Researchers have published a new map highlighting the human impact on oceans worldwide. Their findings depict oceans in serious trouble, with multiple impacts including drastically declining fish stocks, dying coral reefs, pollution, and changing water chemistry.
The map, published in the journal Science, highlights ocean areas where human caused impacts such as overfishing and coastal pollution are having the heaviest toll. Pristine areas, shown in blue, are found in oceans near the poles. More-stressed ocean waters are yellow and orange. Trouble spots are red.
According to the map, the most heavily impacted ocean areas include Europe’s North Sea, the South and East China Seas, the Persian Gulf, and parts of the Atlantic near the East Coast of the United States. The least impacted areas are largely near the poles, but also appear along the north coast of Australia, and small, scattered locations along the coasts of South America, Africa, Indonesia and in the tropical Pacific.
The researchers developed an ecosystem-specific, multiscale spatial model to synthesize 17 global data sets of anthropogenic drivers of ecological change for 20 marine ecosystems. Their analysis indicates that no area is unaffected by human influence and that a large fraction (41%) is strongly affected by multiple drivers
Data are available in graphical form, as well as Google Earth format, from the National Center of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Among the specific datasets are those highlighting areas of overfishing (including fisheries with high bycatch impact), pollution, invasive species, acidification, and climate change.
Listen to NPR’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered. Talk of the Nation featured guests Larry Crowder, professor of marine biology and director of the Center for Marine Conservation, Duke University; Ben Halpern, associate research biologist, University of California, Santa Barbara; Jane Lubchenco, professor of marine biology, professor of zoology, Oregon State University; and Carl Safina, co-founder and president of the Blue Ocean Institute at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.
