Cumulative Human Impacts on Mediterranean and Black Sea Marine Ecosystems, 2013

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. This dataset contains raster layers for the final human impacts model, the 17 marine ecosystems, and the 22 stressor drivers. For more information, please see Micheli F, Halpern BS, Walbridge S, Ciriaco S, Ferretti F, Fraschetti S, et al. (2013) Cumulative Human Impacts on Mediterranean and Black Sea Marine Ecosystems: Assessing Current Pressures and Opportunities. PLoS ONE 8(12): e79889. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079889

海洋生态系统管理亟需掌握当前人类影响的空间分布信息。在地中海、黑海等多个海洋区域，推行基于生态系统的管理（ecosystem-based management）与空间规划的法定要求及相关协议，为平衡海洋生态系统的开发利用与保护提供了全新契机。亟需开展与上述政策举措的生态目标直接相关的人类活动累积影响（cumulative impacts）强度与分布特征分析。通过对17个海洋生态系统的22种驱动因子造成的累积影响进行量化与制图，研究发现：整个地中海-黑海水域盆地的20%区域、欧盟成员国领海的60%至99%区域均受到严重影响，所有海洋生态区与领海均存在高强度人类影响。此类研究区域中仅不足1%尚未受到明显影响。这种高强度影响并非源自单一开发活动或压力因子，而是多种因子共同作用的结果：其中气候驱动因子（气温升高、紫外线辐射增强与海洋酸化）、底栖捕捞（demersal fishing）、船舶通航，以及近岸区域的陆源污染是累积影响的主要来源。研究结果表明，对关键海域与人类活动实施协同管理，可显著改善上述海洋生态系统的健康状况。本数据集包含最终人类影响模型、17个海洋生态系统以及22种压力驱动因子（stressor drivers）对应的栅格图层（raster layers）。更多详细信息请参阅：Micheli F、Halpern BS、Walbridge S、Ciriaco S、Ferretti F、Fraschetti S等（2013）《地中海与黑海海洋生态系统的人类累积影响：当前压力评估与发展机遇》，PLoS ONE 8(12): e79889。https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079889