Ch. 3: Anthropogenic threats to marine ecosystems. In Seafloor Geomorphology as Benthic Habitat: GeoHab Atlas of seafloor geomorphic features and benthic habitats. (Harris, P. T. and Baker, E. K., eds.)  

Authors / CoAuthors

Harris, P.T.

Abstract

Anthropogenic threats to benthic habitats do not pose an equal risk, nor are they uniformly distributed over the broad depth range of marine habitats. Deep sea benthic environments have, by and large, not been heavily exploited and most are in relatively good condition. In contrast, shelf and coastal habitats, and deep ocean pelagic fisheries, have been exploited extensively and human impacts here are locally severe. A critical point is that anthropogenic threats do not act in isolation; rather, they are cumulative and the impacts are compounded for every affected habitat. In general, the impacts of humans on benthic habitats is poorly understood. Habitat mapping provides condition assessments and establishes baselines against which changes can be measured. GeoHab scientists ranked the impacts on benthic habitats from fishing as the greatest threat, followed by pollution and litter, aggregate mining, oil and gas, coastal development, tourism, cables, shipping, invasive species, climate change and construction of wind farms. The majority of authors (84%) reported that monitoring changes in habitat condition over time was a planned or likely outcome of the work carried out. In this chapter the main anthropogenic threats to benthic habitats are reviewed in relation to their potential impacts on benthic environments.

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nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

71778

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• External PublicationMonograph Contribution

( Theme )

• environmental

( Theme )

• habitat

( Theme )

• marine biodiversity

( Theme )

• marine

( Theme )

• CERF

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

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2011-01-01T00:00:00

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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

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geoscientificInformation

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