Combined effects of human pressures on Europe\u2019s marine ecosystems

Samuli Korpinen,Marco Nurmi,Lena Bergström,Ulf Stein,Johnny Reker,Juuso Haapaniemi,Leena Laamanen,E Therese Harvey,Monika Peterlin,Jesper H Andersen,Ciaran J Murray,Leonardo Tunesi,Katja Klančnik,David Vaughan,Emilie Kallenbach

doi:10.1007/s13280-020-01482-x

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.

Highlights

Europe’s seas support economic prosperity worth billions, and the European Union’s (EU) Blue Growth strategy aims for sustainable development of ‘blue economy’ in Supplementary information The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.established and emerging sectors (European Commission 2020)
The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, European Commission 2008) is the EU instrument to ensure that the use of seas is on sustainable level and that the marine environment achieves good environmental status (GES) by 2020 or 2024
The results show that a relatively poorer Water Framework Directive (WFD) ecological status generally occurs in areas which are associated with high combined effects from anthropogenic pressures according to the CEA (Fig. 3; N = 1713, V2 = 49.9, p \ 0.001)

Summary

Introduction

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, European Commission 2008) is the EU instrument to ensure that the use of seas is on sustainable level and that the marine environment achieves good environmental status (GES) by 2020 or 2024. Assessments by the Member States (https://water.europa.eu/marine/data-mapsand-tools/msfd-reporting-information-products/msfd-repor ting-data-explorer/msfd-start) and coordinated assessments carried out by Regional Sea Conventions (OSPAR 2017; UNEP-MAP 2017; HELCOM 2018a) have documented that GES has not yet been achieved. Elliott et al (2020a) proposed that this conflict can be alleviated via an integrated framework which merges the natural and human aspects. We have estimated the human impacts to seas from the pressure point of view; how widely do human activities and anthropogenic pressures potentially affect Europe’s seas?

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion