Abstract
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.
Highlights
Anthropogenic climate change has been regarded as a major driver for environmental changes since the industrial revolution (IPCC, 2014)
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, some are completely human-induced, and they are all interrelated to different degrees
Summary
Anthropogenic climate change has been regarded as a major driver for environmental changes since the industrial revolution (IPCC, 2014). This study is one of the thematic Baltic Earth Assessment Reports (BEAR), which comprise a series of review papers that summarize and assess the available published scientific knowledge on climatic, environmental and human-induced changes in the Baltic Sea region (including its catchment). While the other papers in this special issue deal with natural factors and their relation to climate change (salinity, biogeochemistry, natural hazards) and scenarios for future conditions in the Baltic Sea region, this paper addresses natural and anthropogenic factors in addition to climate change. We assess how they affect or are affected by climate change and how they interact. We believe that the findings elaborated in this assessment can largely be transferred to other marginal and coastal seas, which are heavily used and affected by humans
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