. Some are naturally occurring and modified by human activities (i.e. climate change, coastal processes, hypoxia, acidification, submarine groundwater discharges, marine ecosystems, non-indigenous species, land use and land cover), some are completely human-induced (i.e. agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, river regulations, offshore wind farms, shipping, chemical contamination, dumped warfare agents, marine litter and microplastics, tourism, and coastal management), and they are all interrelated to different degrees. We present a general description and analysis of the state of knowledge on these interrelations. Our main insight is that climate change has an overarching, integrating impact on all of the other factors and can be interpreted as a background effect, which has different implications for the other factors. Impacts on the environment and the human sphere can be roughly allocated to anthropogenic drivers such as food production, energy production, transport, industry and economy. The findings from this inventory of available information and analysis of the different factors and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region can largely be transferred to other comparable marginal and coastal seas in the world. 

Human impacts and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region

http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.oai-journals-pan-pl-100104/c/oai-journals-pan-pl-100104_full-text_c2e9edaf-0235-42e5-b7f1-68d425a37a05.pdf

Impact of sand extraction from the bottom of the southern Baltic Sea on the relief and sediments of the seabed

Abstract: During the catastrophic flood caused by the ice dam in 1840, a new river mouth was created. Nevertheless some series of floods were observed in the next years. In order to facilitate of river waters run-off, the artificial crosscut was performed in 1891-1895 years. The artificial channel was opened in 31st of March 1895. Since, at the time of continuous exploitation of the channel, high effectiveness of the engineering project which is unique in the world scale has been confirmed. A permanent flood hazard for Gdansk city and adjacent lowland areas has been receded. Since this time, the external delta is being formed by acumulation of bed-loaded sediment that is transporting by the river. Consequently free run-off of the river water is reducing due to the external delta growing.

/pdf/the-vistula-canal-the-state-after-120-years-of-activity-1in5mjadot.pdf

Jarosław Nowak

Papers

Impact of sand extraction from the bottom of the southern Baltic Sea on the relief and sediments of the seabed

The Vistula Canal, the state after 120 years of activity