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Oceans play critical roles in the lives, economies, cultures, and nutrition of people globally, yet face increasing pressures from human activities that put those benefits at risk. To anticipate the future of the world's ocean, we review the many human activities that impose pressures on marine species and ecosystems, evaluating their impacts on marine life, the degree of scientific uncertainty in those assessments, and the expected trajectory over the next few decades. We highlight that fundamental research should prioritize areas of high potential impact and greater uncertainty about ecosystem vulnerability, such as emerging fisheries, organic chemical pollution, seabed mining, and the interactions of cumulative pressures, and deprioritize research on areas that demonstrate little impact or are well understood, such as plastic pollution and ship strikes to marine fauna. There remains hope for a productive and sustainable future ocean, but the window of opportunity for action is closing.
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Knowns and Unknowns in Future Human Pressures on the Ocean
Abstract Growing demands on ocean resources are placing increasing pressures on ocean ecosystems. To assess the current state of knowledge of future human pressures on the ocean, we conducted a literature review of recent and projected trends of 25 anthropogenic pressures, comprising most of the identified human pressures on the global oceans. To better understand gaps in the data, we developed a comprehensive framework of the activities contributing to each pressure. All pressures were allocated to five categories (biological disruption, disturbance and removal, altered ocean chemistry, pollution, and climate pressures). All pressures are expected to worsen in the future under business‐as‐usual scenarios (or similar) based on past trajectories and/or models of future scenarios. Eight of the pressures assessed have not been projected into the future (diseases and pathogens, introduced coastal wildlife predation, disruption to sediment dynamics, wildlife strikes, organic and inorganic chemical pollution, light and noise pollution), likely due to the limited availability of data describing current pressures, the challenges of modeling future pressures, and high levels of uncertainty. We thus recommend they receive priority attention to assess their likely future trajectories, given their potential magnitude of influence.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2019902
- PAR ID:
- 10574389
- Publisher / Repository:
- AGU
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2328-4277
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004559
