Hotspots of human impact on the seafloor in the Southwestern Baltic Sea

IF 2.1 3区地球科学 Q2 OCEANOGRAPHY

Continental Shelf Research Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.csr.2024.105362

Giuliana Andrea Díaz-Mendoza , Knut Krämer , Gitta Ann von Rönn , Christoph Heinrich , Klaus Schwarzer , Hans-Christian Reimers , Christian Winter

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The Southwestern Baltic Sea is a notable example of intense human impact on the seafloor in a confined shallow marine environment. Various marks left by dredging, dumping, fishing, anchoring, among others, reflect the different pressures on the seafloor. These activities represent cumulative stressors for marine ecosystems, potentially leading to habitat modification or loss. Characterizing and quantifying the extent of the different pressures is essential for understanding the system and evaluating the environmental status outlined by different legal frameworks. Here, the effects of different human activities on the seafloor in exemplary hotspots in the SW Baltic Sea are visualized and assessed. Actual anthropogenic marks are compared with assessments based on commonly accessible regional and local information from remote sensing data and institutional sources. About 36% of the seafloor of the investigated area is influenced, mainly by bottom trawling, propeller scouring, anchoring, and dumping. More than 91% of the human footprint corresponds to trawl marks, mainly affecting soft substrates. In addition, from 15% to 47% of the seafloor is disturbed in selected ‘detail areas' within the hotspots. Comparisons with indirect data used for regional pressure estimation demonstrate how hydroacoustic data can enhance assessments of seabed physical pressures. However, quantitative comparisons are challenging, especially when information on human activities is limited or when seafloor recovery rates in relation to the frequency of anthropogenic pressures are unknown.

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来源期刊

Continental Shelf Research 地学-海洋学

CiteScore

4.30

自引率

4.30%

发文量

136

审稿时长

6.1 months

期刊介绍： Continental Shelf Research publishes articles dealing with the biological, chemical, geological and physical oceanography of the shallow marine environment, from coastal and estuarine waters out to the shelf break. The continental shelf is a critical environment within the land-ocean continuum, and many processes, functions and problems in the continental shelf are driven by terrestrial inputs transported through the rivers and estuaries to the coastal and continental shelf areas. Manuscripts that deal with these topics must make a clear link to the continental shelf. Examples of research areas include: Physical sedimentology and geomorphology Geochemistry of the coastal ocean (inorganic and organic) Marine environment and anthropogenic effects Interaction of physical dynamics with natural and manmade shoreline features Benthic, phytoplankton and zooplankton ecology Coastal water and sediment quality, and ecosystem health Benthic-pelagic coupling (physical and biogeochemical) Interactions between physical dynamics (waves, currents, mixing, etc.) and biogeochemical cycles Estuarine, coastal and shelf sea modelling and process studies.