Cumulative human impacts on Mediterranean and Black Sea marine ecosystems: assessing current pressures and opportunities.
Fiorenza Micheli,Benjamin S. Halpern,Shaun Walbridge,Saul Ciriaco,Francesco Ferretti,Simonetta Fraschetti,Rebecca L. Lewison,Leo Nykjaer,Andrew Rosenberg +8 more
TLDR
Quantification and mapping of the cumulative impact of 22 drivers to 17 marine ecosystems reveals that 20% of the entire basin and 60–99%" of the territorial waters of EU member states are heavily impacted, with high human impact occurring in all ecoregions and territorial waters.Abstract:
Management of marine ecosystems requires spatial information on current impacts. In several marine regions, including the Mediterranean and Black Sea, legal mandates and agreements to implement ecosystem-based management and spatial plans provide new opportunities to balance uses and protection of marine ecosystems. Analyses of the intensity and distribution of cumulative impacts of human activities directly connected to the ecological goals of these policy efforts are critically needed. Quantification and mapping of the cumulative impact of 22 drivers to 17 marine ecosystems reveals that 20% of the entire basin and 60–99% of the territorial waters of EU member states are heavily impacted, with high human impact occurring in all ecoregions and territorial waters. Less than 1% of these regions are relatively unaffected. This high impact results from multiple drivers, rather than one individual use or stressor, with climatic drivers (increasing temperature and UV, and acidification), demersal fishing, ship traffic, and, in coastal areas, pollution from land accounting for a majority of cumulative impacts. These results show that coordinated management of key areas and activities could significantly improve the condition of these marine ecosystems.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world's ocean
Benjamin S. Halpern,Benjamin S. Halpern,Melanie Frazier,John Potapenko,Kenneth S. Casey,Kellee Koenig,Catherine Longo,Julia S. Stewart Lowndes,R. Cotton Rockwood,Elizabeth R. Selig,Kimberly A. Selkoe,Kimberly A. Selkoe,Shaun Walbridge +12 more
TL;DR: This work calculates and map recent change over 5 years in cumulative impacts to marine ecosystems globally from fishing, climate change, and ocean- and land-based stressors and affirm the importance of addressing climate change to maintain and improve the condition of marine ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Overview of Integrative Assessment of Marine Systems: The Ecosystem Approach in Practice
Ángel Borja,Michael Elliott,Jesper H. Andersen,Torsten Berg,Jacob Carstensen,Benjamin S. Halpern,Benjamin S. Halpern,Anna-Stiina Heiskanen,Samuli Korpinen,Julia S. Stewart Lowndes,Georg Martin,Naiara Rodríguez-Ezpeleta +11 more
TL;DR: Five existing methods that address the needs of monitoring and assessment of marine ecosystems are reviewed, highlighting their main characteristics and analyzing their commonalities and differences.
Journal ArticleDOI
Invading the Mediterranean Sea: biodiversity patterns shaped by human activities
Stelios Katsanevakis,Marta Coll,Chiara Piroddi,Jeroen Steenbeek,Frida Ben Rais Lasram,Argyro Zenetos,Ana Cristina Cardoso +6 more
TL;DR: It is investigated how human activities, by providing pathways for the introduction of alien species, may shape the biodiversity patterns in the Mediterranean Sea to better understand how the new biodiversity patterns shaped by human activities will affect the Mediterranean food webs, ecosystem functioning, and the provision of ecosystem services.
Journal ArticleDOI
Quantified biotic and abiotic responses to multiple stress in freshwater, marine and ground waters.
Peeter Nõges,Christine Argillier,Ángel Borja,Joxe Mikel Garmendia,Jenica Hanganu,Vit Kodes,Florian Pletterbauer,Alban Sagouis,Sebastian Birk +8 more
TL;DR: Across all aquatic environments, the explanatory power of stress-effect models for fish increased when multi- stressor conditions were taken into account in the analysis, qualifying this organism group as a useful indicator of multi-stress effects.
Journal ArticleDOI
A risk-based approach to cumulative effect assessments for marine management
Vanessa Stelzenmüller,Marta Coll,Antonios D. Mazaris,Sylvaine Giakoumi,Sylvaine Giakoumi,Stelios Katsanevakis,Michelle E. Portman,Renate Degen,Peter Mackelworth,Antje Gimpel,Paolo G. Albano,Vasiliki Almpanidou,Joachim Claudet,Franz Essl,Thanasis Evagelopoulos,Johanna J. Heymans,Tilen Genov,Salit Kark,Fiorenza Micheli,Maria Grazia Pennino,Gil Rilov,Bob Rumes,Jeroen Steenbeek,Henn Ojaveer +23 more
TL;DR: It is shown that a risk-based approach to CEAs decreases complexity, allows for the transparent treatment of uncertainty and streamlines the uptake of scientific outcomes into the science-policy interface, which can help bridging the gap between science and decision-making in ecosystem-based management.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
A Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems
Benjamin S. Halpern,Shaun Walbridge,Kimberly A. Selkoe,Kimberly A. Selkoe,Carrie V. Kappel,Fiorenza Micheli,Caterina D'Agrosa,Caterina D'Agrosa,John F. Bruno,Kenneth S. Casey,Colin M. Ebert,Helen E. Fox,Rod Fujita,Dennis Heinemann,Hunter S. Lenihan,Elizabeth M. P. Madin,Matthew T. Perry,Elizabeth R. Selig,Elizabeth R. Selig,Mark Spalding,Robert S. Steneck,Reg Watson +21 more
TL;DR: This article developed an ecosystem-specific, multiscale spatial model to synthesize 17 global data sets of anthropogenic drivers of ecological change for 20 marine ecosystems and found that no area is unaffected by human influence and that a large fraction (41%) is strongly affected by multiple drivers.
Journal ArticleDOI
Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas
Mark Spalding,Helen E. Fox,Gerald R. Allen,Nick C. Davidson,Zach A. Ferdaña,Max Finlayson,Benjamin S. Halpern,Miguel A. Jorge,Al Lombana,Sara A. Lourie,Kirsten D. Martin,Edmund McManus,Jennifer L. Molnar,Cheri A. Recchia,James C. Robertson +14 more
TL;DR: The Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW) as discussed by the authors is a global system for coastal and shelf areas, which is a nested system of 12 realms, 62 provinces, and 232 ecoregs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Depletion, Degradation, and Recovery Potential of Estuaries and Coastal Seas
Heike K. Lotze,Hunter S. Lenihan,Bruce J. Bourque,Roger Bradbury,Richard G. Cooke,Matthew C. Kay,Susan M. Kidwell,Michael Xavier Kirby,Charles H. Peterson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson +10 more
TL;DR: Reconstructed time lines, causes, and consequences of change in 12 once diverse and productive estuaries and coastal seas worldwide show similar patterns: Human impacts have depleted >90% of formerly important species, destroyed >65% of seagrass and wetland habitat, degraded water quality, and accelerated species invasions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Global Trajectories of the Long-Term Decline of Coral Reef Ecosystems
John M. Pandolfi,Roger Bradbury,Enric Sala,Terry P. Hughes,Karen A. Bjorndal,Richard G. Cooke,Deborah A. McArdle,Loren McClenachan,Marah J. H. Newman,Gustavo Paredes,Robert R. Warner,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson +12 more
TL;DR: Records are compiled, extending back thousands of years, of the status and trends of seven major guilds of carnivores, herbivores, and architectural species from 14 regions that indicate reefs will not survive without immediate protection from human exploitation over large spatial scales.
Journal Article
Loss, status and trends for coastal marine habitats of Europe
Laura Airoldi,Michael W. Beck +1 more
TL;DR: The concept of shifting baselines, which has been applied mostly to the inadequate historical perspective of fishery losses, is extremely relevant for habitat loss more generally as discussed by the authors, which may ultimately compromise the successful management and future sustainability of those few fragments of native and semi-native coastal habitats that remain in Europe.
Related Papers (5)
A Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems
Benjamin S. Halpern,Shaun Walbridge,Kimberly A. Selkoe,Kimberly A. Selkoe,Carrie V. Kappel,Fiorenza Micheli,Caterina D'Agrosa,Caterina D'Agrosa,John F. Bruno,Kenneth S. Casey,Colin M. Ebert,Helen E. Fox,Rod Fujita,Dennis Heinemann,Hunter S. Lenihan,Elizabeth M. P. Madin,Matthew T. Perry,Elizabeth R. Selig,Elizabeth R. Selig,Mark Spalding,Robert S. Steneck,Reg Watson +21 more
The Biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea: Estimates, Patterns, and Threats
Marta Coll,Marta Coll,Chiara Piroddi,Jeroen Steenbeek,Kristin Kaschner,Frida Ben Rais Lasram,Jacopo Aguzzi,Enric Ballesteros,Carlo Nike Bianchi,Jordi Corbera,Thanos Dailianis,Roberto Danovaro,Marta Estrada,Carlo Froglia,Bella S. Galil,Josep M. Gasol,Ruthy Gertwagen,João Gil,François Guilhaumon,Kathleen Kesner-Reyes,Miltiadis-Spyridon Kitsos,Athanasios Koukouras,Nikolaos Lampadariou,Elijah Laxamana,Carlos M. López-Fé de la Cuadra,Heike K. Lotze,Daniel Martin,David Mouillot,Daniel Oro,Saša Raicevich,Josephine Rius-Barile,J.I. Saiz-Salinas,Carles San Vicente,Samuel Somot,José Templado,Xavier Turon,Dimitris Vafidis,Roger Villanueva,Eleni Voultsiadou +38 more