Map tracks human footprint on world's oceans

Subject: Map tracks human footprint on world's oceans Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:54 am

A global map of the overall impact that 17 different human activities are having on marine ecosystems. Dark red areas are the most impacted regions, while light green represent the least affected areas.

Human activities, including fishing, pollution and shipping, have left no ocean region completely untouched and have had a strong impact on about 40 per cent of the world's marine ecosystems, a group of researchers said.

Using data tracking 17 different types of human impact, the team of researchers from the United States, Canada and Britain produced a global map of human impact. Each square kilometre of ocean was assigned a single value, ranging from very low to very high impact.

The research, which appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science, found the most affected regions are those susceptible to multiple activities. Coastal regions in heavily populated areas, for example, would feel the impact of fishing, shipping, pollution, and agricultural and industrial runoff from land use, among other activities.

Although no region was completely untouched, about four per cent of the ocean areas were relatively pristine, the authors said. The majority of these areas was found near the Arctic and Antarctic poles, they said, because seasonal or permanent ice limits human access.

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Map tracks human footprint on world's oceans

Map tracks human footprint on world's oceans

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